Customers often overlook products due to unappealing product visuals or lose interest due to a lack of product details. Here comes packshot product photography which is considered the most hyped and essential in this modern visually-driven market. It presents the product in an appealing light with captivating details and labeling that give consumers a real-life experience.
That’s why brands use packshots to stand out from competitors and leave a lasting impression on the consumer’s mind. Think about how to do a packshot photoshoot. Discover our comprehensive guide where you explore:
- Who uses packshot photos?
- Popular marketplaces using packshot photos,
- Necessary equipments,
- Essential packshot photoshoot tips,
- Why you need to packshot editing, and more.
So, without more intros, let’s dive into it!
Packshot photography is also known as packaging photography where product shots along with the labeling and packaging contain information about logo, material, craftsmanship, and so on.
Every image is a narrative offering consumers a glimpse into the soul of a product, intangible desires, and fueling aspirations. A well-executed product image is more than a visual representation; it evokes emotions, sparks curiosity, connects, and fosters trust.
In short,
- The product is captured against a plain and neutral background.
- Packshot Photo’s key goal is to introduce products and brands to consumers in an appealing and detailed way.
- Highlight all product-related details, color, texture, specific requirements, and so on.
- A silent and effective e-commerce tool with complete transparency.
Wondered thinking: will you need to shoot packshot photos to promote your product? To get the answer check out the next section now!
Who benefits from packshot photography?
Packaging photography is used in different industries, businesses, and professionals who need high-quality images for marketing and branding purposes. Here is a list of packaging images users:
Brands
Popular and luxurious fashion brands of bags, shoes, cosmetics, and others offer high-quality product images along with packaging to impress target audiences. For example, Apple uses clean and simple packshot images of its devices to inform the audience about sleek designs and product details on its advertisements and e-commerce sites. Also, it reinforces brand identity and ensures a consistent consumer experience with high-quality product visuals.
Magazine Publishers
E-commerce business owners or brands often run ads in magazines to attract potential consumers. For example, beauty brands, fashion accessories, tech gadgets, and others ensure each item is clearly represented. In addition to using images on websites or online platforms for marketing, magazine publishers print on the magazine pages highlighting all the finer details of the products.
Online sellers
In this competitive e-commerce era, online sellers always prefer to showcase high-resolution product images with packaging details to attract potential traffic. Here, packshot photos help them to add extra value by building consumer trust. As online buyers can’t feel or touch the products like brick-and-mortar stores, packshots allow them to visualize product details that build trust and loyalty. Also, it increases the changes of purchases and reduces product return rates.
Packshot photographers
Packshot photographers use labeling or packaging photography to represent a product in its actual glow without any distractions. All these images are in high demand for offering quality product images to brands, e-commerce sites, advertising agencies, and more. With their advanced photography techniques, they emphasize consumers highlighting its design, material details, and more.
Curious thinking: which marketplaces are popular for offering packshot photos? Scroll down to the next section for more in-depth details.
Popular marketplaces & uses for packshots
High-quality commercial packshot photography not only highlights product details but also builds loyalty and trust among customers. Here’s a look at some popular marketplaces and how they use packshot product photography to enhance buyers’ experience:
- Amazon: Amazon is one of the best and giant e-commerce marketplaces with popular brands and vendors. Here you need to upload a clear and high-resolution packshot against a white background as the product’s main image. These types of packshots boost visibility, sales, and conversions.
- eBay: On eBay sellers offer packshots to showcase their products in different conditions (new, used, etc.) to give consumers a better idea about the item’s features and condition. Clear packshots help sellers stand out in search results that attract more clicks.
- Etsy: This marketplace is popular for handmade, vintage, and unique product lines. Sellers use packshots to highlight details of crafts, decor, artwork, and others.
- Shopify store: E-commerce stores on Shopify rely on high-quality product images where packshots add extra creativity to demonstrate branding and convey trustworthiness.
- Social media platforms: Facebook and Instagram shops are popular to create engaging ads, product listings, and posts. To earn potential sales clean and professional images.
