How to take product photos with your phone (that work for a 360° spin too)

Modern phones take excellent photos. What separates a homemade product photo from a professional one is rarely the camera: it's the light, the background and consistency. Get those right and your phone will do the rest.

This guide covers the setup, the shots to take, and how to shoot the front and back photos that Twurn turns into a 360° spin.

What you need

• Your phone. Any recent model will do.
• A window with indirect daylight, or two matching lamps.
• A plain background: a large sheet of white card or paper, curved up a wall so there's no visible corner (photographers call this a "sweep").
• Something to bounce light: a second sheet of white card or foam board.
• A phone tripod or a stack of books to hold the phone steady and in the same place.
• Tape, and a cloth to dust the product.

1. Get the light right

Light makes the biggest difference.

• Use soft, indirect light. Set up beside a window, out of direct sun. Overcast days are ideal. Direct sun makes harsh shadows and bright hot spots.
• Fill the shadows. Stand a white card on the side away from the window to bounce light back into the shadows.
• Turn off the room lights. Mixing daylight with warm bulbs gives you odd colour casts.
• Avoid the flash. It flattens the product and causes glare.
• Shoot all your products in the same light. Consistency across your catalogue looks professional, and it matters even more for a 360° spin.

2. Set up a clean background

Tape your sheet of card to the wall and let it curve down onto the table, then place the product on the flat part, a little way in front of the curve. The curve hides the line between wall and table, so the product looks like it's floating on clean white.

White is the classic choice, and some marketplaces require it, but any plain, light colour works well. Avoid busy backgrounds: they compete with the product.

3. Set up your phone

• Clean the lens. A fingerprint smudge is the most common cause of soft, hazy photos.
• Use the main camera and avoid digital zoom; move the phone closer instead. If your phone has a 2× or 3× lens, use it to reduce distortion on smaller products.
• Turn off portrait mode and filters. Portrait mode can blur the edges of the product.
• Tap to focus on the product, then slide the brightness down slightly if the white background is blowing out.
• Turn on the grid to keep the product straight and centred.
• Hold it still. Use a tripod or a book stack, and the timer, so the phone doesn't move as you tap.

4. Take the right shots

Shoppers want to see the whole product, the details and how it's used. A good set for most products:

1. Front, the hero shot.
2. Back.
3. Side or three-quarter angle.
4. Close-ups of materials, texture, labels and features.
5. In use or in scale: worn, held, or beside a familiar object, so shoppers can judge the size. Baymard Institute found that 42% of users try to gauge a product's size from its images.
6. What's in the box, if it comes with accessories.

5. Shooting front and back for a 360° spin

To make a spin with Twurn, you need just the front and the back photos, taken so they match. The more alike the two photos are, apart from the side of the product, the smoother the spin.

Front

Back

Front and back photos taken the same way make a smooth spin.

• Keep the phone in exactly the same place. Use the tripod. Don't move it between the two shots.
• Turn the product, not the phone. Take the front, then rotate the product a half turn on the spot, so its back faces the camera.
• Same height, same distance, same zoom. If you move the phone, the product changes size between photos.
• Straight on. Shoot from the front and from directly behind, not at an angle.
• Leave space around the product, with the whole product in frame.
• Same light for both. Shoot them one after the other, so the daylight doesn't change.

6. Light editing

A little editing goes a long way, and your phone's built-in editor is enough:

• Straighten and crop so the product is centred, with the same framing across your products.
• Adjust brightness and white balance so whites look white and colours match the real product.
• Don't over-edit. Colours that don't match the real product are a classic reason for returns. Accuracy beats polish.
• For a spin, edit the front and back photos the same way, or leave both unedited.

7. Before you upload

• Size: keep the full resolution your phone produces. Shopify accepts images up to 20 MB and 25 megapixels; WooCommerce recommends at least 800 × 800 pixels.
• File names: rename files to describe the product, such as black-leather-tote-front.jpg. Google recommends descriptive file names over names like IMG00023.JPG.
• Alt text: add a short description of each photo when you upload it. More in our guide to product image best practices.