Help & Resource Center

Photography

Consistent, clean product images are an integral part of your site and its appearance. To achieve a clean, consistent look, we recommend that all images be cropped, using a program like Photoshop or Photoshop Elements, to the same size. These images should be saved and uploaded as .jpeg images.

 

We suggest you upload a couple of dozen test images and from that we can recommend sizing. The recommended sizing will be based on your site's design, but most likley will be at least 1000 pixels wide by at least 1000 pixels tall. Many marketplaces are requiring that images meet these minimum dimensions in order to list your products on their sites. If you upload several dozen test images to the Project Management site showing a variety of your products (tops, bottoms, jewelry, shoes, handbags), we can work with you to adjust the image upload size to better accommodate your product catalog. 

From this initial image, Magento will optimize and re-size the image for web use.

It will make 3 images:

  • The thumbnail
  • The small image
  • The base image

These images can be selected for use in different areas of your site. For example, thumbnail images are used in the shopping cart as well as for additional views on the product page.

Magento will not crop your images or change how they appear.

When styling your product shots, please keep in mind the shape of your final image – square or rectangular. All products should be placed and styled with this frame in mind. After taking your product images, the image should then be cropped to the recommended size. From this point, the image can be uploaded into Magento.

 

ADDITIONAL FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Occasionally, you may get images from a vendor. They will often ask the following questions to determine what the best format your images should be.

  • What dpi (dots per inch) do you need it in?
    • This may never come up and if it doesn’t that’s ok, in fact it’s better. Why? Computer screens do NOT work with the concept of dpi but everyone thinks they do. If they insist on you specifying a dpi, just say 72 dpi.
  • Do you need it for the web or print?
    • Web of course. If you need it for print as well, then you’ll most likely need to resize and/or convert the image before it is uploaded to Magento. Magento likes images around 1 MB (or less) for each image and in JPEG format.
  • What format do you want it in: JPEGTIFF, etc.?
    • If you’re only going to use the images online, then JPEG is best. FYI, this is the format mostly likely produced by your digital camera.
  • What size do you want the image?
    • This is a tough one to answer because as was pointed out above, they may be talking about pixels, dpi or maybe even inches. Worse yet, they may be talking about a combination of these and it really gets confusing. Let’s stick with PIXELS and say it should be larger than 1000 pixels wide.

MORE INFORMATION TO CONSIDER

  • Product Photography for Retailers
    • http://www.modernretail.com/2012/12/product-photography-for-retailers/
  • Photography Q & A: Lights and Backdrops
    • http://www.modernretail.com/2013/01/photography-q-a-lights-and-backdrops/
  • The Photographic Principal – Rule of Thirds
    • http://www.modernretail.com/2013/02/the-photographic-principal-rule-of-thirds/
  • Photography Q & A: Shooting Tips
    • http://www.modernretail.com/2013/02/photography-q-a-shooting-tips/