Jan 18, 2025

20 Types Of Product Photography For Online Stores

person working - Types of Product Photography

When you think of the last product you bought online, what’s the first thing that comes to mind? For most people, it’s the product photography, not the written description. That’s because product images are critical to capturing a shopper’s interest and helping them make informed decisions. With so much riding on them, it’s no wonder many online sellers get stressed when creating product images for their online stores. That’s where this blog comes in. We’ll explore the different types of product photography to help you understand what you need to achieve your goals, whether learning about the kinds of product photography for online stores or creating a specific style to elevate your eCommerce photography.

Caspa’s AI product photography platform can help you create stunning product images that will quickly captivate your customers. Its intuitive interface and pre-set styles make it the perfect tool for achieving your eCommerce photography objectives.

Table of Content

What Is Product Photography?

woman working - Types of Product Photography

Product Photography: The What and Why

Product photography creates high-quality visual content that showcases products in the best possible light. It involves taking well-composed, aesthetically pleasing images that accurately represent the product. These images are then used to attract and convert customers on:

E-commerce websites
Social media
Advertisements
Marketing materials

Why Product Photography Matters

Good product photography helps build trust with customers. Buyers may think you’re hiding something when you don’t provide enough product images on your ecommerce site. This is especially true for high-ticket items and products that require assembly. In addition to boosting sales, quality product images can improve your SEO.

You create a barrier for potential customers when you don’t have great product photography. They want to “see” your products before they buy them. If you don’t provide enough images, they’ll go to the next seller who does. Well-optimized product photos can boost your rankings on search engine results pages (SERPs) and improve your visibility.

The Multifaceted Role of Product Photography in Branding and Marketing

High-quality product photography can give your store a professional look and help differentiate your brand. When you have a clear visual of a product, you can decide whether or not to purchase it. Quality product photography helps create a visual story that can assist buyers in making the right choice for their needs.

It’s important to remember that product images can also be used for more than just ecommerce sites. You can leverage product photography for your business’s social media accounts, online ads, email marketing campaigns, and more.

20 Types Of Product Photography For Online Stores

1. Group Shots: A Product Photography Essential

As the name suggests, a group shot is an image with at least two products of the same or different types. Compared with product-only photos showing one product per shot, group shots give potential customers an overview of several products.

A group shot of relevant products clues customers on which items should be used together. It can also show users the different options they have when it comes to a specific product category. For example, the group shot can show each flavor if you’re selling drinks, as in our example above.

How to Create Impactful Group Shots for eCommerce and Marketing

Although a group shot means there will be many elements in the picture, this doesn’t mean the image needs to look cluttered. Ensure there are enough spaces between each product, especially if you have more than five different elements.

You can also experiment with depth. Use leading lines to guide the viewer to the product or part of the picture I’d like them to focus on. Apart from the landing page, you can use group shots in social media posts or pages offering eCommerce discounts or product pages.

2. Lifestyle Product Photos: Create Context for Your Products

Lifestyle shots showcase how your products are used in natural, real-life settings. Lifestyle photography allows potential customers to imagine their lives if they had the products in the picture. It can encourage excitement and prompt purchases. The key is to make the products look the part.

You can use lighting to highlight their most important features and change their look to convey specific product attributes. For instance, the sheets are crumpled in the picture above, making the bed look enticing for people to sleep on.

Balancing Creativity and Authenticity in Lifestyle Product Photography for eCommerce

But these campaigns can be ineffective if your photos are too styled. According to Invesp, at least 30% of customers return products they bought online once they realize they look different than the images they saw. So get creative, yes, but make sure your product in real life is still how you portray it to be in the final picture.

Lifestyle images can be used on social media platforms, adverts, or emails. You can quickly build effective eCommerce marketing campaigns with marketing automation tools on multiple channels.

3. Product Infographics: Combine Images and Text to Describe Products

Product infographics combine images and text to provide information about a specific product. With product infographics, you can convince people to buy your product by showcasing two things: the product’s aesthetic and its features.

Your text should explain the most vital features of your product in your image. You can also describe its outstanding specs or uses.

Enhancing Customer Experience with Product Infographics and Strategic Text Placement

The location of the text (and the image, for that matter) is everything, too. You can put the text on the side of the product image. Further, you can use arrows pointing at the text and the product feature you describe.

With infographics, customers spend less time reading every spec in the description section to see if a product meets their needs. Instead, product infographics provide essential information about a product faster and more effectively.

Creating Simple and Effective Product Infographics for Complex Products

You can be creative in choosing background images or fonts for product infographics. But remember to make your infographics as simple as possible. Using improper product images or fonts can result in your infographics being a chaotic jumble.

As you may have already guessed, infographics are best used for products with various uses or specs. Some typical examples are electronic devices or watches. Put yourself in your customers' shoes to understand what they want about your product. Then, get that essential information for your infographics.