However, apart from those, there are other specialty marketplaces like beauty or fashion sites, Alibaba, and others.
Producing Impressive Packshot Images
To offer the best and most impressive packshot images you need to understand product objectives and consider consumers’ requirements. Here is a glimpse of the necessary packshot photoshoot equipment:
Best Cameras to Use for Packshot Photoshoots
For smooth operation and high-quality images, professionals advise to use digital cameras (DSLRs) or mirrorless cameras, like EOS 850D which is also known as Rebel T8i in the USA or kiss X10i in Asia. Other popular product photography cameras are:
- Canon EOS R (dual pixel CMOS AF, 30.3MP, DIGIC 8 image processor, etc)
- Canon EOS 90D (32.5MP, high continuous shooting speed 10fps, etc)
- Nikon D850 (Multi-CAM 20K 153-point AF system, 8K time-lapse, etc)
- Nikon D5600 (24.2 MP DX-format CMOS sensor, 4 image processor, etc.)
- Canon EOS Rebel T8i ( 220,000-pixel AE sensor, DIGIC 8 image processor, etc)
However, before selecting a camera for your product packshots, go through camera features, like manual mode and automatic settings. Some people think that the fanciest and costly cameras provide quality photos. But to choose the best one, focus on how you set up your scene and lighting instead.
Also, consider camera sensor sizes, photographers refer to using a full-frame (35mm width) APS-C (24mm) camera sensor size for higher depth of field and sharpness. You can shoot small and complex products like jewelry or others using this sensor size.
Best Lens for Packshot Product Photos
Now that you have got a perfect camera, it’s time to choose a camera lens. But before buying one, you need to consider which product item you shoot. Let’s take a look at the most common camera lens that product photographers use:
- 50mm camera lens: It is the go-to lens for product photoshoots for its depth of field. You can shoot products larger than 6 inches without distorting the product. But try to use a higher one for better visuals.
- Macro lens: It has a magnified ratio (1:1) and allows photographers to capture life-size images of products like small items with sharp focus.
However, if you wish, you can use a wide-angle lens for lifestyle or environmental shots, a telephoto lens for larger products, or a prime lens for sharper images.
How to Light the Product
Good-quality product images depend entirely on the proper lighting. For example, harsh lighting can often lead to shadows, reflections, glares, and other issues that make images dull. So, set up the lights so that they spread out evenly. Do you plan for indoor lighting? You must find a window with adequate sunlight, and for cloudy days, you can utilize artificial lighting sources.
However, for studio photoshoots, you’ve plenty of lighting options to utilize. Also, try to shoot the best angles for packshots like the front angle, profile shots, 45-degree angle, top, bottom, and others to give the perfect visual information.
Pro tip: Don’t forget to use a tripod to avoid blur. Also, you can use remote shutter release and motorized turntable (360-degree photoshoot).
Now that you’ve all the necessary equipment in your hand, it’s time to shoot amazing packaging product images to attract your potential consumers.
Essential Packshot Product Photography Tips
Crafting engaging and amazing product visuals requires a blend of artists, professional photography skills, and attention to detail. Here are some expert-suggested packshot photoshoot hacks that help to unveil the essence of your products in communicative imagery:
Understand your target audience
One of the key things before shooting product photos is considering your target audience and delving into their pain points –
- What evokes their purchasing decisions?
- What aesthetics resonate with them?
- Do they like lifestyle product photos or others?
Overall pay attention to consumers’ preferences to speak directly to their desires and aspirations about the product. For this, you can keep an eye on your competitors, popular brands, and others.
Focus on details
Imagine Sephora skincare products or Nike shoes amazing visuals: which things trigger first in your mind? Obviously, the quality of product, details, and assurance to get the best product. Highlight the intricate features, textures, and more so that consumers feel attached and immerse themselves in purchasing at a glance.
