DiY Product Photography: How to Easily Set Up a White Background

Crafters and artisans might go into online selling because they love their product or because it sells well in person. However, if you run a store on Etsy, Artfire, ebay, or your own website, then you need to take your own photos or get someone else to do it for you. Getting a good photo can sometimes prove tricky. Whatever you do, you want your product photography to clearly show the item in an appealing way.

Often the easiest way to get an appealing photograph is to eliminate all background distractions. People want to see your product - not some random door frame in the background, or worse, a close-up view of the flooring in your house. (Especially if the floor in your house has bits of debris or stains. I've seen people do this, and it's gross. There's a better way, trust me.) 

There are no background distractions
in the photo of this
Monogrammed Xmas Ornament
from Polkadot Orchid Embroidery.

A white background is clean, free of distractions, and keeps the focus on your product. It also lends some cohesiveness to an entire shop when all of the photos use a similar style background. If you sell on Amazon, you will be required to have a pure white background.

There are two basic ways to achieve a white background in a product photo:  

1. Take a photo of the item against a white background in the first place. 
2. Use image editing software to replace the background with white. 

Now I have been working with image editing software since Adobe Photoshop version 3 - on a pre-windows 95 computer. (So close to 15 years at this point.) I can do most image edits pretty quickly. However, it's still far less time consuming to take a few extra steps to start with a white (or mostly white) background in the first place rather than spend 2-3 extra minutes on every single photograph removing a non-white background.

Easy Setup for a White Background
My favorite method for getting a white background is to use a roll of bulletin board paper. Tape the top of the roll to the wall and then let it drape in a gradual curve down to floor or table top. You end up with a seamless white background both behind the item and underneath it. If the paper needs to drape down to carpeting, then you may find that you need to place a hard surface down underneath the paper to prevent wrinkles. You may also need to place something on the paper to keep it from rolling back up while you're shooting. Almost anything can work from books to your kid's toys or rock collection.

Why do I like this method?

Even a white wall may not be totally
white - this one was attacked by a
two-year-old armed with a crayon.  

• Paper is cheap and readily available. Teacher supply stores and most large office supply stores carry rolls of bulletin board paper. For very small items (like earrings), you may not even need anything more than a sheet of standard-sized or scrapbook-sized paper.

• Bulletin board paper comes in two widths. The narrower two-foot-wide paper shows up in the photo, and it's great for jewelry forms, bags, baby clothes and other small to medium-sized items. There is also a size that is almost twice as wide (which you may need to visit a teacher supply store to find), and it's great for when you need to take photos of dress forms or other very large objects. 

• It has a smooth surface, so you eliminate potentially distracting textures. (If you're taking a really close up detail photo, you may not want to see the weave of a fabric background.) The smooth texture also makes it easier to ensure you don't have bits of dust, lint, or stray hairs on it.

• Bulletin board paper is often colored on one side and white on the other - potentially giving you the option to use either the white side or the colored side depending on what will work best for your item. 

• It's pretty easy to setup, take down, and store. Just tape it to the wall for the photography shoot, then remove it from the wall and roll back up for storage. (I like to use the clear 3M re-usable mounting squares because it doesn't damage my walls. Depending on what you're attaching the paper to, wall damage may or may not be a concern.)

• Unlike foam core board, paper creates a gradual curve so there no hard seams or creases. (If you look at the travel makeup case I use behind the title at the beginning of the article, you'll see a gradual transition from pure white to light grey in the background. This is possible due to curving the paper. Please note that the item still has a drop shadow beneath it to ground it in reality.) 

• Paper doesn't need to be ironed like fabric. (Though you do need to make sure you don't crush your roll of paper in storage.) 

Clamp Light with Daylight
Spectrum CFL Bulb.

• It lets you set up where you have the best available light. This may be by a bank of windows inside. It could even be outside on your porch. The nice this about the paper is that you could drape it off of furniture. Or you can use it to cover up a door frame if that's the space you have to work with.

• If you don't have access to good natural light, then you can still supplement this setup with additional lights. (I like to use 100-watt equivalent daylight spectrum compact fluorescent bulbs in portable clamp lamps. You can find both at hardware stores. If you want to do this - get the clamp lights with the larger reflector because CFL bulbs sit up higher than incandescent bulbs.) 

Now if you setup your photography space to have a white background you may still run into one little problem: the auto-exposure setting on your camera normally expects a photo with a range of values from light to dark. In fact, they usually meter the scene so that the average of everything in the picture comes out to a medium grey. (About the same value as a green grassy lawn.)

How do you fix this? One method is to line up your shot so that the white background doesn't overwhelm the frame. Another is to switch to a manual exposure setting if your camera has the capability (metering off of a digital grey card will ensure that all of the subsequent shots in the same lighting will be perfect).  A third option is to adjust the exposure compensation value - which is possible on even basic point and shoot digital cameras (though you may need to consult your manual to find out how to do it). A fourth option is to adjust the brightness and contrast after the photo shoot in the digital darkroom using an image editor (this is what I do).


What Happens When You Need a Pure White Background?
Stay tuned for my next article on the subject, where I'll cover using the free image editing program GIMP to get a pure white background.