3 Simple Ways to Improve Your Product Photography for Your Madeit Store

The new year is often a time when we set goals for self improvement, so there's no better time to re-examine if your Madeit store looking its best!

This blog post gives you three ways you can quickly and easily update your store images to maximise the likelihood of them grabbing a buyer's attention. It's no secret that having great product photos will help sell your gorgeous creations.

In today's busy online world you literally have a few seconds to grab a potential buyer's attention, so if your photos aren't eye-catching then shoppers are likely to scroll right past.

Think about the types of images you're attracted to when online shopping.

Are they light and bright with the product clearly the focus of the image, or are they dull and gloomy and leave you wondering what is even for sale?

You know you have amazing product for sale, but can shoppers immediately see that?

Here are a few simple ways to help your images stand out and have your store looking its best and make this year your best yet.

1. Cropping

This simple edit can do wonders for your photos and can be done using any photo editing program, including ones that may already be on your computer or phone, or free online software such as Canva or Fotor.

You've put a lot of time and hard work into your product, so why not show it off. The idea here is to make sure your product is the focal point with nothing else competing for attention.

This usually means cropping out some of the excess area around your product so that your eye is immediately drawn to what is being sold, not everything around it. Take a look at the before and after examples below.

Sometimes it's not even necessary to show the whole product in a photo. Cropping in to highlight a feature can also work well to grab attention, but make sure you include an additional photo showing the whole product in your listing as well.

Note: Using props is perfectly fine, and recommended, but make sure they're subtle, compliment the product and don't compete for attention.

 

2. Brightness and Exposure

Most digital photos need a touch of brightening and this is one of the easiest and most effective edits you can do. Again, there are many free editing programs available that will allow you to adjust the lightness and brightness of your image. Some common adjustments are Brightness, Exposure, Highlights, Shadows and Contrast.

Not all editing programs have all these adjustments, but it's worthwhile having a play with what is available in your chosen program to see what gives the best results.

Sometimes adjusting just one of those things can make the world of difference, but other times you may need to adjust a few. But, be careful to not go overboard and make your image so bright that it distorts the colours and looks overexposed.

Bonus Tip: To help get a cohesive look to your store, having consistent editing is important. One way to check for consistency is to put all your images together in a folder so you can easily scroll through and see if there's any particular ones that stand out as being darker or lighter than the rest. It's a good idea to do this before uploading any photos to your store.

 

3. Correct Photo Size

Having your photos the right size for the platform you're selling on is really important so they display correctly and are nice and clear. Madeit has recently changed their thumbnail image size to double what it used to be.

This is great news because now your images are much larger, clearer and more attractive to shoppers, but it may mean you need to re-upload your images otherwise they'll appear blurry.

Images are recommended to be 1024 x 1024 px and a maximum size of 2mb. remember you can switch your smart phone to photograph in square so that you can see the proportions straight away.

If you have rectangular images, the system will automatically crop in for the first image and then the subsequent images will come through as rectangular.

So there you have three easy ways to improve the look of your store ready for a bumper year.

It might seem like an overwhelming chore if you have a large number of listings but it could well be worth the effort!

Something to always keep in mind with your product photography is that potential buyers can't see or touch your products in person, so you need to try and convey everything they need to know through photos.

Your listing description can help with that, but your photos are what shoppers will see first...and first impressions count!

Words by:
Photographer & Maker,

Vicki Elle

Vicki Elle is a Brisbane based photographer who specialises in styled photography for handmade and creative brands. Vicki's goal is to help store owners save time and eliminate frustration with their brand photography. She's been a business owner for over 20 years and had her own handmade business for 5 years, so she understands the importance of quality, engaging images to promote a brand.