The Definitive Guide to White Background Photography

White Background Photography

When it comes to e-commerce, your product photos are your best chance to create a good first impression. According to Shopify, 50% of online shoppers label product images more vital than reviews, descriptions, and ratings. 

But it’s not just about having great product photos—it’s about having the right kind of images for your online store. Photographing your products against a white background is simple and gives you greater flexibility and ease of editing later, and it’s a skill you should have in your back pocket. However, it’s not as easy as it sounds to make white background photos come out well. This guide will cover everything new photographers need to know about white background photography.

Why Use a White Background for Your Photography?

White backgrounds are the ultimate solution for e-commerce product photography.

White abstract background

Isn’t the background color just a matter of preference or style? Not exactly. There are several reasons why you might want to take your product photos against a white backdrop.

  1. Easy to Edit:

Not all businesses hire professional photographers or editors. If you’re taking photos for your own business or someone else’s, it’s best to choose the option that gives you the most flexibility later. When it comes to editing, white backgrounds provide more versatility than any other color and will give you the least amount of hassle in post-production.

  1. Your products will pop

Choosing a white background will make your products stand out with zero distractions. A white backdrop accentuates the colors and style of the product and disappears from the viewer’s eye. It’s also easy to make your product photos look consistent when viewed in a gallery when they all have a plain, pure white backdrop.

  1. Multichannel Versatility:

When you’re working on a budget—as most of us are—you want your photos to be compatible with as many different marketing channels and e-commerce ads as possible. For example, Google Shopping campaigns require backgrounds to be only white, gray, or other light colors. Similarly, Amazon only permits pure white backdrops (RGB 255, 255, 255) on their platform. With a white background, you can switch it out for a more colorful or engaging backdrop when editing if you want to—but you’ll always have a version that’s easy to use for a variety of retailers.

  1. Cost-efficient:

White backgrounds do not require a huge investment. All you need is a clean, wrinkle-free white cloth or sheet of paper and you’re ready to get started.

White Background Photography Guidelines

Before you get started, here’s what you’ll need to get started with white background photography.

  1. Camera:

Smartphones today have excellent cameras and serve as a budget-friendly solution for product photographers. But if you have enough budget for a DSLR and want to elevate your photos, go for it—it will give you more flexibility and options.

Pro Tip:

i)     ISO- 200

ii)     Focus- F7.1

iii)     Shutter Speed: 160 seconds or your camera’s maximum speed

iv)     Flash- Off

v)     White Balance- Auto

  1. LightBox:

A lightbox is a box with white sides used for product photography and is generally see-through to allow light to pass through. It softens the light and minimizes shadows. You can also use a tent with built-in lights to control the depth of the light. If you’re feeling crafty, you can make your own DIY lightbox, or purchase one premade.

  1. White Background:

If you don’t have a lightbox, you’ll need to create a plain white backdrop. A white wall, board, cloth, or poster will do the trick. However, make sure your backdrop is smooth—textures will make editing more challenging. Also, try to use something purely white and not off-white or cream.

  1. Lights:

Set up your studio with both flash and regular bulbs. Usually, 100-watt bulbs are best for white background photography, though natural light also works very well if you can make use of it.

Pro tip: Place the flashlights far away from the product. Otherwise, the background will turn gray.

  1. Tripod:

If you want to keep your images consistent in terms of distance, angles, and lighting, invest in a tripod. A good tripod has:

  • Orientation adjustability
  • Built-in spirit level
  • Stability
  • Height adjustability
  • Payload
  1. Photo Retouching Software:

Lastly, you will need photo retouching software to tweak the photos after the shoot. There are plenty of free and paid options, so you can find something to match any budget. To get you started, here are some of the leading options in the industry:

i)     Photoshop

ii)     GIMP

iii)     autoRetouch

iv)     Pixlr

Editing White Background Product Photography Like a Pro

You have your photos—now to polish them to a shine. Here are the essential steps for editing your white background images.

  1. Remove background edges

Crop the edges of the backdrop so that the photo has a plain white background.

  1. Adjust background brightness

Lighten the background so that it’s bright white instead of light gray.

  1. Remove spots

Erase any spots, stains, dust, etc., from the backdrop to make it look clean and free of visual distractions.

  1. Adjust colors

Adjust the brightness, saturation, and exposure of the image to ensure that the product colors pop against the background.

  1. Add shadows

Add shadows around the product to make it look realistic and grounded.

Automated Post-Production Options

Post-production is essential to making your white background photos look right. Even if you follow all the steps above, sometimes a pure white backdrop will turn out gray or have distracting spots or creases. Don’t skip the editing stages, even if you don’t have the time or Photoshop skills to do it all yourself. We recommend AI-powered autoRetouch for background removal and customization. Time is money, so spending your time wrestling with editing software can be costly—whereas autoRetouch offers automated touch-ups for as little as £0.50 per image.

