If you're just starting to take images for your product business yourself, it can seem a pretty daunting task to get everything just right and start making great images.
Here are my top 3 Lighting Hacks to help you start making professional looking images from the start!
Lots of natural light
You don’t need to be spending lots of money on intricate lighting set ups. Most of the time, natural light will work brilliantly. It’s free and it’ll also give your products a more true-to-life look so there’ll be less editing and colour correcting needed.
Find somewhere with loads of natural light, being aware of how the light may change throughout the day. Set up your own little studio there and you’ll be taking great product images in no time!
Bounce the light back in
Wherever there’s light, there is shadow. In product photography, you want to diminish these shadows as much as possible.
Grab a piece of white card or some white foam boards and angle them to bounce the light back in to the shot and on to your product. You’ll be surprised how effective this is in making your images seem more professional!
Watch out for colour casts
It's super easy to miss this, but when you're shooting, think about any colours the ambient light may be giving you. For example, tungsten light will give off a yellow hue, where as a flash bulb will be blue.
There may not be a lot you can do to counteract this while you're shooting, but it's a good idea to download a photo editing app (there are loads of free ones!) that allows you to change things like the hue, colour temperature or tint on the image.
You want the whites to look white and the blacks to look black. Once you've adjusted to match those colours, the rest of the image should look much more true-to-life.
For more hints and tips on how to get the best out of your product photography, whether you're using a smart phone or a camera, check out these posts here and here.
Happy shooting!
