Product photos for an online store without a studio budget

Fibvo editorial · 23 April 2026 · 5 min read

The catalogue was shot on a phone over three afternoons. Some products sit on the office table under a tube light, some on a bedsheet by the window, and one set was taken after dark. Side by side on a category page, they make the store look like a reseller rather than a brand, and a marketplace has just rejected the main image on one listing. None of this needs a studio. It needs a fixed setup and a few written rules.

Control the light before you buy equipment

Most poor product photos are lighting problems, not camera problems. The aim is soft, even light of a single colour.

• Use one large window that does not get direct sun, and switch off every other light in the room. Mixing daylight with tube lights or bulbs creates colour casts that editing rarely removes cleanly.
• Soften the light with a diffuser: tracing paper, butter paper or thin white cloth stretched over the window or a simple frame.
• Place a white foam board or thermocol sheet opposite the window to bounce light into the shadows.
• If window light is unreliable, buy two identical continuous LED lights with the same colour temperature and a high colour rendering index, and diffuse both. A matched pair matters more than brightness.
• If you depend on a window, shoot at the same time of day each session.

Reflective products such as steel utensils, glass bottles and jewellery show whatever surrounds them. Surround them with white card or use a simple light tent, so the reflections are clean white shapes rather than your ceiling fan.

Backgrounds: one sweep and a few surfaces

A curved white background, often called a sweep, does most of the work. Tape a roll of white paper or a flexible white sheet to a wall and let it curve down onto the table. The curve removes the line where table meets wall, so the product sits on unbroken white and needs far less cutting out afterwards.

For lifestyle and detail images, choose two or three surfaces that suit the brand, such as a wooden board, a stone tile or a textured fabric, and use only those. A consistent surface does more for a store's look than a newly styled scene for every product. Keep props few, so nobody assumes they are included in the price.

Set up the phone the same way every time

• Clean the lens before every session.
• Use a tripod with a timer or a remote shutter, so angle and sharpness hold across products.
• If your phone has a telephoto lens, use it and step back. The wide lens up close distorts shape, making boxes look tapered and bottles bulge.
• Turn off portrait mode, beauty filters and automatic scene enhancement for catalogue shots. They alter colour and edges unpredictably.
• Tap to focus, then lock focus and exposure so they do not shift between shots.
• Photograph a plain white or grey card at the start of each session, so you can set white balance consistently when editing.

Write a shot list so every product matches

Consistency is what makes a small store look established. It comes from decisions written down in advance, not from a good eye on the day.

• Define a standard set of angles for each product type: for example front, three-quarter view, back, a close-up of texture or label, a scale shot with a hand or everyday object, and the packaging.
• Mark the product, tripod legs and reflector with tape, and photograph the setup so anyone can recreate it.
• Fix the framing: the same camera height, distance and space around the product.
• Shoot every product in a category in one session, rather than one at a time as stock arrives.
• Edit with a single saved preset, adjusting only exposure where needed, and crop everything to the same aspect ratio.
• Name files by SKU and angle, and keep unedited masters separate from the exports for each channel.

Before publishing, hold the product next to the screen and compare colours. A colour that looks different on arrival is a familiar cause of returns in apparel and home decor, and it is far cheaper to correct in editing than through reverse logistics.

A store looks established when every photo follows the same rules, not when any single photo is beautiful.

Meet each platform's image rules

Marketplaces reject or suppress listings whose images break their rules, and the details vary by platform and category, so read the current guidelines in each seller help centre before a shoot. The core principles are stable.

• Amazon's main image must use a pure white background and show only the product being sold, with no added text, logos, watermarks, badges or inset pictures. The product should fill most of the frame.
• Amazon enables zoom on images of at least 1,000 pixels on the longest side, so export main images at that size or larger.
• Flipkart, Myntra, Meesho and other Indian marketplaces set their own dimensions, aspect ratios and background rules, and fashion categories often expect the product shown on a model.
• Google Merchant Center, which supplies product images to Google Shopping, does not accept promotional text, watermarks or borders on the main product image.
• On your own website, set your own rules: one aspect ratio, one background for main images, and exports sized for the page.

Frame a little wider than you need and crop separately for each channel, so one session serves every platform without a reshoot.

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Written by Fibvo — Bengaluru and Erode, India — working with clients in other time zones. Questions, or think we have it wrong? Tell us.