Creating Product Images: The Efficient Workflow from Planning to Shop

The Guide to Perfect Product Images: What Matters between Shooting and Distributing

Why the Perfect Product Image Decides between Purchase and Abandoned Cart

In marketplaces, social media platforms, and web shops, countless products are competing for their potential purchasers’ attention. Who will make the race is often times decided by the product image at the literal blink of an eye: when browsing a website, the brain reacts within 13 milli-seconds¹ to visual stimuli and will already have made a judgment after 50 milli-seconds².

 

This is How Product Images Influence Ecommerce KPIs

Besides product reviews and evaluations, product images are among the strongest determining factors for purchase decisions.³ They offer orientation in the decision-making process and help users understand products even without haptic stimuli. This turns product detail pages into an essential factor for user experience and conversion rates. More than 60 % of retailers attest that high-quality product images contribute to reducing returns.⁴

For the impact product images make, quality is decisive. The true art, however, is to connect high image quality with short loading times. This is because long loading times worsen the user experience by slowing down shop performance. The following is how loading times and conversions correlate:

• 45 % of users are less likely to make purchases on websites that load longer than expected.⁵
• Given the loading time optimization of 0.1 seconds, the conversion rate improves by 8.4 % and the shopping cart value leaps to 9.2 %.⁶
• An improvement of the loading time from 5 to 1 second makes the conversion rate multiply by 2.5.⁷

 

Product Images Strengthen the User’s Trust

For 98 % of consumers, authentic images are pivotal when it comes to trusting a shop.⁸ Caution is advised when employing AI-generated images: AI images that appear unnatural will make the user feel deceived. Especially AI images containing people are negatively received by customers.⁹

This is why retailers should utilize AI strategically: for scalable processes such as image variants, meta-data, or localization – while authentic product presentations should remain the focus now as then. Instead, you should much rather invest into user-generated content, manufacturer photos, or your own product images.

 

Step 1: Planning the Shooting and Creating Product Images

Quality and consistency are decisive for market-conform product images that increase conversion rates. The foundation for this is an efficient workflow that begins as early as with the planning phase rather than with the shooting itself.

 

Define Target Group and Image Language

Even before the first image is shot, it should already be set in stone which products will be photographed for whom and for which channel, as well as what the images should look like exactly:

• A visual style guide establishes a standardized color plate and sets general pointers for image mood and visual language.
• Clear brand guidelines guarantee that the product image will smoothly fit into the shop at the end of the day and that brand recognition is maximized on external platforms.
• Define ahead of time which image guidelines apply to the intended target channels.
• Make sure that the tone of the image suits its target group: dynamic compositions for young target groups, but laid-back and clear images for older target groups.
• Reference images and mood boards will save time down the line when setting up the stage.

 

Define Image Type

Depending on the platform and use case of the product images, different ecommerce image types are up for consideration:

 

Create Shotlist

As soon as products, objectives, and image types are well-defined, the planning for the shooting shall start. An efficient process live on site is guaranteed by a shotlist as it is commonly used for film productions. A simplified version thereof allows you to establish important details for the product photography:

• Which product is the shooting star?
• What details and functions must be presented?
• What angles, viewpoints, as well as both camera angles and lighting are desired?
• How should the product be staged in the lifestyle photos?
• What additional equipment is required?

To accurately represent size references, it may be useful to position the product next to everyday goods, whereas a 360-degree product image requires a rotary plate.

For the product image to be edited and assigned correctly afterwards, you should keep the shotlist updated during the shooting. This is essential for reproducing the look at the next shotting.

An integral part of the planning is also checking responsibilities and logistics: Who is the contact person for which product? Are products already on set or must they be gathered from the storage? Who carries out which tasks on set? The earlier the plan is communicated, the better.

 

Prepare Products, Set, and Lighting

In order to present each product in the best light at the day of shooting, great care is advised when styling and positioning it: stains, folds, fingerprints, dust, or labels have no business lingering here.

The matching lighting setup depends on the product and its constitution. For lifestyle photos, diffused daylight looks particularly natural. Products can be dipped into a diffused artificial light using softboxes while auxiliary means like mirrors or bright surfaces help with floodlighting.

 

Assure Consistency

A consistent image language creates trust and strengthens brand identity. A continuous look is guaranteed by:

• a whiter or more neutral background,
• a consistent white balance and constant light source
• a tripod that remains stationed at one and the same position throughout the shooting and follow-up shootings
• a uniform shooting angle, e.g. a 45-degree angle for marketplace images or bird’s-eye view for flat lays

Consistency is not the result of contingency but of well-defined processes.

 

Step 2: Editing Product Images

In order for product images to cut a fine figure on PCs, smartphone, your own web shop, and on platforms like Amazon at the same time, they must be adjusted, formatted, and positioned. This is why post-production focuses on optical and technical editing.

 

Post-Prod: Crop, Retouch, and Correct

A well-planned shooting shortens post-editing time significantly. However, some touches are necessary regardless. First, all images of a product series are edited in batch, assuring consistency in color balance, exposure, and contrast.

