How to take great product photos with your phone

To take great product photos with your phone, shoot next to a big window in soft daylight, put the product on a plain background, keep the phone steady, use the main camera without digital zoom, and take a set of shots that answers every question a shopper might have. A few pounds of kit is enough.

You don’t need a studio. Most of the difference between amateur and professional-looking photos comes from light, background and consistency, not the camera.

The kit you need (most of it you already have)

• Your phone. Any recent phone camera is good enough for an online shop.
• A window. Your main light source, and it’s free.
• Large white card or foam board. For the background and to bounce light into shadows.
• A small tripod or phone stand. Keeps every shot sharp and identical.
• Tape or clips to hold your background in place.
• A cloth to clean the lens and wipe fingerprints off products.

Get the light right

Light matters more than anything else.

• Set up beside a large window, with the window to one side of the product.
• Avoid direct sun. It makes harsh shadows. A bright, overcast day is ideal.
• If the sun is coming in, hang a thin white sheet or baking paper over the window to soften it.
• Turn off ceiling lights. Mixing daylight and warm bulbs gives odd colours.
• Hold a white card on the side opposite the window to bounce light back and lift the shadows.

Build a simple background

For your main product photo, plain and bright is best.

1. 1Put a table against a wall, close to your window.
2. 2Tape a large sheet of white card to the wall and let it curve down onto the table. This curve, called a sweep, hides the line where wall meets table.
3. 3Place your product in the middle of the curve, away from the back so it doesn’t cast a shadow on it.

For small items, a cheap fold-up light tent does the same job. For lifestyle shots, use real surfaces: a wooden table, a kitchen worktop, a bathroom shelf.

Phone camera settings that help

• Use the main (1x) camera, or the 2x or 3x lens if your phone has a real telephoto lens. Avoid pinch-to-zoom, which is digital zoom and loses detail.
• Step back a little and use a longer lens if you can. Shooting very close with a wide lens makes products look distorted.
• Tap to focus on the product, then lock focus and exposure (on most phones, press and hold).
• Nudge the brightness slider down if white areas look washed out.
• Turn off the flash. It flattens products and adds glare.
• Use the timer or a remote shutter so tapping the screen doesn’t shake the phone.
• Turn on gridlines to keep things straight.

The shots every product page needs

Think of your photos as answering questions. A good set might include:

• The main shot. Front-on, on a plain background, filling most of the frame. This is the one in search results and on your category pages.
• Other angles. Side, back, top, underneath if it matters.
• Close-ups. Texture, stitching, materials, buttons, labels.
• Scale. In a hand, or next to an everyday object, so people know how big it really is.
• In use. Being worn, held or used in a real setting.
• What’s in the box. Every item laid out, so there are no surprises.
• Options. Each colour or size, photographed the same way.

Keep your product photos consistent

Consistency makes a small shop look established. Pick a format and stick to it.

• Use the same background, light and angle for every main shot.
• Mark your phone and product positions with small pieces of tape so you can repeat them.
• Crop every main image to the same shape. Square works well on most shops and social media.
• Leave a similar amount of space around each product.

Edit lightly

Your phone’s own editor, or a free app, is all you need.

1. 1Straighten and crop to your chosen shape.
2. 2Adjust brightness so the background looks white, not grey.
3. 3Fix the colour (warmth or white balance) so it matches the real product.
4. 4Remove dust or specks, but don’t hide genuine flaws.
5. 5Export at a sensible size. Very large files slow your pages down.

Background-removal tools can help when a white background isn’t possible. Check the edges closely, especially around hair, fur or clear objects.

Get your photos ready for your shop

• File size. Aim for sharp but not huge. A good shop platform will resize and compress images for you, which keeps pages fast.
• File names. Name files with what they show, such as “oak-chopping-board-large.jpg”, not “IMG_4021.jpg”.
• Alt text. Write a short description of each image for people using screen readers. It helps search engines too.
• Shopping ads. Google’s product listings don’t allow watermarks or promotional text on product images, so keep your main shot clean.

Put your best main shot first. It’s the one that appears in search results, category pages and shopping ads, so it does most of the work of earning the click.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Dark, yellow-tinted photos taken under ceiling lights at night.
• Busy backgrounds that compete with the product.
• Only one photo per product.
• Using a supplier’s photos that dozens of other shops also use.
• Photos that make the product look bigger or better than it is.

In short

Great product photos with your phone come down to soft window light, a plain background, a steady phone and a full set of shots that answer shoppers’ questions. Keep them consistent, edit lightly and keep file sizes sensible. Set up once, mark your positions, and you can photograph a new product in minutes.