Every word and image matters when you’re displaying your brand to shoppers — but the images matter more.  A study by marketing automation platform Justuno found that product imagery is the biggest factor in online purchasing decisions. This puts photographs above reviews, descriptions, and even pricing among decisive factors. Obviously, having professional photography for your products would be ideal. But don’t be discouraged if you’re going to create content yourself. With a few effective product photography tips, you can achieve a lot.

Get Your Lighting Right (It Changes Everything)

Bad lighting will make even the best product look amateurish. That doesn’t mean you need a movie set, though. Natural window light is the cheapest option that actually works — as long as you use it at the right time, in the proper way.

Ideally, you want to stage the shoot between 10 AM and 2 PM. Put your product near a large window and take a few practice shots for testing. Use a white bedsheet or another type of white background to diffuse the sunlight and make it less harsh on your product.

If you’ve done this properly, you’re already halfway there — most Etsy shops and eBay accounts sell products with far worse photography.

In some cases, though, natural light just won’t cut it. It all depends on the scale of your operation and your needs. If you’re selling a small catalogue of a few products, a basic setup will be fine. However, for 50 items on an e-commerce store, you won’t be able to replicate the same results each time without more effort.

Here, even the most affordable softbox kit will make a difference. You can find them on Amazon for a bargain, along with ring lights — particularly useful if you’re selling smaller stuff that fits on a tabletop.

Once you find a setup that works, keep it identical for every shot in your product line. Consistency builds trust, which you need for sales.

Choose the Right Backgrounds for Your Product

There’s a reason white background does so well on Amazon and Google Shopping favors it. Customers are also used to it because it’s the default look on most e-commerce stores.

It’s simple — a white background is the only one that doesn’t detract any focus from the actual product. Again, your choice depends on what you’re selling. A lively background can tell a story, unlike a white one. And that’s exactly what some brands need.

Paradoxically, a lively background is a great choice if you don’t want your product to look like a product. With it, you can tell a story and transport the website visitor into a specific context — one where they’re ready to buy from you.

If all of this sounds too complicated, the general rule of thumb is — white backgrounds for marketplace pages, colorful backgrounds for lifestyle shots. You can also use the latter for brand pages and social media.

Angles and Composition That Sell

Every product listing needs at least five shots: front, back, close-up detail, scale reference, and in-use context.

Without any of those, you risk lower revenue. Just remember your own online buying habits — you’ve probably abandoned a purchase yourself because you felt like you couldn’t see enough of the product to make a call.

The brands with one or two lazy angles lose more customers; it’s as simple as that. Of course, composition means more than putting the product in the center — otherwise professional product photographers wouldn’t have much of a job to do.

Also, different angles communicate very different things. Overhead flat-lays are perfect for accessories, stationery, or food. Conversely, eye-level shots give products authority and weight, which is exactly how Apple photographs every MacBook.

Among all product photography tips, this one gets ignored most: always show scale. Put a hand in the frame. Place the item next to a coin or a pen. When customers can’t see the product in real time, they want to know it from as many angles as possible. Size and scale matter here, naturally.

Styling and Props — Add Context Without Clutter

Less is more, as most product photography tips will tell you. But that doesn’t mean you should never use props in your product photos. Sometimes, you want to help people picture a product in their own lives, and a couple of props can fill in the blanks and give them more context.

Don’t go overboard, though. You don’t want props to create clutter, where the viewer has trouble seeing what the actual product being sold is. A few supporting elements are enough.

Editing: Polish Without Misleading

Take a look at your competitors’ stores, and you’ll realize that none of their photos are raw. Your (and everyone’s) images need at least some light editing.

This is the part where you’ll probably need to learn the most to replicate the results of a professional photographer. If you do decide to edit the photos yourself, start with white balance correction. That’ll help the colors appear more accurate on screen.

You can use even basic mobile apps to do most of this stuff, like Lightroom Mobile or Snapseed. Take a few moments to crop any extra space, and maybe bump the contrast a bit.

Be careful not to go overboard here either, though. Like with our personal photos on social media, there’s a line you can cross — and that’s the line between correcting reality and basically inventing it.

At the end of the day, the best product photography tips will tell you to make the product look as accurate as possible. That’s what brings customers back after the initial purchase, and that’s what builds your brand long-term.

Better Photos, More Sales

Great product photography tips won’t transform your store overnight. But, as with most improvements in business, every little thing counts. Improve your lighting and backgrounds, capture the product from more angles, and people will engage with your brand more over time.  If you don’t know where to start, trust your gut and take an objective look at your catalog. You’ll know which products have the weakest photos right now, and that’s where you should begin.

Author bio: Jake Moretti is a freelance content writer based in Richmond, Virginia. He covers all things e-commerce for Anywhere Anytime Moving & Storage and various small businesses across the U.S. Right now, he’s reading about film photography online.