Why Product Photographers Need to Edit their Photos

So, you are a product photographer, and are wondering why it is so important to edit your photos? There are many reasons for this. It is very hard to capture the essence of your product through an unedited photograph, and even harder to convey its appeal to potential customers unless you conduct at least some form of photo editing.

Removing the Background

The goal of product photography is to capture the essence of the product itself and draw the attention of potential customers to the product. If you take a beautiful picture of the product, yet the background is littered with objects, scenery, or bright colors; the customer’s attention is drawn away from the product, even if only for a second. For this reason, need to remove the background of the product photo. This is not acceptable in the world of product photography, and therefore it is necessary to engage in photo editing to remove the background, and replace it with either a solid color; or simply blur the background to ensure that the customer’s attention is 100% focused on the product itself.

Correcting and Enhancing Colors

Despite your best efforts, there is always room for improvement when it comes to enhancing and correcting the colors of your product photography through photo editing. This step in the photo editing process helps bring uniformity, and can also be used to increase the visual appeal of a product. Some of the most common color corrections that you should be considering when engaging in photo editing for your product photography are white balance,’ contrast,’ and exposure.

1. White Balance

The human brain is more advanced than even the most expensive DLSR camera, and this is why our eyes are able to compensate for the different types of lighting which can affect the color of an object. A white object might appear different depending on whether the photo is captured in sunlight, indoor lighting, or darker settings. Digital cameras; however, are not as advanced as the human brain, and this is why true whites may get distorted based on the lighting conditions. To adjust this phenomenon in product photography, the photographer must adjust the white balance to ensure that true whites are depicted as such. 

2. Contrast

When editing your product photography, you want the image to be engaging and visually exciting to the customers. Therefore, it is so important to adjust the contrast settings. Contrast is essentially the level of contrasting difference between the whites and the blacks in your image. If you wish to make your product photographs pop, and instantly improve their colorfulness and visual appeal, nudging the contrast up one or two points can make all the difference. It is important not to overdo the contrast, however, as this will make your product photography look unrealistic.

3. Exposure

The textbook definition of exposure is the amount of light in the photograph. Editing the exposure of your product photography will make the difference between a washed-out photo, and a photo that is too dark to depict. Thus, when editing your product photography, ensure that you balance your exposure to maximize the visual appeal of the product through proper lighting.

Conclusion

There are many other reasons you should conduct photo editing with product photography, and the reasons mentioned above are only the tip of the iceberg. However, the common theme we see is that without proper photo editing, your product photography will never be as effective as those which are edited properly, no matter how much attention you pay during the actual taking of pictures.