Intro

A lot of creators use mockups to show off their products, especially if a project is being crowdfunded and isn’t a real physical object yet. But even after the book or games are complete, I do not commonly to see people promoting their work with product photography. And I totally understand, it takes time and effort, tools, and its a whole different skill. But I have found it personally very gratifying to have nice photos of my work to share, and so I am here to share what I’ve learned from giving product photography a try the past 3 years.

This article is a guide is for those of you who are not photographers looking to increase your skills in product photography using tools you already have, or that are easy to access. Whether you are using it as images for your online store, or for promotional material, or part of a press kit. these tips should help you get nicer photos without having to become a professional.

I will be using Graftbound’s TTRPG book product photos as examples.

You’ll need:

• any camera
• product
• a window and an overcast day
• space

You may want:

• a tripod or stack of books
• a mirror
• a large piece of plain colored paper or fabric
• props

Setting up the Shot

There’s two big parts to product photography, getting the shot, and editing it.

Device

Tip: Shoot RAW

When I realized I needed product photos I wasn’t at all interested in getting a big camera, I wanted to see what I could do with my phone. A lot of phone cameras are really amazing these days, and you are likely already in ownership of one.

I have an iPhone 13 Pro which means I can shoot RAW. I suggest this if it’s an option for you, because it means better editing capabilities for contrast and exposure. RAW keeps more digital information that you can use in editing. Check your make and model to see if its an option and how to turn it on. You will need to convert the photos to something smaller for posting but in theory in the editing process and can export them as jpgs later.

If you have a DSLR or something nicer, that’s amazing! Just make sure you know how to use it. It’s worth taking even a little time to look through some tutorials on getting settings you like so you are taking the best base photo you can.

Tripods

Tip: Create a stable setup for your phone

If you have a tripod, use it! If you don’t, then try to set up a stable surface. Image stability is going to increase your overall quality. This also helps you be really precise with composition and also if you need to do reshoots or if you need to merge two photos together later in editing. I like to check my photos in between shots and having something else hold my phone means I don’t loose my shot while going through images.

If you are going to buy a tripod make sure you get one with a phone attachment. I got a super cheap one it does what I need, which is stay in one spot and go up and down and rotate, although it’s not very heavy and can be knocked around more easily.

Remote Triggering

Another option for shooting farther away from your phone or keeping yourself from bumping the camera too much is using corded iPhone headphones with the button that will activate the camera. If you have a smart watch, I know the Apple Watch does this with iPhones, see if you can remote trigger your camera from there, especially if you feel your shadow will get in the way.

Composition

TIP: Save images of compositions or arrangements to copy later

Composition, or the arrangement of objects in the image, is something you should plan in advance. I try to come to my photoshoot day with some shots already planned, including angles, props, lighting conditions, and anything that showcases how the product will be used. There’s lots of things you can read about this, but here’s a few. Remember we want the product to be the “hero” of the composition.

• Having an odd number of notable objects is visually pleasing.
• Having the lines in your composition point toward important things, like the main product. This helps with leading the eye, even if the lines are curved.
• Patterns and rhythm are also visually pleasing, as are a variety of textures.
• Add other related objects to create depth. I know that shooting from above is easy for a lot of at home photographers, but consider that setting up a little distance from a wall can be a really simple way to create depth.
• Try creating a sweep using tape, paper, and a chair, you can create a curved background giving the impression of an infinite space and eliminating a harsh “horizon”. You can get large sheets of card stock from Staples or Office Max for less than $3.

Top down or Front Shots

I suggest front on shots for product photos, because I can set my camera on a tripod (or stack of books) and then my hands are free for adjusting the composition and lighting, while still seeing what my camera will see. If you are shooting from above, a tripod or stable surface can be harder to fabricate from random things around your house. I have used a bendable tripod arm and a lamp with the shade removed before, but it left me with little ability to pick how far away my camera was from my shooting surface, and I ended abandoning it.

There’s nothing wrong with doing it by hand, I just think its a little harder to get repeatable shots and there is more back and forth between taking a photo and adjusting the composition. Occasionally your own shadow can be a problem. Also consider what props will look like from above.

