How to shoot clean, consistent product photos for your online store at home: the gear, a tabletop setup you can build for little money, camera settings, the shot list, and how to prepare files for your website.
Short answer: good ecommerce product photography comes down to three things you can control at home: soft, even light, a clean background, and a camera held perfectly still. A phone on a tripod next to a window, a sheet of white card bent into a curve, and a piece of foam board to bounce light back gives you photos that look professional. The rest is consistency, so every product in your store looks like it belongs to the same shop.
Below is a complete setup, a shot list, settings and an editing workflow for shooting product photos for your website yourself.
The gear you actually need
You can spend a lot on photography gear. You do not need to for a small store.
Item
Budget option
Upgrade
Camera
Recent smartphone
Mirrorless or DSLR with a 50mm or macro lens
Support
Small phone tripod with a clamp
Full-size tripod with a horizontal arm for flat lays
Prices change, so check current pricing, but the budget column can be assembled cheaply from a craft store plus a basic tripod.
Build the tabletop setup
This is the classic "sweep" setup, and it works for anything from jewellery to shoes.
Place a table beside a window so light hits it from the side. North-facing windows (in the northern hemisphere) give the softest, most stable light. Avoid direct sun; if it is shining in, hang a white shower curtain or baking paper over the window to diffuse it.
Make the sweep. Tape one end of a white poster board to the wall or a stack of books behind the table and let it curve down onto the tabletop. The curve removes the horizon line so the background looks endless.
Place the product in the middle of the curve, a hand's width forward from where the board bends.
Add fill. Stand white foam board on the side opposite the window, angled toward the product. It bounces light into the shadows. Move it closer for softer shadows, further away for more contrast.
Set the camera on the tripod at the height of the product for most shots, then adjust.
If you use LED panels instead of a window, set one as the key light at roughly 45 degrees to the front of the product, and use the foam board or a second, dimmer light as fill. Turn off overhead room lights so you are not mixing color temperatures.
Camera settings that matter
On a phone
Use the main 1x lens. Ultra-wide lenses distort products near the edges.
Step back and zoom slightly (2x on phones that have a telephoto) to reduce distortion on small items.
Tap and hold on the product to lock focus and exposure, then slide exposure down a little if the white background is blowing out detail.
Turn off flash, HDR effects and beauty filters. Shoot in the highest quality setting, and in RAW if your phone supports it.
Use the timer or a Bluetooth remote so pressing the button does not shake the phone.
On a dedicated camera
Mode: aperture priority or manual.
ISO: as low as it goes (100 or 200). You are on a tripod, so a slow shutter is fine.
Aperture: around f/8 to f/11 keeps the whole product sharp. Wider apertures blur the back of the product, which looks artistic but hides details shoppers want to see.
White balance: set it manually or use a grey card, so white is white in every photo.
Format: RAW, so you can fix exposure and color later.
The shot list
Each photo should answer a question the shopper cannot ask you. Plan these for every product:
Hero shot. Front or three-quarter view on white. This is the thumbnail on category pages, so it must read clearly when small.
Alternate angles. Side, back, top. For apparel, a flat lay and a hanging or on-model shot.
Detail close-up. Stitching, texture, the clasp, the label, the ports. Close-ups build trust in quality.
Scale shot. The product in a hand, next to a common object, or on a person. Returns often come from "it was smaller than I expected."
In use / lifestyle. The mug with coffee in it on a desk, the candle lit in a room. This helps shoppers imagine owning it.
What's in the box. Every item included, laid out neatly.
Variants. Each color or finish photographed with identical setup so switching variants on the product page looks consistent.
Tricky products and how to handle them
Shiny or reflective items (jewellery, glass, metal): reflections show your room. Surround the product with white card on the sides and above, or use a light tent. Shoot from slightly further back and zoom in.
Clear glass and bottles: light from behind through a diffuser makes edges glow and look defined. A black card at each side draws dark outlines on the glass.
White products on white: lower the background brightness slightly or use light grey so edges do not disappear, then add a soft shadow.