Rookie Mistakes to Avoid in White Background Photography

Mistake #1: The backdrop isn’t brightly lit

The backdrop must be lit with two stops more light than the subject. For example, if you photograph the object at f/8, set the backdrop lights to f/16.

Mistake #2: No background separation

Conversely, if the background lights are much brighter than the foreground lights, it will create a lack of separation between the background and the product.

Mistake #3: The product looks like it’s floating

If you don’t add shadows to the pictures, the subject will look like it’s floating, which can make your images look fake. The best hack for this is using a reflective surface or editing shadows in during post-production.

Mistake #4: Overexposed backgrounds

If you overexpose a shot in white background photography, the backdrop will cause a white glow around the subjects, creating a distracting sun flare effect.

Bottom Line

White background photography is an essential skill for promoting your products online, giving you extensive customization options and ensuring compliance with many of the top online marketplaces. Luckily, it’s also easy to do it yourself, particularly with today’s advanced editing tools, which automate the trickiest steps of the process.

What is DTC – Direct To Consumer Marketing?

d2c marketing

Direct to consumer marketing allows shop owners to directly engage with a consumer base without the need for traditional brick and mortar partnerships. Per BigCommerce, “Direct to consumer means you are selling your product directly to your customers without third-party retailers, wholesalers, or other middlemen”. Before the direct to consumer model was introduced, brands both big and small had to rely on getting the ideal shelf space in stores like Walmart, Target, local supermarkets, etc. Think about when you go to these brick and mortar stores now. The most popular brands are usually placed within eye level, hence, making it easier for these brands to attract more ‘eyeballs’ and ultimately sales. With this shift toward DTC marketing, the “eyeballs” you attract to your website is key to your customer growth, as is the customer journey once you bring them there. Small-to-medium businesses can now command “eyeballs” or impressions via digital marketing instead. Thus enabling a global audience for upcoming brands out of the gate.

Furthermore, DTC – Direct to consumer marketing is a key topic as businesses pivot to capitalize on new trends. Statistica has reported that the number of people involved in direct selling in the US has increased over 3X from 2010 to 2020. This means that people are opening digital storefronts on platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce, WordPress, Square and others at record numbers. More on how to increase ecommerce sales in our blog where we showcase some of the more popular D2C customer marketing platforms. For the purposes of this guide we refer to the direct to consumer model interchangeably using the acronyms DTC and D2C marketing. It’s important to note that both of these terms are used widely.

D2C Marketing Model How-To-Guide

  1. The first step to D2C marketing is to know your audience! 
    • Use tools that are available to you to get to know more about  your audience. Tap external resources like Statista.com to learn more about your vertical or line of business
    • Narrow down your competitive set and see what they are publishing in web content and social channels
  2. Launch a D2C website. Check some options in our blog.
  3. Keyword specific
    • Ensure that the content you are publishing is keyword specific to your vertical and reflects the terms people are searching for
  4. Social Media & YouTube Content
    • Hire an experienced social media strategist and content marketing strategist to help you create relevant content for your line of business. There are plenty of freelancer options available on websites like fiverr.com and upwork.com.
    • If you are creating D2C content on your own, tap resources such as free stock imagery to help smooth the process on sites like istockphoto.com.
    • Launch a cohesive marketing campaign across all relevant social media channels inclusive of Facebook, Instagram, twitter and TikTok
  5. Optimize website and social media imagery with a AI photo retouch platform

Direct to Consumer Model Using an AI Photo Retouch Service

Ensuring that your direct to consumer business model is posed for success means that the photography used throughout your website, social and marketing materials needs to convey your value-proposition clearly. If your DTC business is selling clothing, then the imagery presented should be free of distractions, distortions and use the Ghost Mannequin effect.

autoRetouch has automated the Ghost Mannequin process to make product retouching easier and more efficient for small to medium business owners who are usually working with tight budgets. At just €0.50 per image and with a pay-as-you-go model, autoRetouch is a flexible option for business owners.

Try autoRetouch for free today.

What is a Ghost Mannequin and Why Should You Care

invisible mannequin photograph

Ghost mannequin photography, also known as the “invisible mannequin,” “3D mannequin,” or “hollow man,” enables clothing product photography to adhere to ecommerce product photography best practices. Ghost mannequin photography allows for fashion product photography to highlight the best features in garments and accessories by showcasing the different angles of the product or garment. Consumers want to view how fashion products will look while being worn, hence, using flat or folded product images don’t provide the necessary level of detail to “sell product”. The ghost mannequin photoshoot requires a specific set-up to get the most of the invisible mannequin photography shoot. In this post, we highlight what ghost mannequin photography actually is and how to employ the process using an AI photo enhancement process. 