For front on shots, set up your camera be level with the object you are photographing. If you are photographing a book you will want to prop it up. I use a bookend for this, but just anything that doesn’t cast a huge shadow to the side will work too. You might also tape some things in place like front covers that try to creep open. I use washi tape for this as it typically doesn’t harm my book.

If you are shooting from above looking at a laid down object, then try to get the camera parallel to the ground or surface you are photographing on. This is something you can tweak in editing, but get as close as possible.

Zoom and Focus

You’ll also want to be close enough that you can get the nice details of your object, or cut out where your backdrop ends. Unless you have actual distinct camera lenses on your device zooming in is actually just cropping. Its much better to just move your camera closer or further away to the product. You can crop later, but remember you want to keep as much information in the photo as possible.

Many contemporary phones do have more than one photo lense, often a wide, and sometimes a close up. I find these less useful for our purposes. The close up lense can be good for details, but you have to get the focus right, and I find this difficult as I can’t tell my phone which lense I want to use when I am able to physically get closer to my object.

Make sure that you are setting, and potentially even locking, the focus of your camera on the main product. I do this by tapping or tapping and holding the area of the screen that my subject is in.

Space

Even when shooting smaller subjects, it takes a decent amount of space to do photography. You need to clear out anything that might effect the lighting, plus get far enough above or away from your piece to get a good focal length for you camera. Also I tend to take wider or taller photos to start because I know I can crop later on, so I want to leave myself with options later. This might mean planning a time to shoot where you are willing to move furniture around.

Lighting

TIP: Take some sample shots and review them immediately

Lighting is hugely important. I have found that bad lighting can’t be fixed in editing, so make sure to have a lot of it available for shooting. Product photos are often very bright overall to show off the colors and textures really well.

Our eyes are great at taking in light, and this can lead to us believing the photo will have enough as well. After you take some photos, stop and look at them right away to make sure you are getting enough light in the shooting. And then maybe add more cause people will be viewing these photos on screens and if something is too dark on a screen we’ll just loose the details.

Natural Light

TIP: Use a window

AKA Harnessing the free power of the Sun!

I try to use natural daylight as often as possible. Firstly, I don’t own a big fancy light, the sun’s light, however, is accessible to me. Secondly the color of daylight is very natural and fairly neutral (note: winter light is more blue, and end of day light is more yellow). If you can photograph outside on an overcast day that works great, if you have a window that gets a lot of light that is also great on an overcast day. I use me south facing windows because I live in the northern hemisphere so they are going to get the most sun throughout the day.

Do consider if its a cloudy day but not totally overcast that the light may be changing from moment to moment as the clouds pass between you and the sun. This can make editing frustrating because each photo will be totally different, even if taken the same in every other way.

Diffusing Your Own Light

Diffused light is really helpful in getting the most information in the photo. Even if you want a dramatic shadow, it’s easier to control if you start with diffused light and add in your shadow source yourself. You can diffuse a light in several ways if you have too much direct sunlight. Sheer curtains, white bedsheets, or even the inner shower curtain liner are great diffusers. You could try parchment paper also. Really anything that scatters the light evenly as it passes through it without blocking too much. Another method I use is pointing my bright lamps up toward my ceiling to bounce the light off my white ceilings and create more ambient light in a room.

Bounce Back

TIP: Set up or create a bounce board to lighten shadows

TIP: turn off all the other lights in the room

Play around with what direction your main light source is coming at you product from. And if possible add a second light source on the other side. In lighting these are called fills. One hugely helpful thing is bounce back light, which is where you set up something reflective across from your diffused light source to bounce light back at the object. This helps chase away the darkest shadows and reduce extreme contrast. We want to keep the most detail in our photos, including the parts of objects in shadow. You can’t bring back detail but in editing you can increase a shadow’s darkness later. Bouncing light is also great when you don’t have a second light source to act as a fill.

I created an easily movable bounce board using cardboard and tin foil. I also found that setting up a mirror across from my window worked really well. Try setting up large sheets of white paper (the glossier the better) to bounce some light back. You can buy large white card stock or foam board from craft stores here in the US for a few bucks. Tri-fold poster boards also can stand themselves up. These double as great backdrops or a white surface.

Don’t forget to turn off the other lights, so we get nice even neutral light from our chosen light source. And make sure your camera’s flash is off.

