I’m considering outsourcing the editing of my product photos. I take the photos myself, but I’d rather spend my editing time elsewhere.
I shoot my products on a white background with studio lighting. I just need someone to edit out the off-white background to pure white and touch up any specs of dust on the product that I missed, fix exposure, saturation, and so on.
You could also attach a sample photo for others to submit results of their “auto” editors. I use a simple lightbox and shoot against a white background, then use windows 10 photo editor to enhance, and then fotofuze for the final background process. Just takes minutes. I’ve tried various websites, editors, fivers, etc and have not been very satisfied over my own results.
You could get this done on upwork or fiverr for under $10 for all images if its simply changing image background to white with color correction on white contrast.
If you want more work done then of course it depends on what skillset you require. I’ve gotten sophisticated color altering done for $50 on a whole range of pictures, whereas I paid $200 for a better job - often I’ll get two contractors to work on it (cheap and skilled) just to see the difference in quality of work and it my case, I have seen significant differences - remember, image quality and inspiration (everything from color, tone, engendering emotive response etc) - all of it has a direct impact on conversion
All the best!
We use slazzer to get the pure white background. Prices are reasonable.
I do the same as Wade, though I will admit, for me at least the “just takes minutes” took a while to become reality.
For me (handmade, I make my own items) I find the image composition to be the hardest part. Getting the actual perfect shot to sell the darn thing. Once I have that the rest is easy. Touch ups in PS, whitening with Fotufuze ($59 a year unlimited), I can do that in minutes.
The trick here is the same as for “zoom” conferences - you need LOTS of very even light on the background, more than on the widget. You also need to move the widget WELL in front of the background.
This is precisely what one has to do when doing a “green screen” backdrop for a zoom video call.
This over-lighting of the background saturates the white, and allows the slightly less bright white of the item being photographed to “pop out” from the pure white background.
There is no reason to pay others to do this, as lights and other “studio” accessories are dirt cheap these days, and “light boxes” are made for this specific purpose of making a photo with a white seamless background.
Thanks for the replies - brings up a great point I didn’t realize I was dealing with. My product is long and flat (20 inches wide). So I have to lean it to the back of the light box, or lay it down flat and shoot it from the top. Either way I don’t get any depth of field between the product and background, which makes the white background editing a little more difficult.
I need to find a stand that can hold the product upright without obscuring it around the edges.
That could work - if I lay it flat and shoot from overhead. My product is essentially a long, flat sign. The sign could lay on top of the stand and cover it up completely from overhead. For my side-angle shots, it would still cover up most of the stand. Thanks very much for suggesting this!
Normally I don’t have to do the touch up on product photos because I pay more attention on the composition, component, lightings, etc when the photos are taken. However when I need the photo to be touched up, I use Fiverr and pay around $5 to $10.
For long & flat (unless it’s “clear”) I just prop it up with a Shot Glass or something to hold it up.
If a edge peeks out I can just crop it out.
I just tried Slazzer and it had a tough time. Many of my products have a black embossed border, with a small white reflective border outside of that, about 3mm. On some parts of the image Slazzer just used the black border as the cut-off point, in others it let the white edge bleed into the white background. /
I’ll try putting my product on a black background and see if that makes it more accurate.
Play Doh for the WIN!
Use play doh to create a sticky, yet structurally sound support for strange-shaped items.
If it worked for all those stop-motion “Claymation” productions, like “Gumby”, it will work for your product shot
A Slazzer rep said they were going to change their whole algorithm for little ole me.
I will try the play-doh idea as well. I’m going to get some solid color backgrounds this weekend. My main product border colors that are problematic are white, black and yellow. I’ll try for some blue or pink backgrounds so that there is better contrast. This might get Slazzer (and probably others) to work more reliably.
Try
That is an impressive result! Not just the shot glass, but the sharpening, brightening, and background clean up. 
Once again Microsoft has screwed up their photo editor with new features that are total crap. Every new version has had numerous glitches. The AI tools are not ready for prime time. 1st image back ground removal using FotoFuze, 2nd one, AI background removal. Not to mention the time involved to make simple edits.
The AI version is pretty awful. It’s flat and looks like the chain is eroding.
I use Photoroom and have been pretty happy with it. However, I dont make jewelry which i know is hard to photograph.
Do y’all still use white backgrounds on other marketplaces or your own website? Do you think white backgrounds make a difference?
