The internet has spawned a whole new style when it comes to product photography. We have all seen the internet stores that have floating items with white backgrounds. Now, if you’re not a photographer, you might think that you can achieve this look without the help of Photoshop, but you’re wrong. Most of the product photos you see online that have a white background have been washed out in Photoshop, giving the illusion that they were actually photographed that way. The biggest problem with this type of photography is that it uses up all the soft light and gives the image a very low contrast, flat look. So that? So you can easily remove it to white in Photoshop? Only if you want to sacrifice image quality!

There are hundreds of websites selling cheap products telling people that you can get professional looking photos on a shoestring budget. So people are trying to mimic all this white background for their internet store. Whether it’s for an internet retail store, selling on eBay and other auction websites. The most important product being promoted is light boxes/tents. These started showing up on eBay quite some time ago. Mainly because all the “Selling on eBay” books told people that a good photo would increase their sales. And well, the photography industry decided to cash in on this cheap, “anyone can do it” mentality.

The bad news is that this cheap, “anyone can do” style kit has branched out into the mainstream and big name companies are selling these light boxes or tents as a professional setup. Please know that this is not a professional setup for product photography. It might work if you’re selling on eBay, but the quality of lighting that comes from these tents is below average. They usually don’t even come with an actual strobe light, just a hot light that you put on the right and left side of the tent.

If you want something professional, toss out that $100 tent you bought on eBay, and more importantly, toss out those pesky hot lights.

If you’re a small business owner, the way you stand out from the competition is by being different. So instead of taking bad photos that have a boring white background, how about adding some colored backgrounds or some texture to grab the viewer’s attention?

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