I didn’t own a diffuser until I found one for very cheap at a thrift shop. All my product photos up until 2026 were taken with just a window and an overcast day, or a sheer curtain to diffuse the light.

Other Tools

TIP: Thrift for your backdrops or scenery

Backdrops and Surfaces

The details of your setup will be determined by what the tone and theme of your product is. It helps me to think ahead on what the themes and context are for each product and gather a list ahead of time of what I’ll need on shoot day, which I try to plan based on weather.

I mentioned them before but I went to Staples and bought 6 of the largest sheets of white paper I could find. 6 in case some tore or got marked, but also enough to help create a large backdrop if I needed to piece one together.

I also like to have a large bed sheet, whatever color suits your style, in case you need an even bigger backdrop, or like the look of draped fabric. You can easily get sheets at many thrift stores.

To go with your sheet you might consider an iron, or even better a steamer (way faster than ironing), to keep things wrinkle free.

If you are setting up in front of a window, you might want a folding table thats easy to move close to the light source.

Clips to hold things in place are also a must!

On Location

TIP: Take photos outside on an overcast day.

You can also take your books to a local park, Ikea, or public space with interesting architecture or landscaping and photograph on location. Just consider the lighting, the weather and what works with the theme of your product. Golden hour is great, but it will tend to tint your photos warm and, well, golden. A bright day at noon the sun will be very high creating harsh downward shadows. An overcast day will provide evenly diffused light. You can measure this by how sharp and distinct your shadow is when standing outside.

It’s also a nice reason to go to a public garden. I just pack my bag with my books and tripod, and a maybe bounce board, and find a nice place to take some shots.

Props

The fun stuff. This is going to be based off your style. So it does help to have a moodboard or some saved references of the sorts of photography you are trying to emulate.

I think a lot about height and depth in my photos. So having a variety of props that provide those different depths and heights, and textures are what I look for. I also look for things around my house I already own, or purchasing things I can use more than one way.

Think about the scale of these items as paired with your books or product. You don’t want huge things that wont fit in the shot with an A5 book. Or maybe you do… looking at you swords.

Another thing to consider is the direction you are photographing from. For example a stapler was something I thought fit well with the office supplies/ journaling look Precious Things but from above its hard to tell its a stapler.

Editing

Hopefully taking a really great photo means not having to edit much if you don’t feel its needed. Assuming you want to edit, here are some tips and options.

Apps

The Lightroom App from Adobe is available as a free app. There are a few limits for non premium users, but the free features are most of what you’ll need. I am not a genius with Lightroom, but I have found that its very what-you-see-is-what-you-get with the sliders. There’s also a lot of Lightroom tutorials out there for quick learning.

The Adobe Lightroom full application has a very nice feature where you can copy and paste settings from one photo to another, which makes it easy to edit a lot of photos in the same style. You can also play with masking to brighten just the background, or to remove blemishes. I also try to make sure with books that they aligned and square.

Snapseed is another free editor available as a phone app, made by Google.

Affinity Studio is free now! Thanks to Canva we can now edit photos in Affinity Studio, or if you have the older Affinity in Affinity Photo.

Sliders

In my experience most of this style of photo benefits from reducing highlights and lightening shadows, and then bringing back some contrast. I also like to adjust the white balance to make sure my colors are true to life, and even add in some vibrancy to those colors.

Try not to go overboard. We want the photos to look like the real thing, so people viewing them know what they are buying. I tend to see newer photographers (myself included) overdo it on upping saturation.

Outro

These are my amateur tips and findings from dabbling in product photography for the past few years. I’ve found it very rewarding, but also I can tell that there’s a lot of things I could learn to improve my skills. I think there’s a good chunk of information and actionable advice that you can take before you have to go buy fancy equipment, though. Tools don’t automatically make you a good photographer.

If you have more specific questions put them down in the comments. If I don’t know the answer I’ll google something. I think good photos are not too difficult and can really help your product shine even when your customers can’t pick it up or look through it themselves.

If you’d like to hire someone to help with product photography, reach out to us at contact@graftbound.com or check out Adam Bell’s rates here.

Check out our blog about creating your own mockups from photos:

Making Photos Into Mockups