Are usually single most important aspect of quality packshot pictures? Selling products effectively with the use of a catalogue photography or packshot photograph requires a whole raft of skills and techniques, but if you had to choose the one factor which makes more of a difference than anything more, what would it not be?
In case you said the camera, the computer or even the product then you're fairly definately not the right track. Of course, the only most effective factor in the equation is the photographer himself or their self, but since it's obviously not possible within the confines of just one article to provide you with 20 or 30th years' really worth of professional experience and creativity, let's look at the second most important factor in packshot digital photography - lighting.
Light is pretty important, because a few face it, without it we'd all be in the dark. Literally and metaphorically. In case products aren't lit properly then customers aren't going to be able to see them properly, but it is not simply a case of adding more and more light to make the image brighter. Lighting is not merely measured in watts, but in fact requires a whole array of different techniques and tricks of the trade in order to get it really right.
The first thing to appreciate is that the product you're selling must be photographed in a way which makes it look believable, realistic and accessible. This means that if you're selling a product Best Photo Light Box such as a garden gnome, lighting it upward using basic studio lights may well not give it the same overall look as it would if it was positioned exterior in daylight. Natural sun light is quite different from the sort of artificial light we use indoors, and whether you realise it or not, our eye, brains and sub notion can tell.
So sometimes it will be necessary to light up products for packshot photography by using a special combo of lights, gel and shades which offer a natural, realistic impression of natural sunlight and daytime. Of course this is doubly important if you intend to use the packshot image and replace the background or superimpose the on top of an alternative background. Perhaps most likely photographing a beach golf ball - if you light it effectively to check like bright, warm daylight then the product will look far more natural when superimposed over a bright, warm, sunny beach picture. Bland studio room lighting would make the ball look a great deal less appealing.
And when it comes to making things less appealing nothing is better to undersell than jewellery - especially jewellery which includes diamonds and similar expensive jewels. Because studio lighting, no matter how much difficulty you might try, almost never achieves the same multicoloured sparkly effect you see with your eye in real life. The trouble is that we look at things stereoscopically, with two eyes slightly apart we see twice the number of sparkles and glints that a single camera lens would see. Not really only that but studio room lighting doesn't refract and split into a range of colors quite as easily as you'd imagine.
Inside such cases packshot pictures incorporates a light container, which is a white lined box with no internal features, corners or edges, and including female LED lighting within an mid-foot over the top or around the perimeters. By suspending an item of jewelry such as gemstone earrings in the middle of the box, the ring of multicoloured LED lights when combined with white BROUGHT Lighting creates the type of packshot image you would expect to see. Plain facilities lighting would otherwise make diamonds seem like rather boring glass.