Essentially, invisible mannequin photography is a combination of two or more images—also known as a “composite image.” The first photo is taken using a model or mannequin. The accompanying images are flat views of any part of the interior of the garment that was blocked by the model or mannequin, often shot on a white foam board. Tapping the mannequin effect is a cost-efficient way to produce brilliant fashion product photography without breaking the bank. In this blog, we highlight how to get the most of your mannequin photoshoot and post-production processing inclusive of the AI bulk photo editing features found on autoRetouch. The result is a lifelike image that keeps the focus firmly on your fashion product without distractions that can deter ecommerce sales.

Invisible Mannequin Photography Shoot Set-Up Guide

The materials needed for the invisible mannequin photography shoot include the following:

  1. A on-body model or any modular mannequin – with removable chest and arms – can be used for getting invisible product shots by removing pieces individually 
  2. Camera
  3. LED studio lighting (one for each side of the product or garment)
  4. Two light reflectors or umbrellas
  5. White foam board or white backdrops
  6. Styling tools such as clips, pins, double-sided tape to help the clothes fit more tightly
  7. Products inclusive of unwrinkled garments

Start by taking a product photograph of the fashion garment on the mannequin or model in differing angles such as front, back and profile.

Next, take pictures of the underside of the garments or product images.

Pro Tip:

Use a static pose if you are using a live model. Models should be styled minimally (i.e. no jewelry, etc.), and long hair should be tied up.

Best practices for the mannequin photoshoot dictate that you create high quality photographs in a studio setting.  Professional grade cameras and specialized lighting techniques using reflectors, along with  garment fit are all key components needed for a flawless finish. 

Photographing a product from an angle that is either too high or too low may cause the garment to look tapered and inaccurate. When photographing blouses, jackets or tops, it’s important to photograph at chest level.

How To Create a 3D Product Image With An Invisible Mannequin

To create a 3D image with the invisible mannequin technique, you will need to employ all the images that were taken with the garment from varying angles. This means that the mannequin or live model employing a static pose, will be photographed from at least two different poses. After that, you should style and hang your product on a piece of white foam board and photograph both the front, back and varying views again; these foam board shots will allow you to detail the inner areas of the garments such as liner, stitching, etc.

It’s imperative to ensure that the exact same lighting settings are used for both the mannequin/model shots and the foam board shots. You can do this by marking the mannequin’s or live model’s location and placing the white foam board in exactly the same spot and at the same height. 

After the photoshoot, you will need to open the mannequin image and the foam board image in your post-production processing software tool such as Photoshop or autoRetouch. Select your model or mannequin image and remove the background. Fill that layer in with a uniform color such as white. 

Once you have selected the entire product, refine your product image so that you have eliminated all of the background and mannequin out of the photo. You should see your product floating freely on the white background. If necessary, refine the product’s edges to ensure a polished and finished look.

autoRetouch’s photo bulk editing workflows are compatible with layered photoshop files. In fact, you can export all of your edits as layers in a PSD file and include auto-generated masks and vector paths to easily continue editing. This AI image editing workflow enables you to easily compare your edits to the original image and switch between the two with both images included in the exported result. Additional workflows are also available for fashion product photography such as Fabric Swatch extraction. On average, it takes only five seconds to fully retouch an image on the platform. 

Try autoRetouch for free today.

How To Launch An Online Business

how to launch an online store

Launching an online business can seem daunting. However, launching an ecommerce business is one of the most profitable things you can do since there is a big push to ecommerce post Covid-19 pandemic. Furthermore, promoting your online business during key sales time can increase your business revenue potential. With consumers flocking to online stores to research and buy goods online, online businesses have had to quickly pivot toward a direct-to-consumer model (D2C). Moreover, competition in the digital marketplace has also increased exponentially. In fact, emarketer has reported that worldwide ecommerce will approach $5 trillion this year. 

In this post, we highlight how to launch an online business in order to maximize ROI on digital marketplace storefronts like Shopify and Amazon.

Learn How-to-Launch An Online Store in These Easy Steps:

Promote Early & Often

  • Create a marketing calendar that includes promotional content pre launch, during, and post sale period.
  • Tap your customer base with email marketing pre launch. Conversely, tease promotions across social channels. If available, use a paid media budget to further amplify your advertising to select audience types.
  • Call out specific sale items and specials in text copy throughout the campaign including during sale period. For example, “Today I get 30% off home furnishings” or “Tomorrow buy one get one”.
  • Create a sense of urgency, by announcing sale end dates throughout copy rotation.
  • Lastly, create a sort of “encore” promotion announcing a “last call” on special promotion post initial sale date’s end.

