How to get your product pictures ready to be featured

Having your products featured in a magazine is every handcrafter’s dream. The attention this feature gets will have you on a platform and you will be known in the handcrafter community as well as in the community of niche-specific buyers. Ding, ding, ding!
Follow our tips and don’t miss out on the great opportunity to have your products featured and increase your brand-awareness!

• Picture quality. You could take an award-winning picture, if it is low-resolution, the magazine cannot use it. In order for an image to look good in print, it has to be of good quality. Make sure you set your camera/phone to top quality and save the images in the highest resolution. (1000×1000 pixels)
• Just because you can’t afford a professional photographer, that doesn’t automatically mean you need to give up. You can take great shots yourself, (smartphones nowadays offer amazing camera!) it’s all about the right lighting and a great background, so practice and you will soon develop an eye for the right angle and for capturing the mood of your product.
• You cannot guess the magazine editor’s taste, so the best thing you can do is prepare multiple images in a diversity of arrangements, from various angles. Take pictures of a single product and take pictures of more products next to each other. It only takes one good shot and you are in!
• You need to be familiar with the terminology of magazine images. So first and foremost, there is the cut out , that is a product picture with a white background. Make sure the white is really white (even on the computer screen) and that the details are visible- quality pictures go a long way.
• Flatshot, as the name suggests, is a flat shot. Arrange your product on a white background on the table/bed/floor, stand up or get on the chair and take an overhead shot. Make sure there are no shadows and the outline of your elbow is not visible anywhere ? This is best done in the morning, with natural light, so next to a window should be just fine.
• Lifestyle shot is not always the editor’s favourite but there are some magazines who specialise in this. Lifestyle should reflect the natural environment of the product, so if your product is handmade soap, you could take a picture of the soap against a colored bathroom tile, and you could include fragments of a towel, maybe soap bubbles, water drips, sand, children’s toys, etc. If your products are scarves, you could arrange them in a nice flowy pattern next to a lipstick and some earrings. Or use a very simplistic approach and show one folded scarf against a contrasting color background. So whatever it is that goes well with the mood of your product, that is what you need to use for this shot. Be careful not to overcrowd the image with too many items and make sure your product is the star of the image (even if it’s not centered) and the other items just compliment it rather than overwhelm the atmosphere.
• Simplicity goes a long way. Your effort of presenting your product in the best possible way should not be directly proportionate with the number of items you use in the picture. There is no need to show all your products in one shot, rather choose 2 or 3 and arrange them in a way that is pleasing to look at but shows details as well. Remember, sometimes less is more, and the harder you try, the less professional it will look so instead, let your products speak for themselves.