4. Product-Only Image: The Basic eCommerce Image

Among the types of eCommerce images you should consider are product-only photos. These images focus on individual products. When creating this type of image, you typically use plain backgrounds to make the items stand out. This type of image is widely used on the product page of a top eCommerce website like Amazon or Walmart.

Below are examples of product-only images from Skullcandy, a popular headphones brand. The photos are found in the brand’s online store product catalog. The white background helps shoppers focus their attention on the products, allowing customers to consider better the headphones':

Design
Color
Technical details

Budget-Friendly Tips for Capturing Professional Product-Only Shots at Home

You can easily take product-only shots with a small studio in your house. Apart from plain backgrounds, choose controlled lighting in a lightbox. Capture your products from different angles to help customers see the product as a whole. With some basic image editing, you can have a perfect shot posted on various channels.

If you don’t have enough budget for studio equipment, you can shoot products under natural light with mobile devices. Ensure all customers are drawn to the highlighted objects when they look at your photos.

5. Product Packaging Images: Showcase the First Thing Customers See

Packages are the first thing customers see when looking at your products. A product's packaging represents the brand and becomes integral to your brand identity. In one Ipsos survey, 72% of Americans say a product's packaging design affects their purchase decision.

So, to attract potential customers’ attention, include packshot photos on your websites, social media channels, ads, or emails. Packages are often printed with basic product information, like its components or usage. Some product packages also include a QR code for app download, where users can retrieve additional information about the product.

How to Create Authentic and Persuasive Packshots for eCommerce Success

It’s best to include packshots that include these details. After all, when customers like what they see, they’ll make that purchase. The sky’s the limit regarding the types of shots you can make of your packaging. Just make sure that the final pictures show the labels clearly.

You can experiment with lighting to highlight the features or details you think will convince customers to buy the product. Also, don’t overedit the pictures. You want to avoid giving customers unrealistic expectations of how the product should look.

6. Production Process Shots: Highlight Skills Behind Your Products

Don't exclude production process shots from your eCommerce store. You want customers to see the skills required to create your product. That gives them an appreciation for the product itself and the people behind the product, of course. When taking pictures for your eCommerce store, it’s best not to stage the production process.

If you take photos of the process, you can create images that accurately show how the product is made. The pictures will also appear more authentic (because they are). This type of visual content can be placed on:

Landing pages
Social media sites
Your homepage
Gallery

You can also use it in marketing campaigns to attract more leads and increase click-through rates.

7. Products-With-Models Images: Show How Products Look On Real People

Pictures of products on human models are among the most popular types of eCommerce images. The photos allow visitors to visualize the product on them. So, when choosing your model for a product, make sure the model represents the kinds of people who usually buy that product.

You can even return to your customer persona and look at my ideal customer’s characteristics. The key is to ensure your model is relatable. Also, don’t just take one shot of my model using my product in one way. You want to show potential customers how to use your product to entice them to buy. Shoot from different angles, too.

8. Scale and Detail Shots: Help Customers Size Up Products

Visitors who shop for products on eCommerce sites cannot touch these products. This means they have no way of knowing their size or other details. That’s why you need scale and detail shots among the types of eCommerce images on your website.

Using Scale Photos to Help Customers Visualize Product Dimensions Accurately

A scale photo shows the product with another object that allows visitors to visualize the product’s size. For instance, if you’re selling a sofa, I can have the sofa placed beside a table. With this type of shot, I can more or less imagine how tall the sofa is.

If I’m using this option, include as many measurements as possible. The more measurements I include, the more accurate my potential customer’s visualization of the product.

Highlighting Product Features with High-Quality Detailed Shots

Meanwhile, detailed shots can highlight specific characteristics and features of a product. The pictures involve zooming into parts of the product from its back, sides, and other angles. They give shoppers a better idea of the product's appearance from a short distance.

With these pictures, shoppers may also see the product’s texture. Just make sure your detail shots are high-quality. You might not be able to pinpoint your product’s finest details if your image is low-quality in the first place.

9. Promo Images: Combine Visuals and Text to Promote Your Products

Promo product photography combines images with commercial elements, like logos, text, or collages, to create a visually engaging message. These versatile images can be used across social media, email marketing, and promotional campaigns to grab attention and convey brand identity. For instance, a visually striking collage with your product and tagline can effectively communicate a campaign theme.

10. Hero Shots: Elevate Traditional Product Photography

Hero shots elevate traditional product images with creative flair. These photos ensure the product is the star of the composition while adding emotional appeal through unique angles, props, or backgrounds.

Unlike plain white background shots, hero images are designed to captivate and emotionally engage viewers, making them ideal for social media, category pages, and ads to boost loyalty and brand awareness.