How to Launch an eCommerce Business | Marketing Mix

  • Capture the attention of your audience across all owned channels 
  • Channel examples include the following:
    • Email marketing 
    • Social media
    • Owned website banner promotion
    • Influencer initiatives through social media and/or YouTube
    • Paid search
    • Paid social
    • Google Shopping (if applicable)
  • Enhance product photography 
    • A picture is worth a thousand words, and ensuring that product imagery is optimized will support your bottom line incredibly.
    • Shopify product shots should be well lit and free of background distractions. Check out these Ghost Mannequin examples.
    • Employing text overlay on product imagery may entice more people to click on the product page especially within a web banner environment.
    • Use a mix of product photography and lifestyle imagery throughout owned channels like social media.

With online shopping behavior increasing, Shopify business owners are steadily looking for ways to increase ROI. A steady cadence of online promotions ensures that you are providing your customers with content that is value-added and engaging.

Furthermore, having a solid promotional strategy to enhance online sales takes a little bit of practice, patience and research. Promotional content that is clear, concise and includes great product imagery will help increase sales over time. A marketing strategy equipped with pre launch and post promotional elements across key channels will ensure you are reaching your intended audience.

autoRetouch specializes in optimizing Shopify and Amazon Seller Marketplace product imagery with its automated image enhancing workflows. From ghost mannequin to removing the background, autoRetouch makes it easy and efficient to level up Shopify product images for more sales during key holiday sales periods like Black Friday, Back to School, and Christmas. autoRetouch is a trusted Google partner and compatible with Adobe Photoshop. In fact, online image enhancement with autoRetouch can be done with layered PSD files in seconds.

Try autoRetouch for free today.

Fall Fashion Photo Retouching Services

fashion photo editor

An experienced Fall fashion photo retouching service provider can transform standard fashion images into high quality, eye-catching visuals that will spark inspiration – and engagement – with your online community. The Fall fashion season is a time of renewal. Designers, shop owners and fashion mavens alike relish in the energy that transitioning from Summer to Fall fashion brings. Consumers are inspired by this inspirational and pivotal moment and take the opportunity to update their personal aesthetic and their homes. Fall fashion photo retouching services online can capitalize on this seasonal moment with the appropriate image enhancing workflows in place. When considering tapping a photo clothes editor online,  two key image enhancement techniques come to mind.  The two Fall fashion photo editing workflows  that we recommend are Light Adjustments and Color Adjustments. Using these techniques to enhance fashion product imagery helps create the necessary tone needed to convey the ‘Fall Fashion’ look and feel. Afterall, fashion is a very seasonal business, and the content should reflect that. In this piece, we explore how to tap a fashion clothes editor online like autoRetouch to bring the best out of your product shots. That way, you are empowered to create an inspirational customer experience across your website and social channels through beautifully optimized seasonal product imagery.

Fall Fashion Product Images Using Light Adjustments

Light adjustments are key to brighten and enhance Fall fashion product imagery so that the focal point of the photo can stand out. By heightening the exposure and the contrast slightly, you can enhance the richness in the colors to make them pop. Fall fashion typically mirrors the robust colors of the harvest season. The harvest color themes and textures can be enhanced further using contrasting techniques with a photo clothes editor online app like autoRetouch. Furthermore, decreasing the shadows allows for the Fall fashion product image to have a bolder look and feel. When doing this, be sure to adjust the black color in the product image to avoid any harshness.

Fall Fashion Product Images Using Color Adjustments 

For Autumn images, adjusting the yellows, oranges, greens and reds in product photography contributes to achieving a Fall seasonal look in the clothes and accessories. Adjusting the hue, saturation and luminance of each color enables you to create the Autumn Fashion tone reflective of the harvest color theme. Fashion photo retouching services online can complete this editing using artificial intelligence for bulk image enhancements.

Fashion Photo Editor With Bulk Editing Features

autoRetouch’s artificial intelligence SaaS platform has the ability to optimize hundreds of images in bulk only needing seconds to complete using these workflows:

1. Add Padding & Align Subject

Create a buffer between your images and other content. That way, the product image is not so close to other website content such as text copy. No need to use the HTML editor for updating padding on autoRetouch.

2. Retouch Skin

Remove skin discolorations and inconsistencies while ensuring that product photography models look ‘human’ and not overly ‘photoshopped’. The retouch skin option enables you to smooth skin and discoloration, remove moles or other unsightly skin inconsistencies like acne. Hence, creating a model void of distractions while maintaining a natural look.

