How to photograph beauty product sets
Cosmetics product photography for webshop and social media.
In this tutorial, our photography experts Matt Brasier and Floriane Jacqueneau show you how to shoot boxed beauty product sets for your webshop and your social media profiles.
You’ll learn how to perfectly showcase cosmetics for e-commerce with three different shots that appeal to and inform your audience. For social media, Floriane has some great tips on how to style your beauty products in a creative way.
In this tutorial we cover the following:
- Finding the perfect light and exposure for your cosmetics packshots
- Creating three different shots for your e-commerce store
- An establishing shot
- An angled shot to show the product in scale
- A composition shot of your products
- Shooting creative imagery of your beauty products for social media
You will need:
- A product package
- A set for the shoot, with the right lights and cameras
- Optional: appealing surfaces to place your products on
Create an establishing shot of the product set
You’ll want to get a clear, frontal shot of your product package so that your customers can make an informed buying decision. It’s important to watch out for any reflections on the cover of the product, for example, if the package is wrapped in plastic. To work around reflections, make sure that not too much direct light is hitting the package. By bouncing the light off a white surface, your customers are able to see what’s inside the package without any distracting reflections.
Create an angled shot of the box
To show the depth of the product and for your customers to understand how big it is, create an angled shot of the box. Reduce the light on the side that’s facing the camera. You can work with softer light here for optimal effects. Add a luxurious, more expensive touch and feel to your cosmetics by positioning them on a reflective surface.
Compose a shot with all your products
Show your customers the variety of beauty products inside the package by creating an appealing composition of them. Play around with different positions but make sure that the products don’t overlap too much.
You can also work with perspective here. Put smaller products, like soap packages, a bit more to the front and bigger ones, like shower gel or bath foam, more towards the back.
Light your products correctly
When working with shiny beauty products, make sure to choose the right highlight, for example, the silhouette of a shampoo bottle. Take in the light from both sides and reduce the background lighting to not lose any details of the products. Lastly, check your exposure and balance the colors to ensure that they are neither too bright nor too dark.
Finalize your shoot with a shot for social media
To get a more creative shot of your beauty products for social media, you can work with an interesting (homemade) background, for example, by sticking marble foil on cardboard.
Arrange your cosmetics in a different shape as you go for a different purpose with this image. Keep the aspect ratio in mind. For e-commerce, content is often shot in 2:3 aspect ratio. For social media 1:1 or 2:3 is optimal. Again, check your exposure, then zoom in to see whether everything is sharp and make sure the reflections look appealing. If you choose the light to hit your products only from one side, as if the light came from a window, you create a more natural look.
In summary:
You can shoot appealing imagery for your cosmetics product sets by:
- Taking an establishing, frontal shot
- Showing your product from an angle
- Creating a composition of the products within the box
- Channeling your creativity for social media