4 Ways to Take Better Product Photos on the Cheap

4 Ways to Take Better Product Photos on the Cheap When selling online it's important that you take the best product shots possible. Most of us don't have professional equipment so here are tips on capturing great images with a smartphone on the cheap.

Stabilize your images

Photography without a tripod or stand can often lead to less than ideal blurry shots. Even the cheapest tripod will help improve your shots in a big way. You can even build a tripod for a phone with nothing more than a paperclip.

Without any sort of tripod try and find a way to stabilize your arms or yourself.
Product Lighting

Keep it lit (but don't use a camera flash)

Lighting is key to nice photos. Use a camera flash or take a photo in a poorly lit room and you're asking for bad photos. Luckily you can get away without lighting equipment by using a little thing called the sun. Taking your photos indoors near a window on an overcast or sunny day and your photos will start to look great. Just watch out for shadows being cast on your products. And remember DON'T use the camera flash on your photos!

Image-editing software

If you're taking photos from your phone there are many free apps that'll do the job of editing your photos.

Make sure to:

  • Crop: Center your products in the photo.
  • Rotate: Keep your shots level by rotating your photos. This will keep your products looking much, much better.
  • Light: Adjust the levels/lighting if your photos are either too dark or too light.

We recommend the free Adobe Photoshop Express for iOS, Android and Windows Phone.

DIY Lightbox Image courtesy of Strobist.com

Build a lightbox

This isn't the easiest of the tips but you can build a DIY lightbox that'll make products look professional. Strobist has a great tutorial on how to build a macro photo studio with just $10. If you want to go a little less DIY check out the Foldio2 from Orangemonkie. It's the same concept but you don't have to do it yourself.

I hope those help. Use these tips for better product shots with less effort and money! The better your products look the more people will want to buy them.