subject: The Danger Of Thinking That Pack Photography Is Simple Or Easy [print this page] . The trouble is that on the surface packshot photography does sound very simple, because after all, it's simply a photograph of your products. This photograph might serve a range of purposes from being used online, in print, in catalogues, brochures, leaflets or even posters. In fact the range of purposes for which pack photography may be used is astonishingly high, which necessarily means that the demands in terms of quality are very high.
But despite this many small and medium-sized businesses still seem to think that taking their own packshot photography images is simply a matter of placing products or a package on a desk or surface, pointing a camera at it, taking a few photographs and then choosing the best one. The impression that this is an easy process is further encouraged by manufacturers of digital cameras and graphics software used for editing digital photographs.
It does seem so easy to pick up a reasonable quality digital camera from the high street, pick up a graphics package, and then start creating your own pack photography images. It is unlikely that that those people from small and medium-sized businesses who think that owning a camera and software means that they can now become a fully fledged packshot photographer would be just as confident picking up a Fender Stratocaster and becoming Eric Clapton, or a paintbrush and canvas and becoming Picasso.
Simply having the equipment is not enough, and yet when it comes to pack photography, this is very much a common misunderstanding. The difference between an amateur photographer and a professional packshot photographer is very easy to see when you look at the finished products, but trying to pin down the specific differences isn't always easy, which doesn't make it any easier trying to convince people that taking their own packshot images is not a good idea.
The easiest way of doing this is to take a practical example, and diamond jewellery is an excellent case in point. Looking at a piece of beautiful diamond jewellery glinting in the light it would seem remarkably simple for anybody to be able to take an excellent photograph of the product and make it look a million dollars. But for most people, even with a good quality digital camera and a bit of tweaking using sophisticated graphics software the end result usually looks virtually indistinguishable from glass. A fairly plain, drab collection of bits of glass strung together on a fairly nondescript chain.
If you are selling it in the market for a couple of pounds it might be acceptable, but since the diamond jewellery in question may be worth hundreds or even thousands of pounds, a pack photography image that makes it look like a bit of worthless glass is hardly a good idea. Yet you do see such examples of amateur pack photography all over the place, in catalogues, brochures, flyers, leaflets and online. Web sites such as eBay are full of such amateur images.
A professional packshot photographer knows an enormous number of secrets which can be used to not only make products ranging from diamond jewellery to motorbikes look every bit as stunning in print and online as they do in real life, but in many cases they can actually enhance the image beyond what would normally be considered possible through a lens.
Too many amateur photographers assume that a camera lens works in much the same way as the human eye, but this is far from being the case, and a professional packshot photographer knows this only too well, and so will introduce a wide range of techniques and tricks into each pack photography image to transform what a camera lens sees into what the human eye thinks it ought to see under optimum conditions.
