As a creative photo retouching agency built on the talents of an experienced yet refreshing team of photographers, here at Paper Boat Creative, we deal with a large volume of client requests, deliver world-class quality output, and continue to push the envelope in the photo retouching industry.
This is because we understand how every product photo for an eCommerce website, for instance, can spell the difference between a potential customer’s successful click and a lost opportunity.
When it comes to eCommerce shopping, customers have all the options in the online world, but a brand can make the shopping experience unique for potential buyers. Using unique, high-quality photos that appeal to your audience is one of the keys that help make for a compelling online browsing experience.
How to Create Uniform Backgrounds for a Photoshoot?
A very common request is for us to edit a few hundred files for the same brand. It’s virtually impossible in a photo shoot to have the background identical in every single shot. After all, many factors come into play that make achieving background consistency challenging.
In most settings, models walk in and out of the frame, while the light can be adjusted to match the clothes and model. As they walk in and out, however, the floor will also collect some dirt or scratches. The background may also have waves of being darker or lighter. Sometimes, it can even reflect the color of the clothes that the model is wearing.
So, how do we make everything look identical?
This tutorial will show you how we make the background uniform for a single photo. Once you are familiar with execution, this same process is repeated on every single image for full consistency, so it will take some time before it becomes muscle memory. As it is with one’s craft, “Practice makes perfect.”
Here’s a fashion eCommerce picture of a model. When shooting, it’s almost impossible to get the desired color for the background, which needs to be #e6e6e6.
Step #1: Identify What Needs to Be Fixed in the Photo
So, first, the photography has to be a little bit soft in order for all the items to be properly photographed.
In this photo, the main problems are:
- Background is wrong
- There’s a little bit of stray hairs on the model
- Shadows are too harsh
Here are the things that need to be changed, removed, or adjusted:
Harsh Shadows
Stray Hairs
Background Clutter
Wrong Background Color
Step #2: Cutout the Subject
So, in fixing the background, we first cutout the whole model to get our desired background:
Step #3: Change and Adjust the Background Color
Use the hex code for background color:
Step #4: Create Shadows for Visual Depth
Add shadows using channels extracting shadow from its original layer, which then makes it subtle and pure black:
Step #5: Review the Photo for Any Additional Retouches
And here’s the final output once these changes have been made:
Step #6: Creating a Photo Set with the Same Background
Once satisfied with the final output, place your selected product photos next to each other and repeat the process to make it fairly consistent alongside its partner pics:
The Basic Steps to Bulk Fashion Product Photo Retouching for eCommerce Businesses
Conclusively, retouching fashion product photos for eCommerce stores can be done quickly, effectively, and inexpensively – but why do it yourself when you can get a professional creative photo retouching agency to do it for you?
In this blog, we’ve shown you how the final output of a fashion shoot for an eCommerce store was done via bulk editing by making their backgrounds consistent for the whole shot. This included using gentle shadows, so it’s not empowering the models and the clothes. Stray hairs were also removed to make the photo appear cleaner and more presentable.
Before and After:
What do you think? Compared to the “Before” photo, the “After” photo looks so much better for a product shot, right? As an eCommerce store, the audience’s focus should be on the item, and in this case – thanks to a consistent background – we’ve done just that.
If you’d like your photos edited, please reach out to us, and we’ll get in touch right away. You can email us at [email protected] to find out more.
