Tips to Shooting Makeup & Cosmetic Product Photography

Welcome to the Ecommerce Product Photography series. How should you shoot your Makeup Product for stores like Amazon,Etsy and Instagram? What kind of camera will you need? What about lighting? This article is a great start to show andexplain how to take great Makeup Product Photos.
Why should you think about Makeup Product Photography for your products? Google and customers love images! Images giveway for imagination with the product. They can be a great introduction to what a customer expects in the final product.

#1 Think of colors

When you begin the shoot, think of what color the makeup is. Some makeup will have a glossy reflection along with an opaque color. Think about what other colors would go well with this.

Glossy bottles can change what the final product looks like against different background. A good place to start is buy using grey or black as an inital background

Matte and diffused bottles are also common. These may not have as much reflection and may not be opaque. This way you can focus on the product more then the background.

#2 Layering

Layering is very important when emphasizing a product. You want the makeup to be in focus and not in a distracting background.

Basic techniques may include using multiple products with one as the focal point. For example you may have three different bottles that you can put together in a single photo with one as the main focus. It is also worth noting that odd numbers usually work better then even numbers but get creative when doing this.

Advanced techniques may be changing the elevation of the product and the other props in the photo that bring focus to the main product.

#3 Close Up Tips

With smaller products you will need to get close up. Some important things to consider are the focus, sharpness, and distortion.

The focus refers to the amount of the image that will be in focus. This is difficult when you are shooting up close. One way to get around this is to zoom in to maintain the focus and sharpness or switch to manual focus on your camera. Zooming (optical or actual) in will reduce the quality of the overall image quality and may require more noise (ISO).

Zooming however can keep you far enough away from the subject to keep it in focus. Zooming also has the downside of changing the image’s depth of field and perspective. Zooming in will flatten the background and likely make the outside blurry.

Manual focus if your camera allows will let you get a closer focus and autofocus. Often most autofocus systems are not too great at focusing up close. Thus manual focus is a good way to get a sharp focus.

You can also invest or rent a micro lens that will let you get up close to the subject and get a specialized look to your photo.

Focus is one of another subject, sharpness. Depending on your camera you are shooting on try and change the aperture higher so that you can get the edges and the background in focus. Although some photos may require a blurry background, makeup products may have important product labels that need to be seen. Avoid using wider (lower) aperture numbers like f1.4 for product photography. This will prevent any blurriness in the labels.

Distortion is another important part of product photography. Make sure that you understand your lens distortion. Each lens has a little distortion. If you were to shoot on a wide angle lens, the product would look bulgy and unrealistic.

This is an extreme but can be seen when you present the final photos. One way to fix this is in camera by standing farther away and composing farther from the edges.

You can also fix distortion in post-production like capture-one and photoshop. It is often easier doing this in camera though. Photoshop for example has a perspective warp ability that lets you create straight lines for your product. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCMjZyVtgVk&t=14s