Dark products: they soak up light. Add a second fill card and increase exposure; check that the texture is still visible.
Clothing: steam first, use a lint roller, and pin or clip garments from behind for shape. Consistency of model pose or flat-lay layout matters more than perfection.
Small items: use putty or a clear stand to hold them at an angle, and a macro lens or your phone's macro mode for details.
Editing workflow
Keep editing light. The goal is accurate, not glamorous, because photos that misrepresent color or size lead to returns.
Cull to the best frame of each angle.
Correct white balance so the background is neutral.
Adjust exposure so the background is bright white without clipping the product's edges.
Crop to a consistent aspect ratio (square is the most common for store grids) with the same amount of space around every product.
Clean dust and scratches with a healing tool.
Remove or replace backgrounds only when needed; free and paid background removal tools work well on clean shots. Check edges carefully on hair, fur and fine details.
Batch apply the same edits to every photo in a session. Lightroom, Capture One, and similar tools let you copy settings across photos.
Prepare the files for your website
Photos that are too large slow your store down, and page speed affects both conversions and search visibility. Google's Core Web Vitals treat a Largest Contentful Paint under 2.5 seconds as good, and on product pages the largest element is often the main product image.
Export a web master around 2000 pixels on the long side if your theme supports zoom, smaller if not.
Use modern formats. WebP or AVIF files are usually much smaller than JPEG at the same visual quality.
Compress. Aim to keep main images in the low hundreds of kilobytes or less.
Name files descriptively, for example walnut-desk-organizer-front.webp, not IMG_4821.jpg.
Write alt text that describes the photo: "Walnut desk organizer with three compartments holding pens and a phone." This helps screen reader users and image search. Our on-page SEO checklist covers alt text and image SEO in more detail.
Keep the same aspect ratio across the catalog so collection pages line up without awkward gaps.
A consistency sheet
Write down your settings the first time you get a result you like, and tape it to the wall:
Table position and distance from the window or lights
Light power and angle
Camera height, distance, lens and zoom
ISO, aperture, shutter, white balance
Crop ratio and padding
Export size, format and quality
When you add a new product in six months, you can reproduce the same look in minutes.
Putting photos to work
Once you have a set of clean, consistent images, they need a store that shows them well: large zoomable product images, fast loading and a layout that works on phones. If you are building that store now, our guide to making a website to sell stuff walks through the rest. With We.Inc you describe the store you want in a chat, and it builds an online store you can edit visually or in code, with hosting and SSL included, so your new photos can go live the same day.
Can I take ecommerce product photos with my phone?
Yes. A recent phone is good enough for most online stores if you control the light and hold the phone still. Use the main (1x) lens rather than the ultra-wide, lock focus and exposure by pressing and holding on the product, turn off the flash, and use a small tripod.
What background is best for product photos?
Plain white or light grey is the safest choice for main product images because it keeps attention on the product and looks consistent across a catalog. Some marketplaces, including Amazon, require a pure white background for the main image. Use colored or textured backgrounds for secondary lifestyle shots.
What size should product images be for a website?
Shoot at your camera's full resolution, then export a web version. Square images around 2000 pixels on the long side support zoom on most store themes. Compress to WebP or a well-optimized JPEG so files stay small, and keep the same aspect ratio across every product so grids line up.
How many photos should each product have?
Enough to answer the questions a shopper would ask in a store: front, back or side, a detail close-up, a scale shot, and one in-use or lifestyle photo. Five to eight is typical. Add more for products where fit, texture or size matters.
Natural light or artificial light for product photography?
Both work. Window light is free and soft but changes with the time of day and weather. Continuous LED panels or softboxes give identical results every session, which matters when you add products over months and want them to match.
How we research, test and update this page: our editorial policy. We.Inc is our own product.
We.Inc is an AI-powered website builder you can resell under your own brand. Launch a branded client dashboard, bill on Stripe Connect, and deliver AI-generated websites in minutes. White-label plans start at $99 a month for 25 client sites, with a 7-day free trial and no per-site fees.
Product
AI Website Builder: Describe a site in plain English; it's live in minutes