3. Vector Paths

The beauty of vector paths is that they are scalable and unlike pixels, can be enlarged with no loss of quality. A path is a line that appears when you ‘draw’, usually in Illustrator. It’s made up of a series of points which are known as anchor points. At each end of the path, the anchor point has control handles which allow you to control the direction of the path. autoRetouch’s AI-enhanced SaaS platform for image enhancement, enables vector paths to be optimized in bulk. Therefore, allowing for hundreds of product images to be updated almost instantaneously.

Fashion is a seasonal business reliant on trends, culture and art. Optimizing your Autumn fashion product images has the ability to enhance the customer experience and increase sales for your ecommerce storefront. Tapping autoRetouch’s AI powered bulk image enhancing tools will save you time and money. The platform employs a pay-as-you-go model and not expensive subscription pricing like many other options. 

Try autoRetouch for free today.

How to Sell Clothes Online Using a Reselling App

We’ve created this ‘How To Sell Clothes Online Using A Reselling App’ guide to help entrepreneurs up level their ecommerce business in short easy steps. The reselling – or  upcycling business as it is also referred to – has seen a boom with more people buying, selling and trading previously owned items online. In fact, Vogue Magazine called upcycling “the biggest trend in fashion…from Balenciaga to Miu Miu, creating new clothes out of old materials is finally being embraced by major luxury brands” wrote Vogue UK Fashion Editor Emily Chan recently. You can be successful selling clothes online due to the increased interest in upcycling over the last two years. In fact, this trend is fueled by consumer behavior demanding more fashion-forward sustainable options. Furthermore, reselling app marketplaces empower digital shop owners enabling them to make incremental income from home or anywhere. In addition to this shift in behavior, the pandemic brought to light just how important supply chain, sourcing materials and sustainable production practices are. Moreover, consumers are actively seeking out upcycling fashion finds online. In addition, traditional brick and mortar stores have had to pivot toward a digital-first and direct-to-consumer model (D2C) to meet this demand over the last year. Listed below are tried and true best practices to employ when considering how to sell clothes online using a reseller marketplace app. We’ve also highlighted helpful information as it relates to the most popular reselling apps on the market right now and the unique features that they offer.

How To Be Successful Selling Clothes Online

The first step when considering how to be successful selling clothes online is simple. Take great product shots on the reselling app of your digital storefront! Optimized product photography is critical to the success of your online business. Ensure that all product imagery is clean, uncluttered and has a uniform look and feel. Fashion reselling app storefronts can easily lack a polished look. When images are haphazardly uploaded with bad lighting etc., potential customers notice.  High bounce rates, low click through rates and minuscule conversion rates are not success metrics. In order to be successful selling clothes online your product imagery needs to indicate through high-quality visuals, the clear value-proposition offered with the potential sale.

Reselling Apps: Product Photography Best Practices

  1. Remove backgrounds that are distracting and cluttered
  2. Ensure that all images in your storefront have some sort of consistency and uniformity 
  3. Shoot product photography images in well-lit places
  4. Include several angles of the product
  5. Showcase lifestyle imagery of the product (i.e., in a ‘real situational’ setting) but always. lead with a clear product shot
  6. Utilize the ghost mannequin feature on garments as needed
  7. Smooth skin with natural skin retouching
  8. Ensure that product page item descriptions are detailed and include items like brand name, color, size, and category

How To Sell on Poshmark and Other Fashion Reselling Apps

Launching your reseller app marketplace online is easy. Several reseller apps focusing on direct-to-consumer have made it turnkey for resellers to create their optimized digital storefront with ease. Please see our hand-picked favorite turnkey fashion reseller apps listed below. We like these because of their targeted market saturation and popularity, ease of use and efficient workflows. Each of these options is slightly different and caters to a specific audience. Depending on how you plan on marketing your vintage goods, you may even consider creating several storefronts across one or multiple fashion reseller apps.

How To Sell on Poshmark

Poshmark has been around a little bit longer than some of the other popular reseller apps and caters to a more mature audience target (i.e., millennials). Pre-loved fashion items and accessories inclusive of high-ticket luxury garments, shoes and accessories account for a substantial amount of Poshmark transactions. Items in your fashion marketplace will populate on search engine results so ensuring that your text copy is search engine friendly is key. For all sales under $15, Poshmark takes a flat commission of $2.95. You keep the rest. For sales of $15 or more, you keep 80% of your sale and Poshmark’s commission is 20%. The community-focused functionality of Poshmark enables sellers to host “parties” virtually to mingle with other community members, welcome new sellers, interact with listings with the end goal of creating a beloved eCommerce store.

