3 Good Practices for Organizing Your Pictures Production

Questions to ask yourself before setting up a in-house photo studio up to the production of targeted visuals: here are the 3 best practices for organizing it.

Best Practice #1 — Scheduling

Planning ahead to set up an agenda for planning your shots is a good practice that you should follow. This will help you shoot and edit the images efficiently and cost-effectively.

When planning next week or month's production, here are the questions that deserve an answer:

How many products will need to be photographed and what views do you need?
Where are the required product information (product numbers, unit characteristics)?
Where are the products located and when do you need the products in the studio?
How much preparation is required to photograph products?
Are there product inventory constraints?
How will the products be delivered to the studio then returned to inventory?
What human input is needed for studio shots?
What are my publishing needs? what formats? what characteristics?

Best Practice #2 — Optimizing Production

How to optimize image production to reduce overall costs? How to quickly obtain an image pipeline adapted to the needs of sales and marketing teams and meet the specific needs or requests of demanding user groups?

Here it is 4 rules to optimize production:

Train your photographers to make them experienced product photographers: product photography is a specific skill. You need a foundation and, above all, experience to learn and become more productive.

Train assistants experienced photographers: the assistant photographer plays a key role in the organization and production process of the in-house photo studio. It's easy to fall into the trap and underestimate his help: he organizes and has an eye for detail to ensure quality delivery.

Group products according to their similarities: the separation of products and the constitution of batches/groups is one of the missions of the photographer & assistant team. These groupings of products with similar characteristics make it possible to minimize adjustments between shots.
Use workflow software. Product photography involves a lot of repetitive tasks: entering product numbers, naming images and image views, reporting to product numbers, tracking shots to find out which products have been photographed and which have not yet been photographed, uploading images to centralized servers for image editing. Automating these tasks with good workflow software makes it possible to double the production of images per day.

Best Practice #3 — Creating images for all user needs

If you have multiple user groups requesting photos for the same products, it's likely that each group has different image needs.

For example, some will want images with natural shadows or images with a white background.

The aim is to capture all images of products for all user groups all at once when the product is in the studio. You will only be able to achieve this goal when you have gathered information about the image needs of all these user groups.

Here are the 5 questions to ask different user groups :

Of which waistline image do you need? Note the maximum image size that each group requires, the height, and the width in pixels. You can then set up your photo studio to capture images at the resolution that meets these needs.
Of which Type of image background do you need? Note the background requirements for each group: white background, colored background, natural or artificial shadows. The background has an impact on the shooting, on the configuration of the lights so that shadows are eliminated, or on the contrary, for natural shadows, that they cast shadows on the products.
How do you want it to appear your products in the images ? Note how user groups want products to be displayed in images. For example, e-commerce may require that the package be included in the image, along with all the parts that make up the products; while others will simply need an image.
Of What views of the image do you need? Create a list of image views by product for each user group. Make a list of all image viewpoints required for each product and upload this list to your workflow software. The photographer will now have the information needed to capture all the image views required for each product that is delivered to the studio.
Do you need to send images to external partners ? Do user groups need to format and send specific product images for outdoor use? Retailers in particular may have special requirements. Industry-specific standards or uses may govern image production: for example, image specifications (100% white background, no shadows), how they should be formatted (tiff, 300dpi, 1500 x 1500 pixels, RGB), how they should be named (product number '_' of image view), and how they should be distributed (FTP).

The in-house photo solution

There you go, you have planned your production needs, prepared your studio and the resources necessary for its implementation, defined in detail what you are going to deliver.

But know that even with an in-house photo studio, you're not alone. Support, support, services and training solutions PackshotCreator allow you to launch your visual communication internally and to integrate best practices.

Find the first valuable tips in our white paper “E-commerce photos: the golden rules of profitability”.