Professional product photos don't require professional equipment. The difference between an amateur product photo and a professional one comes down to a few repeatable techniques. Here are 10 tips that will immediately improve your product photography — no expensive gear required.

1. Clean your product (seriously)

This sounds obvious, but it's the most overlooked step. Dust, fingerprints, scratches, and lint are invisible to the naked eye but are amplified in photos. Before every shoot:

• Wipe surfaces with a microfiber cloth
• Use compressed air for crevices
• Iron or steam clothing products
• Polish metal and glass items
• Remove stickers and tags (unless they're part of the product)

2. Use natural side lighting

The biggest giveaway of amateur photos is bad lighting — either too dark, flash-lit, or overhead ceiling light. The fix is simple:

Place your product next to a large window with the light hitting it from the side. Add a white piece of cardboard on the opposite side as a reflector. This single change will transform your photos more than any other tip on this list.

For more detail, read our complete lighting setup guide.

3. Use a clean, consistent background

A cluttered background makes even a great product look unprofessional. Your options:

• White background — Required by Amazon, recommended by most marketplaces. The safest choice. See our marketplace requirements guide.
• Neutral background — Light gray, beige, or pastel for a softer look (Etsy, Shopify stores).
• Any background + AI removal — Photograph on whatever surface you have and remove the background with AI afterwards. This is the fastest approach.

4. Stabilize your camera

Camera shake causes blur, which screams "amateur." Even slight movement reduces sharpness.

• Best: Use a tripod ($10–$20 for a phone tripod)
• Free alternative: Lean your phone against a stack of books
• Use the timer — Set a 2-second delay so pressing the shutter doesn't shake the camera

5. Show multiple angles

One photo isn't enough. Buyers need to see the product from every angle to build confidence:

Read our smartphone product photography guide for detailed angle techniques.

6. Get the resolution right

Low-resolution images kill trust and conversion. Buyers want to zoom in on details.

• Minimum: 1000×1000 px (Amazon's requirement)
• Recommended: 2000×2000 px (enables zoom on most platforms)
• If your images are too small: Use AI upscaling to increase resolution 2x or 4x without blur.

7. Keep proportions and framing consistent

In your product catalog, every image should have the same style:

• Same aspect ratio (square 1:1 is standard for marketplaces)
• Same relative product size within the frame
• Same background across all listings
• Same lighting style and direction

Batch processing ensures consistency across your entire catalog automatically.

8. Edit — but don't over-edit

Post-processing is essential, but heavy filters make products look untrustworthy:

• Do: Adjust brightness/contrast, white balance, sharpness
• Do: Remove background, correct perspective
• Don't: Apply Instagram-style filters
• Don't: Over-saturate colors (product should look like it does in real life)
• Don't: Remove defects that are part of the product (this leads to returns)

9. Optimize file size without sacrificing quality

Large files slow down your store and frustrate mobile buyers. Optimize smart:

• JPEG at 80–85% quality — Visually indistinguishable from 100%, but 3–5x smaller.
• PNG for transparency — Use PNG only when you need transparency. Otherwise, JPEG is better for file size.
• WebP for modern stores — 25–35% smaller than JPEG with equal quality. Shopify and most platforms support it.
• Target: Under 500 KB per image for web. Under 2 MB for marketplace uploads.

10. Use AI tools to automate the boring parts

The biggest time wasters in product photography are background removal, resizing, and consistency. AI handles all of these in seconds:

1. Background removal — AI detects the product and removes the background automatically. See our tool comparison.
2. Background replacement — White, color, gradient, or transparent — applied uniformly.
3. Upscaling — Low-res images enhanced to marketplace requirements.
4. Batch processing — 20 images processed with identical settings in minutes.

This lets you focus on what actually matters: shooting great photos with good lighting and composition.