How To Sell on Depop

Depop can be best described as the “Instagram of the fashion reseller market”. The website mission statement reads “Depop is the fashion marketplace app where the next generation comes to discover unique items. With a global community buying, selling and connecting to make fashion more inclusive, diverse and less wasteful. This is what transforming fashion looks like.” Depop’s reseller audience target is cool and unique and are typically Gen Z. Furthermore, Depop will charge a 10% fee on the total amount of your listing once it is sold, which includes shipping costs. The platform has partnered with PayPal to secure transactions.

How to Sell on The Real Real

The Real Real is the ultimate luxury fashion reseller app. As the name suggests, this fashion marketplace concentrates its efforts in reselling real and authentic luxury goods. Online sellers ship second-hand items to Real Real locations where items are authenticated, photographed, priced, processed, uploaded onto seller profiles by The Real Real associates. The Real Real also processes returns. With these added services, come increased fees when items are sold. The percentage of each order that it keeps as a percent of revenue, is 50% which is considerably higher than other consignment reseller app competitors in the market. There is also an option to directly sell your luxury goods to Real Real before an actual customer buys it from the digital shop.

How to Sell on Etsy

Then there is Etsy, the seller app for unique, hand-crafted and vintage goods. Etsy is the reseller marketplace known for diverse, one-of-a-kind fashion and art finds. Etsy charges $0.20 per listing and the listing will stay active for four months or until the item sells. A 5% transaction fee, 3% + $0.25 payment processing fee will be included as part of its commission once the item sells. Lastly, Etsy charges 15% for ‘Offsite Ads fee’ if an advertisement generates a sale. Etsy regularly includes paid media as part of their marketing strategy to get their item to sell.

autoRetouch makes it easy and quick to optimize product photography. It utilizes artificial intelligence to optimize ecommerce product imagery in seconds. Try the app for free today and launch your fashion digital storefront in minutes!

Guide to Ghost Mannequin Photography

Automate Your Ghost Mannequin Photography

Back in 2019, we began developing a way to fully automate the ghost mannequin editing process for our clients and began by focusing on pants and shorts. Now, we are excited to announce that our model has expanded to work with all clothing items inclusive of tops, outerwear, dresses, and even underwear! Perfecting ghost mannequin photography shoots no longer has to be a tedious process. In fact, our AI-driven ghost mannequin workflow has the ability to level up hundreds of images in an instant and can be exported as PSD Adobe Photoshop files. Creating a complementary autoRetouch workflow can enhance your ghost mannequin imagery and export into PSD layered files as needed.

A ghost mannequin (aka neck-joint, invisible mannequin, or hollow-man) is the name for an image editing technique that creates the illusion of a human body filling clothes. Until now, it’s been a purely manual, time-consuming, multi-step, and costly editing process. Listed below, we highlight how to create beautifully edited, seller marketplace-ready, fashion images in a fraction of the time.

Ghost Mannequin Product Photography Workflow

  1. Background is removed in product and inlay image
  2. Product and inlay images are manually combined
  3. Inlay seam is warped to add 3D effect
  4. Image depth is added with shadow effect

Turnkey Ghost Mannequin Photography Service Best Practices

  1. Start with a white or grey background to avoid color distractions
  2. Ensure that garment is free of wrinkles
  3. Ghost mannequin or model should be directly facing the camera
  4. Natural light streaming in at a right angle is great. Complement with ample flash and use white photography umbrellas as necessary to create even lighting throughout the image
  5. Style ghost mannequin or model as you would for any photoshoot ensuring that buttons are enclasped, collars are turned, and laces fall naturally
  6. Garment should be symmetrical as model or ghost mannequin should be standing evenly
  7. Make sure nothing is touching the featured garment’s fabric
  8. Capture the portion of the garment that was obscured by the mannequin such as inside collars, sleeves, in seam, etc.
    • Shoot in lay images by holding the clothing piece taut and straight
    • Only one piece of fabric should be visible, no overlapping
    • Enough fabric should be included to fill the fabric image

It is imperative to combine the two images in post-production in order to remove the mannequin and show more of the beautifully styled garment while maintaining its natural structure. Artificial intelligence can now be used to create a ghost mannequin image retouching workflow that is quick and affordable. Without the need of expensive talent model hiring, fashion photographers can use platforms like autoRetouch to expedite their fashion photography workflow and level up their product photography imagery.

With autoRetouch, you can try the ghost mannequin workflow for free today. Our flexible pricing options enable you to pay as you go and only pay for what you need. In addition, autoRetouch has the ability to export PSD layered files to complement your current workflow. The time to automate basic background removal and optimize your fashion photography workflow for more sales is now.

