Depicting Beauty Through E-Commerce
A How-To on Manipulating Beauty Products Through Still or Moving Image.
The world of beauty is highly competitive, with an ever-changing landscape that requires brands to stay sharp and create a large quantity of visual content to keep their overall audiences engaged. Creating top-performing visuals, whether photographs or motion, relies on the ability to showcase the product and the values and story of the brand in a way that’s both innovative and true. Thus, by shooting beauty products and color swatches correctly, customers are able to get to know the product and visualize the finished look, especially when talking about e-commerce.
At Slate we’re very well versed in product photography, after many years of working with leading brands in the beauty industry and portraying all kinds of products, from perfumes to lipsticks, with the appropriate techniques that make it possible to highlight all their features. Read on for some of our photographer’s and art director’s ideas on photographing and filming beauty for e-commerce.
Considering the Background & the Lighting
Both background and lights are probably the most crucial elements to consider when shooting beauty products and the harder to fix in post-production. The color and texture of the background should complement (and not distract in any way) the product. A sleek and monochrome background is often what works best. When incorporating lights, they should be able to highlight the packaging, the textures, and the colors accurately by also being truthful to reality. If the product gets lost in the background or looks too flat, lights will also help highlight its volumes and emphasize its details.
Focusing on Texture
Beauty products are highly sensorial objects in our everyday lives. The customer should be able to visualize and almost feel how they’ll perceive and sense the product once they try it, and any brand’s contents should manage to showcase that. The best way to do that is to distribute the light correctly and ensure the swatch, drip, or dollop of product looks abundant and intentional.
Cleaning the Product
With the product being the focus of the image, it’s fundamental for it to look clean and glossy. To save time and avoid extra retouching later, wiping any fingerprints and excess product off the package and giving it a blow with an air can to remove residual dust is indispensable.
Capturing More Than the Product
A product image or video goes far beyond the product itself. It’s not just about the specific product but also about the brand and what it represents and stands for, and this should be thoroughly reflected in all of the brand’s visuals. Understanding the product and the brand is crucial and might mean changing the way the product is positioned in the frame, the chosen background, or the colors being highlighted. High-quality content can only be produced when knowing the product and the brand in depth, delivering e-commerce content that engages customers and keeps up with the industry’s changes.
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Slate Studios is a Creative Production Company focused on Advertising & Editorial services for the Fashion, Beauty, and Lifestyle Industries. Featuring in house art buying, studio, equipment, retouching & production capabilities, Slate Studios offers end to end digital content production across still & motion, streamlining projects of high complexity for our clients. With a focus on strategy, creativity, innovation, and quality, Slate Studios is proud to support digital content initiatives for the world’s leading names in the fashion, beauty, & lifestyle sectors.
