Packshot photography

What makes an image a packshot

The defining constraint is subtractive: everything that is not the product is removed. No set, no props, no hands, no context. What is left has to carry colour, shape and detail on its own, which is why packshot work is largely a lighting and colour-accuracy discipline rather than a styling one.

Packshots are also a standard rather than a single image. The value comes from every product in a catalogue being shot to the same rules, so a grid of them reads as one set — same background, same framing ratio, same angle, same scale logic.

• Isolated product — nothing else in frame
• Plain background — pure white most commonly, or a consistent neutral
• Accurate colour — the buyer's main protection against a return, so worth calibrating
• Consistent framing — same margin and angle across the catalogue
• Full product visible — no crops that hide part of what is being sold

Why the channel usually dictates it

Packshots are the image type marketplaces write rules about, because they are the primary image on a search results grid and a marketplace needs that grid to look uniform. Requirements commonly cover background, how much of the frame the product fills, minimum resolution, and a ban on text, logos, watermarks and borders.

Those rules differ by channel and change, so the practical approach is to shoot to the strictest channel you sell on and crop down for the others rather than shooting a separate set per marketplace.

• Background rules — usually pure white for the primary image
• Fill rules — the product must occupy most of the frame
• Resolution minimums, which is where old supplier images usually fail
• No added text, watermark, border or promotional badge

Packshot vs. lifestyle imagery

The two are complements with opposite jobs, and a listing normally needs both. A packshot documents: it answers what exactly am I buying, in what colour. A lifestyle image persuades: it answers what does this look like in a life like mine.

Confusing the two is a common and expensive error. A beautifully styled hero shot rejected as a primary image because a prop is in frame costs a relist; a bare packshot used as an advert converts badly because there is nothing aspirational in it.

• Packshot — documentation, plain background, channel-compliant, primary image
• Lifestyle — persuasion, set and context, secondary images and ads
• On-model — a lifestyle image for apparel that also answers fit

What a packshot cannot do

It carries no scale, no context and no aspiration. Alone, it is a competent record of an object and a weak piece of marketing, which is why a listing that only has packshots underperforms even when every image is technically good.

For apparel specifically it is also silent on the thing that drives returns. A packshot of a folded garment tells the buyer nothing about fit or drape, so a clothing listing built only on packshots pushes the fit question entirely onto the size chart.

• No sense of scale unless the product is a recognisable size
• No fit or drape information for apparel
• Nothing aspirational, so it is a poor advert on its own
• Colour accuracy is unforgiving — a mis-lit packshot is an active cause of returns

Common questions

See also

Doing this with TinTin