Are you ready to cut your image editing time in half? Learn more about AI-driven image background removal.

Optimizing Amazon Product Photography

product photography for ecommerce

Optimizing Amazon product photography is essential for ensuring that your marketplace imagery stands out. Oftentimes, it is the first item people will see on your storefront and the first brand touchpoint for your potential customers. Quality product photography for Amazon sellers is free of distractions and showcases items in their best light and image clarity. The more professional  the product images are, the more interest they generate in the form of clicks and sales from potential customers. Quality product images help build your storefront’s brand equity. Conversely, haphazardly edited product imagery that does not showcase product strengths will reflect poorly on your Amazon storefront and diminish consumer trust over time. In today’s fierce ecommerce marketplace, product imagery has to be scroll-stopping. Distracting background colors/patterns, reflections or watermarks run the risk of decreasing overall interest. 

The ideal photography for Amazon sellers highlights the product’s value proposition in a clear and concise manner. Thankfully, countless hours of manual cropping, background removal, and shadow adjusting to achieve these standards are no longer needed with AI-driven image retouching services. AI SaaS platforms like autoRetouch provide product photo retouching services at your fingertips and are easy to use. Adhering to the best practices below will help your product listings attract more clicks and potential buyers.

Photography for Amazon Sellers: Best Practices

  • Image pixel dimensions of at least 1000 or larger in either height or width preferred
  • File names must consist of the product identifier (Amazon ASIN, 13-digit ISBN, EAN, JAN, or UPC) followed by a period and the appropriate file extension (Example: B000123456.jpg or 0237425673485.tif)
  • Use product imagery against both white and lifestyle backgrounds
  • Backgrounds must be pure white (RGB 255,255,255)
  • Include people’s faces or cropped faces in the lifestyle pictures showing how the product works in action (autoRetouch has a face crop component if you prefer)<– are we telling them to show the face or crop it here?
  • The image must be in focus, professionally lit and photographed with realistic color and smooth edges
  • Highlight key functionality in product imagery (i.e. the volume a suitcase can hold)
  • The image must not contain additional text, graphics, or inset images

According to Amazon, products should fill 85% or more of the image frame. This promotes clarity and focus on the product itself. The sharper and more distinguishable the product image is, the higher the probability of engagements such as clicks and ultimately sales.

Product Photo Retouching Services

AI driven product photo retouching services can cut the time spent editing photos considerably. With a plethora of customizable photo retouching features, optimizing  your Amazon storefront is achievable in a few simple clicks. autoRetouch automates image editing and can be combined in the project workflow for bulk editing using the following features:

  • Background removal
  • Skin retouch
  • Ghost mannequin
  • Extract patch
  • Set on canvas (should we add more details of this component like: sizing, alignment, padding and background color?)
  • Extract color palette
  • Add ground shadows
  • Crop face
  • Edit file name
  • Export as a JPEG, PNG, or layered PSD file
  • Export vector paths and layer masks

autoRetouch’s product photo retouching services are inexpensive, efficient, easy-to-use and customizable. Choose from a wide variety of key features to bulk edit your Amazon product photography with a convenient pay-as-you-go option.

autoRetouch explained: Skin Retouch

image enhancement

Next to background removal, one of the most important image editing tasks for Fashion product images is retouching skin.

The human eye can discern the most minute details in a product image. In Fashion photography for e-commerce, this is particularly observable. Shoppers will make up their minds on an apparel product never based solely on the images of the product itself but also based on images that show a human model wearing it.

The overall appearance and as such the skin of the human model thus is an important part of any good fashion product image. Two of the most common skin retouching steps to move from raw photograph to e-commerce ready product image are: mole removal and airbrushing.

Until now, both of these tasks were tough to automate at scale.

It’s time for a paradigm shift. 

How does the Skin Retouch component work in autoRetouch?

The Skin Retouch component can be placed anywhere in an autoRetouch workflow. It can work together with other components, like Remove Background or Set on Canvas, but it also works standalone in a workflow.

The most important thing to note about this component is: it applies its effects and modifications, as the name suggests, only to skin.

First, any kind of visible human skin is selected; we call it segmented. This is done with outstanding precision. Nails, lips, nostrils, eyes, eyebrows, and beards are spared from this selection, so the effects only apply to actual areas of skin.

This is how autoRetouch “sees” skin. Note that fingernails, toenails and lips are not identified as part of the skin.
This is how autoRetouch “sees” skin. Note that fingernail, lips, teeth, ears, eyebrows, eyes, necklace and other accessories on the body are not identified as skin. Also, when hair touches the skin, it’s not “seen” as skin.

