---
title: "How to Take Product Photos on a White Background at Home"
description: "White background product photography at home: the $50 light tent and tripod, phone settings, the shots to take and the edits that keep the white pure white."
url: "https://carthacker.com/growth/white-background-product-photography/"
author: "Adrian Wadowski"
published: "2026-11-06"
section: "Growth & Sales"
image: "https://carthacker.com/wp-content/uploads/product-photos-on-a-white-background.jpg"
publisher: "CartHacker (carthacker.com)"
language: "en"
---

# How to Take Product Photos on a White Background at Home

By [Adrian Wadowski](https://carthacker.com/author/adrian/), building online stores since 1998. Published November 6, 2026. 13 min read.

A clean product photo on a white background looks like studio work, so a lot of small stores pay a photographer for it or accept gray, shadowy pictures. For anything that fits in a shoebox, you don't need either. **You'll need a light tent of about 40 by 40 centimeters (16 by 16 inches) that costs around $50, a tripod and your phone**, plus an afternoon.

It's worth that afternoon. Baymard Institute's usability tests found that [the photos were the first thing 56% of shoppers explored](https://baymard.com/blog/in-scale-product-images) when a new product page opened. On a phone the first photo fills the screen, so it's the first thing that makes a shopper buy, or leave.

If you sell on Shopify, WooCommerce, Wix or a marketplace and you photograph your own products, here's how I'd do **white background product photography** at home: what to buy and what it costs, how to set it up, the phone and camera settings, the shots every product needs, the editing, and what changes for clothing and for small things like jewelry and watches.

**Video (0:43):** [How do you take product photos on a white background at home?](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/sCVNFBscY9k) The light tent, the exposure slider that turns a gray background white and the 2x lens, in a 43-second video.

## What you need for white background photos

A packshot kit (everything for product photos on white) from AliExpress or Amazon is usually enough. I'd buy a light tent (also sold as a light box) with LED strips built into the top, so it lights the product evenly and you don't need separate lamps. Prices change every week, so read these as the ranges I found on November 3, 2026:

| What | Size | Price range | Good for |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Light tent with LED strips | 40 x 40 cm (16 x 16 in) | about $30 to $95; the PULUZ 40 cm models about $50 to $70 | Cosmetics, food packs, small electronics, jewelry, watches |
| Light tent with LED strips | 60 x 60 cm (24 x 24 in) | about $65 to $115 | Shoes, bags, bottles, boxed products |
| Light tent with LED strips | 80 x 80 cm (32 x 32 in) | about $85 to $145 | Larger items, small kitchen appliances |
| Tripod with a phone holder | about 150 cm (60 in) tall | about $25 | Every photo and every video |
| Motorized turntable | 20 cm (8 in) to 30 cm (12 in) | about $25 to $60 | 360-degree videos of small products |

**Pick the tent by your largest product.** The product should stand in the middle with space on every side, and the back wall should still be behind it when you shoot from slightly above. If your products range from a lipstick to a handbag, two tents are better than one big one: a small product in a huge tent sits far from the light.

![A black PULUZ photo light tent with LED strips in its top panel, open at the front, with a necklace on a black display bust inside, a camera held in front of it and colored backdrops beside it](https://carthacker.com/wp-content/uploads/puluz-light-tent-40-cm-with-led.jpg)
*The kind of tent I mean: a 40 cm PULUZ light tent with LED strips in the top. Photo: PULUZ, from the product listing*

> **From my own packshots:** My kit for small products was a 40 x 40 cm tent from AliExpress and a tripod that holds a camera or a phone, for photos and for short videos. That's been enough for almost everything. In editing I usually did two things only: a little more contrast, and making the important facts on the packaging easy to read when they were hard to read in the photo, because a shopper zooms in on the label before buying. The pack of camel milk powder in the editing section is one of those photos, before and after.

## How to set up the light tent, step by step

A folding light tent goes together in about two minutes, and most of them use the same six moves: open the frame, lay in the white panels, lift the top with its LED strips, and close the black outer flaps with their hook-and-loop strips.

