Why white
A white background removes distractions, makes listings look consistent in search results and lets the marketplace place your product on its own page design. Several marketplaces require it for the main image. Amazon is the best known: as commonly reported, its main image must be on pure white, RGB 255, 255, 255, with the product filling about 85% of the frame and nothing in the picture except the product being sold. eBay recommends white as generally best and asks for images at least 500 pixels on the longest side, with about 1,600 recommended. We could not confirm every figure on the marketplaces' own pages (Amazon's requires a seller sign-in), so check your marketplace's current seller help before you shoot a whole range.
Shooting at home
- Light: a large window with indirect daylight is the best free light there is. Put the product side-on to it and use a white card on the other side to fill the shadows.
- Surface: a sheet of paper or card curved up a wall (a "sweep") avoids a horizon line. The background colour does not have to be white, because the tool replaces it; what matters is contrast with the product.
- Camera: use the phone's main camera, not the ultra-wide, about a metre away, slightly zoomed in, so the product is not distorted. Lock focus on the product.
- Consistency: shoot every product from the same angle and distance, so your listings line up.
Cutting out and framing
Load the photo into the product photo preset. It runs the object model, which finds the most prominent thing in the frame, and places it on a pure white (RGB 255, 255, 255) square. The Subject fills slider sets how much of the square the product's longer side takes (85% by default), and the product is centred automatically. Clean up any edge with the brush: handles, straps and transparent parts such as glass are the usual suspects. Tick Drop shadow for a soft contact shadow if your marketplace allows it; Amazon's main image guidance is commonly read as allowing natural shadows but not props.
Sizes and formats
- Size: 2,000 × 2,000 px is a safe default for most marketplaces; it gives zoom room and meets every minimum we found.
- Format: JPG for listings. A white background needs no transparency, and JPG files are smaller.
- File size: keep under the marketplace's limit (eBay's is commonly quoted as 12 MB). A 2,000 px JPG is usually well under 1 MB.
Common mistakes
- An off-white background (RGB 248, 248, 248, say). It looks white, but strict checks fail it. Use the pure white swatch.
- The product too small in the frame. Raise the fill.
- Props, text or watermarks on the main image. Save those for secondary images.
- A colour cast from warm indoor lighting. Shoot in daylight or correct the white balance first.
Secondary images
The white main image gets the click; the other images make the sale. Use them for what the main image cannot show: the product in use, scale against a hand or a familiar object, close-ups of texture and stitching, the back and the label, what is in the box. These can have backgrounds, so the background remover's other options are useful here too: blur the original for a lifestyle look, or place the cut-out on a coloured background that matches your brand. Keep the same lighting and angle across products so a shopper browsing your store sees a consistent set.
Doing a catalogue
With HD & batch you can drop up to 50 product photos at once; each is processed with the same settings, you can touch up any of them, and download the lot as a ZIP. Nothing is uploaded, so there is no queue and no per-image fee.