The component has two settings:

  1. Mole Removal – When switched on, dark skin moles will be detected in the skin area and replaced with skin that matches the surroundings. Think “Spot Healing” in other image editing tools, but on steroids. Good to know: freckles are not moles and will thus not be removed.
  2. Airbrush skin – On the identified skin area, a professional airbrushing is applied. To accomplish this in an image editing tool you would invert the image and apply a Highpass and Gaussian filter to it, paint with a brush over the skin and fade it out towards the edges. The skin retouch component works in a similar way. The result is a gentle airbrushing that removes skin imperfections but at the same time leaves skin pores visible, for a natural yet polished look. You can determine the intensity of this effect with the slider.
The skin retouch component removes moles and airbrushes the skin professionally.

What makes the autoRetouch ‘Skin Retouch’ component special?

Our service is designed around the concept of workflows. In a workflow, you chain up components, each representing an automated version of various otherwise manual retouching steps.

That means our Skin Retouch component, often is just one part of an automated image processing workflow that accomplishes various image editing tasks at once.

In a workflow where retouching skin is your primary objective, you will also incorporate automated background removal with our Remove Background component and can further automate additional image editing work, such as the application of ground shadows with our Add Ground Shadows component.

The biggest impact when moving from manual image editing to automated image processing with autoRetouch is the amount of time you save: think seconds, not minutes per image.

This becomes especially powerful when you also leverage autoRetouch’s bulk-processing capabilities (currently up to 100 images per workflow) in order to retouch many images at once. 

The Takeaway

Today’s online fashion retail environment is all about user experience.

To satisfy the human eye, impeccable skin is an important aspect of the overall product image aesthetic and as such must be taken seriously.

Optimization starts with the willingness to try something new. So, kick off your skin retouch automation journey with autoRetouch workflows today.

You can try the service for free with up to 10 images by creating an autoRetouch account. 

autoRetouch explained: Set on Canvas

automatic pic editor

Next to the background removal, the ability to create and change a master canvas easily is important in any Fashion product image retouching operation.

A modern e-commerce product image has various attributes that need to be defined. This is particularly true when you’re looking to sell the product across multiple channels. Most important among these attributes are the pixel dimensions, padding, the alignment of the product, and the background of the image.

Defining these attributes is simple and can be done quickly for a single image. As soon as more than just a few images need to be adjusted across various dimensions however, the task becomes daunting.

It’s time for a paradigm shift. 

How does the Set on Canvas component work in autoRetouch?

The Set on Canvas component can be placed anywhere in an autoRetouch workflow.

It can work together with other components, like Remove Background or Skin Retouch, but it also works standalone in a workflow in case you simply want to adjust multiple attributes of already retouched images quickly in bulk.

The component allows you to define the following image attributes:

Padding

With this feature, you can determine the padding space between the main figure in your images after it has been separated from an original background and the corners of the canvas.

Size

With this feature, you can set the canvas size (= image size) for your output images.

Alignment

With this feature, you can freely determine the position of a figure in the canvas space after it has been separated from an original background. The figure can be re-positioned both along the horizontal and vertical axis in the image.

Background

With this feature, you can easily set a new background for your image. You can choose either just a color as the background or easily upload your own background images in JPEG, PNG, or TIFF format. Please note, when you upload a background image, this will determine the final size of the canvas.

What makes the autoRetouch ‘Set on Canvas’ component special?

Our service is designed around the concept of workflows. In a workflow, you chain up components, each representing an automated version of various otherwise manual retouching steps.

That means our Set on Canvas component, will often be just one part of an automated image processing workflow that accomplishes various image editing tasks at once.

In a workflow where changing dimensions or attributes of an image is your primary objective, you may also incorporate automated background removal with our Remove Background component for example.

The biggest impact when moving from manual image editing to automated image processing with autoRetouch is the amount of time you save: think seconds, not minutes per image.

This becomes especially powerful when you also leverage autoRetouch’s bulk-processing capabilities. (currently up to 100 images per workflow)

The Takeaway

The online fashion retail environment is diverse. Creating a product image with certain specific image attributes once often isn’t enough. Today you need to sell the same product across the variety of marketplaces and other commerce avenues.

Automating the retouching process from end-to-end thus brings many advantages. Especially when it comes to administrating and scaling your product distribution, the reduction in administrative overhead by leveraging the Set on Canvas component in an autoRetouch workflow is a high ROI opportunity.

Optimization starts with the willingness to try something new. So, kick off your automation journey with autoRetouch workflows today. You can try the service for free with up to 10 images by creating an autoRetouch account.