Keep the composition simple
Simplicity is key in packshot photography. Focus solely on the product and represent it in a natural state so that consumers’ can relate those in their daily usage. So, keep the composition as simple as possible. All your key focus points are to showcase products’ real-life use, how products look when they get it at hand and more. For this, place the product in the center of the frame for a balanced and polished outlook.
Ensure the right color
Avoid using props
Your online business’s ultimate goal is to increase sales rates and earn more potential traffic. So, keep your product at its true-to-life colors and appearance without any distractions. Accurate and professional representation let the product speak for itself. If you want you can add necessary props for context like a lid, a bottle, or others which will not steal the shoppers’ focus from the main product.
Proper framing
You might be aware of the rule of thirds in product photography, where you need to place the product in one-third of the frame and leave the rest (two-thirds) blank. This is the most popular and e-commerce-worthy framing that gives maximum space to highlight product beauty. To adopt this photography hack, position the product at the center of the frame and take a shot from a close distance.
Provide 360-degree image
Another effective way of making your packshots attractive and engaging to online buyers is 360-degree or 3D images. Products like bags, shoes, and others have important details to highlight that evoke customers the most. You can do it by capturing multiple angles of products and enriching your online product listings. Try to include the top and bottom if relevant.
Embrace minimalism
Minimalism is an art to utilize the negative space. That means you need to eliminate clutter and leave the product as the focal point. Utilize simple lighting and clean lines that work best for embracing minimalist product styles in packshot photoshoots. Remember, your product visuals are the billboard that educates and impresses customers to rely on your business or service.
Experiment with lighting
Lighting is a key thing in every genre of photography which can give popularity or destroy your brand image. So, explore different lighting setups – natural light, artificial light, and others to find the perfect balance that highlights the product’s best features and product contours. Professional packshot photographers refer to the use of soft lighting because it goes with most products. But try to use backlights, side lighting, or creative shadows to make it more authentic and realistic.
Tell a story
People love products that give them an idea of how it fits into their lives. So, try to portray a story, add a creative touch, and make visuals more relatable. For this, you can stick with thoughtful arrangement, angles, and styling. Also, consider showcasing product in use, texture, or packaging highlights (i.e., pouring action for beverages, makeup items in use, etc.).
Enhance Your Images with Professional Packshot Editing
- Enhance product appeal through color correction, remove distracting backgrounds, and optimize for different online platforms and devices.
- Improve brand consistency across all product listings.
- Increase sales and conversions by offering visually appealing product images, and many more.
Frequently Asked Question About Packshot Photography
What is the difference between packshot and product photography?
Packshot photography showcases product packaging or labeling, whereas product photography highlights products’ specific features in different backgrounds to enhance customers. Other key differences are:
- Packshot showcases product design elements and branding. On the contrary, product photography showcases product functionality.
- Packshot images are shot in a clean and neutral background, but product images may use props and different backgrounds to showcase the product in different contexts.
- Packshot images are used in product listings, advertisements, websites, catalogs, and more. Product images are also used for e-commerce sites, social media marketing, and many other purposes.
How to do a packshot?
When you have a good-quality smartphone, you can take pictures of jewelry photos by using natural light, a tripod, and the macro settings. Other hacks you can apply, such as –
- A clean and uncluttered background.
- Set white balance and exposure before taking the picture (if it has any).
- Portrait mode can be helpful to focus on jewelry and blur the background.
- You can purchase clip-on lenses for smartphones (if possible).
What equipment do I need for packshot photography?
DSLR camera, single-lens (macro, prime, wide angle, and telephoto lens), tripod, remote shutter release, motorized turntable, and many others.
What background should I use for packshot photography?
You should use a simple white or neutral color background for packshot photography.
Conclusion
Know the objective of your packshot photography and represent your product in the most desirable way to your consumers. Remember, a packshot or packaging photoshoot is to give buyers a detailed outlook of products that they buy from online stores. That means you need to build a connection between a product and a consumer by highlighting key selling points.
So, what are you waiting for? Pick your camera and utilize your creativity with a packshot.