Subsequently, images are edited individually to knock out the background and correct any blemishes. As far as retouching is concerned, less is more: deviating from the original product too much will translate into customers returning products.

Tip: A checklist with the most important image guidelines makes sure that even the final touch can be carried out quickly.

 

Technical Editing: Formatting, Compressing, and Structuring

For shop systems, search engines, and systems like Digital Asset Management (DAM) and Product Information Management (PIM) to be able to fully access images, the non-visible aspects must also be adjusted.

The choice of the file format for the right presentation of product pages and for the shop performance is of essence:

• JPEG: For photos with many colors and soft gradients
• PNG: For graphics with sharp edges or images with transparency
• WebP: For fast loading times
• AVIF: For situations where even stronger compression is required; also supports transparency, HDR, and animations; however, it may not be compatible with all environments

File formats and image compression ought to be chosen wisely so that the product images can achieve the greatest possible effect at minimal file size. Since retailers nowadays make half of their online sales through smartphones,¹⁰ your product images should be uploaded into your shops with responsive design in mind, i. e. multiple image variants for different end devices.

In order to not just jumble products and image variants together, file names and alt texts should always be cleanly maintained. A good alt text describes in brief what is shown on the product image, while the file name should include the product name, article number, as well as keywords such as ‘Packshot’ or ‘Side Profile.’ This simplifies asset management, improves the accessibility of the shop, and assists search engines.

Tip for better product image SEO: On product details pages, structured data such as ImageObject can help make both image and product information readable for search engines.

 

Step 3: Presentation in Shop

After the optical and technical optimization, product images must be positioned in the shop system in a way so that they can unfold their effect optimally depending on channel, language, and device. Among the most pressing tasks are meta-data maintenance, variant management, and frictionless exports into shop systems.

 

Meta-Data, Variants, and Channel Rules

Product images are differentiated into master images and renditions. When it comes to their variants for channels like mobile apps or social media, specific adjustments are made to the aspect ratio, background, or size.

To make sure images are only used for as long as they are allowed to be from a legal standpoint, all questions about image rights and licenses need to be cleared. Without central control, inconsistencies will be quick to add up, causing additional manual effort.

 

This is How the Transfer to the Shop System Succeeds, Efficiently and Error-Free

You can now export the finalized product images to your shop system. This is easier said than done, especially when there are a lot of product variants or your ecommerce is tailor-made. The following best practices show you how it’s done.

• Templates with exact specifications for channel requirements guarantee that product images are correctly presented in the various channels and marketplaces.
• A clear release process provides additional help in reducing errors: define which validation tasks the ecommerce is to take care of and when your marketing and product colleagues should check brand conformity and business details.
• Whenever product images need to be created and positioned regularly, a DAM such as pixx.io can simplify the image workflow drastically. Such a system facilitates recurring steps such as versioning, maintenance of meta-data, generating renditions, as well as batch transfers to shops.
• A PIM like ATAMYA, on the other hand, supports you in organizing and assigning to product images the complete product-centered information about color and size. It thus connects asset data and processes centrally and guarantees that information can be distributed in an automated, consistent, and channel-overarching way.

 

AI-Assistance and Nice-To-Have

For a growing assortment and international markets, AI can be a decisive tool. It enables you, for example, to automatically generate image descriptions and alt texts or translate localizations into multiple languages. This way, the asset management stays efficient even as channels and markets grow.

 

Practical Example for Efficient Product Image Workflows

In an online shop for bike accessories, for example, a product image workflow could be structured as follows:

• The ecommerce team needs product images for new bicycle locks in various variants. They schedule packshots, close-ups, and one to two images for locks together with matching bikes.
• On the basis of these requirements and equipped with the product data provided by the PIM, the team creates a shotlist and makes photographers of the products.
• After post-production, the team loads the photos into the DAM. It can automatically generate meta-data, alt texts, and renditions.
• Ecommerce, marketing, and product managers validate the formats, brand effect, and business details prior to transferring the images to the shop system and, thereby, publishing them.
• Regular KPI reviews measure how the conversion rate on details pages of products and return rates develop, generating learnings for the next shootings.

All steps naturally flow into one another: planning, production, data management, and distribution.

 

Conclusion: Less Rework and More Efficiency

The perfect product image requires no new, expensive tools or high-effort shootings. What’s decisive is a cleanly set-up product image workflow with checklists, well-structured image guidelines, and clearly defined responsibilities. This allows marketing and ecommerce teams to do less rework and instead pick up the pace when it comes to product launches, higher consistency in branding, and better shop performance. Companies that control their product data and image processes centrally create the very foundation for scalable ecommerce. Learn more on how such potential can be strategically utilized with PIM and DAM in our blogpost, “PIM and DAM: The Success Factors for Your Business.”

Table of Sources:

¹ Source: sience.org

² Source: tandfonline.com

³ Source: splendid-research.com

⁴ Source: textilwirtschaft.de

⁵ Source: thinkwithgoogle.com

⁶ Source: thinkwithgoogle.com

⁷ Source: portent.com

⁸ Source: gettyimages.com

⁹ Source: fh-muenster.de

¹⁰ Source: einzelhandel.de