11. GIFs: Bring Your Products to Life with Motion

GIFs bring products to life with motion and storytelling. Lightweight compared to videos, GIFs are perfect for grabbing attention on:

Social media
Websites
Ads

They allow you to showcase dynamic elements, such as a clothing collection, or add playfulness to your branding. With their ability to convey more quickly, GIFs are a highly engaging tool for modern marketing.

12. Freeze Frame Product Photos: Capture Products in Action

Freeze frame images capture products in action, creating an impactful moment frozen in time. Perfect for categories like jewelry, sportswear, and food, these images often involve splashes, motion, or dynamic product use. This style requires advanced techniques but delivers high visual appeal, ideal for marketing campaigns and e-commerce stores seeking to emphasize movement and energy.

13. Social Media Shots: Product Photography for the ‘Gram

Social media product photography thrives on creativity and virality. Whether it’s quirky backgrounds, bold colors, or unconventional layouts, these images aim to stand out and get shared. Instagram, in particular, sets the stage for this innovative style, which:

Drives engagement
Builds a following
Enhances brand identity

14. White Background Shots: The Cornerstone of Product Photography

White background shots are the cornerstone of e-commerce photography. They emphasize the product without distractions and are clean, simple, and universally accepted by platforms like Amazon and eBay. Their adaptability allows easy editing, making them a go-to for online stores of all sizes.

15. Flat Lay Photography: Simple, Elegant, and Effective

Flat lay photography offers simplicity and elegance by capturing flat products, often paired with complementary props. This style is excellent for showcasing groupings or emphasizing aesthetic arrangements, particularly in categories like:

Fashion
Food
Lifestyle

Flat lays excels in both e-commerce stores and social media.

16. Mannequin Photography: Create Life-Like Product Images

Mannequin photography adds a three-dimensional feel to clothing images, helping customers visualize fit and style. This method is especially effective for elastic fabrics or items where structure matters. It bridges the gap between flat lay and real-life modeling, making garments more relatable and appealing.

17. 360-Degree Photography: Provide a Complete View of Your Products

360-degree images provide an immersive experience by showing every angle of a product. Especially popular in industries like sports footwear and luxury accessories, this technique meets the premium expectations of customers.

While resource-intensive, 360-degree photography enhances customer trust and satisfaction.

18. Hanging Objects: Create Depth with Suspended Product Shots

Hanging photography lends a sense of depth and dimension to products like jewelry, accessories, or lightweight apparel. By suspending items, photographers create a dynamic, gravity-defying effect that enhances visual appeal and showcases unique shapes.

19. Large Product Photography: Capture the Big Stuff

Capturing large products, such as furniture or vehicles, requires logistical expertise and specialized equipment. These shoots often rely on natural light and involve higher costs due to handling, setup, and editing complexity.

Despite the challenges, large product photography highlights functionality and aesthetics, catering to automotive and home decor industries.

20. Macro Photography: Get Up Close and Personal with Your Products

Macro photography captures intricate details of small products, like jewelry, by focusing closely. This style emphasizes:

Texture
Craftsmanship
Minute design elements

With a macro lens, tripod, and meticulous setup, photographers ensure precision and clarity, delivering images that exude sophistication and quality.

Benefits Of Product Photography For Your Brand

The Impact of Quality Product Photography on Your Brand

High-quality product photography can provide a good first impression of your brand. When potential customers land on your e-commerce website, they evaluate your business within seconds. If they notice poor-quality images, they will likely leave your site and look for products elsewhere. They will feel more confident buying from your store if they see clear, detailed product photos.

Images that capture the product well imply that the item is of good quality, just like the photograph. Thus, investing in professional product photography can help your e-commerce business make a good first impression.

Improve Your Brand's Visibility and Recognition

Product photographs can significantly improve your brand's visibility and recognition. Investing in quality product images can create unique visual content that stands out from your competitors. This helps your products get noticed on your e-commerce website and other online platforms. Product photos that are optimized for SEO can boost your rank on search engines, making it easier for shoppers to find your business.

The higher your company ranks, the more trustworthy it appears to consumers. In addition, clear and detailed product images can improve your performance on online marketplaces like Amazon. These platforms favor sellers that provide high-quality visuals of their products and even penalize those that don’t.

Increase Your Sales

Of course, the ultimate goal of any e-commerce business is to sell products. Quality product photography can help you achieve this goal. When potential customers land on your product page, they want clear images showing exactly what they buy.

If they can’t find these visuals, they will likely leave your page and look for products elsewhere. 70% of online shoppers say product images directly influence purchasing decisions. Good product photography can help your e-commerce business improve customer satisfaction and boost sales.

Build Trust and Credibility With Your Buyers

New e-commerce businesses often struggle to earn the trust of potential customers. Shoppers want to know they purchase products from a credible and reliable source before handing over their payment information. Quality product photography can help you build trust with your buyers. When you invest in professional product images, customers can see the exact details of the product they will receive.

