Product Packaging Photography: 5 Best Ways To Nail It
Updated on November 2, 2022 in Photography by Alifiya Mustafa
The packaging of a product is prominent for every business. How? It is because the product packaging is the first thing that is displayed to the customers.
When you display any product to your shoppers, you get an average of only seven seconds to grab their attention and convince them to purchase your product.
This means that your product packaging photography must have everything that can convince your customers.
Why Product Packaging Photography?
The product packaging photography represents your brand, product, what’s in it, and why anyone should buy it. It is more focused on the details, writings, and the use of the product.
However, many businesses don’t put much effort into product packaging photography. But, you’ll never see any leading brand committing this mistake and overlooking photography of their product packaging.
There are plenty of reasons why packaging photography is important.
1. Representation
As I said above, product packaging photography represents your product, brand, what’s in your product, and why anyone should buy it.
Your packaging photography gives a hint to your customers about what they must expect from the product they’re looking at.
Unattractive, dull, and distorted images could give them a bad impression, further giving them the impression of being an unprofessional brand.
Companies like Kellogs or The Body Shop do photography of their product packaging wonderfully. It’s fascinating how these brands clearly display what they’re offering in a merely small space.
As soon as we look at the package of Kellogs Corn Flakes, it’s pretty clear what’s inside the packet and how the households should serve it (with milk and fruits). The colors and characters displayed through the packaging photography are meant to attract the kids and later parents.
Similarly, The Body Shop’s packaging photography instantly gives us the feel of buying a natural product, away from any chemicals. The ingredients mentioned are precise and clear. The colors that connect with nature simply add to the aesthetics.
These brands would never risk their image by displaying something that doesn’t connect or reflect their brand values and purpose in their product photography.
2. Engagement
You’re halfway through success once you’re good at engaging potential customers. Product packaging photography is the step forward to it.
The colors you use, the copywriting you do, the angles from which you capture it, and the way you present it, all collectively help your brand gain engagement.
3. Brand Visibility
Your product packaging photography must be so enticing that your shoppers must instantly recognize it.
If you look at a bright red can with bold and flowy white letters, you might immediately label it as ‘Coca-Cola’. That’s how brands like Coca-Cola have built their brand visibility.
From Europe to America to Asia, everyone knows Coca-Cola whether or not they have ever tasted it (which is least likely!). Good quality product photography and product packaging help you achieve just that.
4. Sales Conversion
Improved brand visibility and better engagement ultimately lead to higher sales conversions. When people start to recognize and relate to you easily, they trust you more and are more convinced to buy from you.
Such consistency and flawless product packaging photography also help you earn loyal customers which keep on returning back and also bring new customers with you.
Performing Product Packaging Photography
There are a few necessary steps you must follow if you want to perform product packaging photography like a pro.
1. Plan and Strategize
It’s highly important that you plan ahead of the photography of your product packaging. This planning involves:
– Which camera and equipment you’ll be using
– What would be the setting
– What props you’ll be using
– What would be the background
– Will you be using a model or a hand model
Planning these things beforehand allows you to be prepared with all the necessary things that’ll make your product packaging photography shoot a success.
2. Use a Professional Camera
You may find a plethora of eCommerce websites with poor product photography. It is because many eCommerce business owners only focus on sales while neglecting the need for good-quality images. They use their smartphones to do packaging photography which may work for a few but mostly never enough.
Use the best digital camera brands if you’re planning to run your business for long. Spending on a good digital camera is only an investment in your online business as you’ll need to perform product photography all the time.
It is necessary that you keep on updating your images to give a new feel to your website and also to keep up with the trends.
3. Use Relevant Props
It’s completely your choice whether or not you want to use props in your product packaging photography.
However, if you do plan on using props try not to use more than 3 in your images. Overusing props might steal the focus away from your main product. Also, it makes your image look too crowded.
Use subtle and relevant props that best describe your product. Using irrelevant props that only look good but don’t add value to your image can leave the viewers confused.
For example, if you’re selling essential oils, you may want to use ingredients like flowers as props. Putting lavenders around the lavender essential oil helps you convey it more easily and make it look even better.
4. Focus on the details and words
Many photographs of product packaging lack details. You may see the packet but it’s hard to figure out the small details like words or small drawn characters.
Make sure that the image you capture is well-detailed. What is written on the product must be clearly readable in your product photography.
5. Invest in Product Image Editing
There aren’t enough words to explain how much product image editing is important. No matter how good your camera is, there’s always some need for changes in colors, sharpening of details, enhancing the look, and more.
Being an online business owner, it could be pretty overwhelming to take care of every minor and major thing. However, everything is important and shouldn’t be avoided.
In such cases, I believe that it’s pretty wise and vital to outsource a few things to professionals, and product image editing is one of them. When you outsource, you get help from experts in the field, save your time, and make a good investment.
Product image retouching professionals know what editing techniques are trending, how to edit the little details and corners, and how to make an image look more polished and professional. You may consider editing images by yourself. But there are two major factors why you shouldn’t.
First, you’re not a professional image editor. Second, you must be having at least a hundred products and you must have clicked tens or hundreds of product packaging images for each.
Editing every selected image by yourself might take ages. Professional editors have a team who can work together on all your images and can edit thousands of images within a few hours. Well-edited images easily grab customers’ attention and make them want to click and explore your website further.
Thus, your product packaging images are the number one thing from which the interaction with potential customers starts.
Final Words
Product packaging photography can be done in different ways. You can use models, props, and experiment with different photography backdrops.
But there are a few things explained in this article that you must follow and take care of to perform product photography like a pro.
Now before we leave, If you are an eCommerce business owner or a professional product photographer, it’s time to get all your product images edited professionally within 24 hours. Take your free trial with PixelPhant now and see the difference in the number of your customers grow👇
Beautiful product images across your website.
Background Removal, Clipping Path, Color Correction, Cropping & Resize, Retouching, adding Shadows, and more.
Try PixelPhant for free
No Card Details Required