This helps eliminate surprises and makes shoppers feel more confident about their purchases. Buying products from an ecommerce store with clear, detailed product images displaying the item’s features and flaws appears much less risky than purchasing from a site with no visuals or low-quality photos.

Improve Customer Satisfaction

Quality product photography can also improve customer satisfaction. When a shopper purchases a product from your e-commerce store, they receive exactly what they saw in the product images. If you invest in quality product photography, you can ensure that these images show the item’s color, features, and details. This helps eliminate any surprises for the customer and can make their buying experience more pleasant.

On the other hand, if you rely on low-quality images or no visuals, the customer may receive an item that looks completely different from what they expected. This can lead to a return, hurting your bottom line and damaging your reputation.

Revolutionizing eCommerce Visuals with AI-Powered Product Photography

Caspa helps eCommerce brands create stunning product photography with AI, eliminating the need for multiple tools that traditionally eat up to 20% of revenue like:

Photographers
Models

From creating ultra-realistic product shots with human models to editing existing photos, Caspa's all-in-one AI product photography platform handles everything from background removal to upscaling, letting brands produce professional marketing visuals in seconds.

Whether you need custom stock photos or complete studio editing capabilities, Caspa streamlines the entire product visualization workflow into a single, cost-effective solution. Get AI product photos that increase your sales for free today!

6 Best Tips To Take Great Product Photos For Your Store

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1. Capture the Product Story

Every product has a story. Each product image in your online store should detail how the consumer will experience the item. For instance, if you sell sunglasses, will the shopper wear them on a sandy beach? Or will they put their new shades on during a baseball game? Product photos should give consumers a clear view of what they will do with their purchase and how they will feel.

And that feeling will depend on the product. Some product images will portray happiness, while others will emote comfort. The possibilities are endless when it comes to telling product stories. Start testing different story ideas with your products to earn more sales.

2. Set Up the Proper Lighting

Product photos are essential to gaining consumers’ interest and showcasing the benefits of your items. More than 80% of online shoppers rely on product photos when deciding on a potential purchase. Proper lighting is key when capturing your products. A well-lit product allows the shopper to experience every physical detail. No one wants to squint their eyes or resize their browser when online shopping.

Sunlight is a good lighting source, especially when you want to shoot the product in its natural habitat. On the other hand, artificial light can offer your photos more consistency on a limited budget. You’ll also want to consider the quality and quantity of light. Try moving the light closer or farther from your product to change the intensity. Keep practicing to find the proper lighting for your products.

3. Shoot with a Tripod

The novice photography approach is to grab your smartphone and immediately take pictures of your products. Instead, you’ll want to invest in a tripod. A tripod ensures you capture clear and crisp photos every single time. Taking product photos can quickly exhaust you if you have hundreds of items in your online store.

Your online store’s goal is to get uniform product photos. So, before clicking away, take pictures of other still objects, like a book or a plant. That way, you’ll know where to set up the tripod when it’s time to shoot.

4. Use a White Background

Your consumers want an up-close view of products. Meero reports that 78% of online shoppers want photos to bring products to life. With a white background, you can make the product the focal point without colorful distractions. White backgrounds also offer consistency in your online product catalog.

A rainbow of different backgrounds can impair the shopping experience. Consumers won’t have to adjust their eyes as they browse constantly. Plus, using a white background reduces the amount of time spent in the photo editing process. When shooting, the light will reflect onto your product, minimizing the need for brightness and contrast adjustments.

5. Add Creative Props

Think of your product as part of a scene in a movie. You don’t want it staring at the camera, giving a boring monologue. Bringing in supporting characters, or in this case, creative props can add more excitement.

Props give more personality to your product photos. It’s also an effective way to capture that product story. Depending on the product, you may add props like plants, picture frames, or even party favors. Just ensure your props don’t overpower the main show: your product.

6. Take Shots from Different Angles

If you look at school photos from the '80s or '90s, you’ll notice a pattern amongst each student’s picture. They all posed the same way. School districts didn’t leave much room for creativity. You’ll want to strive to achieve the exact opposite for your product photos.

You want to take pictures of your products from multiple angles to show a 360-view. Higher-quality images win customer trust more than lower-quality images. From various angles, consumers can see the full scope of your product in action. It’ll make them feel more confident about their purchasing decision.

Get AI Product Photos that Increase Your Sales for Free Today

Caspa's AI product photography platform allows eCommerce brands to create stunning product visuals quickly and affordably. Caspa eliminates the need for costly studios, photographers, and models, letting brands create ultra-realistic product photos with human models in seconds.

Instead of spending weeks creating custom product photos that eat up to 20% of revenue, you can use Caspa to streamline the entire product visualization workflow into a single, cost-effective solution.

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