![Six numbered photos of a PULUZ light tent being assembled: opening the frame, placing the white panel, lifting the top panel, folding the black side flaps and closing them with hook-and-loop strips](https://carthacker.com/wp-content/uploads/puluz-light-tent-assembly-steps.jpg)
*How a folding light tent goes together, in six steps. Photo: PULUZ, from the product listing*

1. Put the tent on a table, away from a window, and switch off the room lights. Daylight and room bulbs don't have the same color as the tent's LEDs, and mixed light gives white a blue or yellow tint.
2. Hang the white backdrop that comes with the tent so it curves from the back wall down to the floor of the tent without a fold. The curve is what makes the background look endless.
3. Switch on the LED strips at full power and leave them on for a few minutes. Wipe the product and remove dust and fingerprints now, because every speck shows on white.
4. Place the product in the middle, a little forward from the back wall, so the product doesn't throw a shadow on the wall.
5. Put the phone or camera on the tripod at the height of the product's middle, or slightly above it for boxes and bottles, and frame the shot so the product fills most of the picture.
6. Take a test photo and look at it on the computer, not on the phone. If the background looks light gray, the camera settings for a pure white background fix it.

## Phone and camera settings for a pure white background

Why does a white background come out gray? Your camera thinks the world is medium gray. If you point it at a lot of white, it makes the picture darker to compensate. **The fix is to add exposure**, usually one or two stops (+1 or +2 on the exposure setting; [Digital Photography School explains why](https://digital-photography-school.com/how-to-use-exposure-compensation-to-take-control-of-your-exposure/)), until the background is white and the product still shows its details.

On a phone:

- Use the 2x lens and step back a little. The wide main lens close to a product bends its edges, and the 2x view keeps a box looking square. Never use digital zoom, which [lowers image quality](https://www.shopify.com/blog/15163633-how-to-capture-high-quality-product-photos-with-your-smartphone).
- Tap the product to focus, then hold your finger on it to lock focus and exposure (on an iPhone it says AE/AF Lock), and drag the exposure slider up until the background turns white.
- Use the 3-second timer, so your tap doesn't shake the tripod.
- Turn off filters and portrait mode. You want the product as it is.

On a camera, Shopify's own guide says to [set ISO to 100 and the f-number high](https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/products/product-media/product-photography), so the whole product is sharp from front to back. Shopify says the highest number your lens allows; I'd use about f/11, because at the very highest numbers most lenses get a little softer. With the camera on a tripod, the long shutter time that follows doesn't matter.

## The shots every product page needs

**One perfect white photo isn't enough.** Shoppers use the photos to answer their questions, so take photos that answer them. What would you look at before you paid for it?

1. The main photo: the product from the front, filling most of the frame, on pure white. This one goes first everywhere: your store, Google Shopping and any marketplace.
2. Two or three angles: the side, the back, the top, whatever a buyer would turn the product to see in a shop.
3. A close-up of the label or the box, with the key facts readable: ingredients, size, materials, the instructions.
4. A photo that shows the size, next to a hand or an everyday object. In Baymard's tests, [42% of users tried to judge a product's size from its images](https://baymard.com/blog/in-scale-product-images), and in its 2026 benchmark 37% of sites still had no photo that shows it.
5. The product in use, off the white background: on a table, in a hand, in a room.

The white photos make the page look clean and the in-use photos make it look real. A store needs both.

## Editing: contrast, a white background and readable labels

Good light means little editing. I'd do four things to every photo, in a free app: [Snapseed](https://support.google.com/snapseed/answer/6157856) on a phone, [Photopea](https://www.photopea.com/) in a browser, or GIMP on a computer.

1. Set the white point. In Levels (Ctrl+L in Photopea, Colors > Levels in GIMP), use the white eyedropper and click the background. It turns pure white and the colors of the product shift back to neutral with it.
2. Add a little contrast, so the product is clearly separate from the background and its colors don't look pale.
3. Make the label readable. Crop the close-up tight, brighten or sharpen only the text area if it's hard to read, and check it at the size a phone shows it.
4. Remove dust with the healing tool, and crop the main photo square.

Here's one of my own packshots, a 300 g pack of camel milk powder from the tent. The first photo is straight from the phone, with the background still a little gray. The second is the edited photo that went on the product page: whiter background, more contrast, a sharper label, and the powder in a glass jar so a shopper sees what's inside.

![A dark blue pouch of CamelWay camel milk powder photographed in a light tent, straight from the phone, on a light gray background](https://carthacker.com/wp-content/uploads/packshot-before-straight-from-the-phone.jpg)
*Before: straight from the phone, 3,056 x 3,056 px and 2.1 MB*

![The same pouch of CamelWay camel milk powder after editing, on a white background with a brighter label, standing on a ceramic plate with a gold spoon and a glass jar of the white powder](https://carthacker.com/wp-content/uploads/packshot-after-editing.jpg)
*After: the photo used on the product page, 1,600 x 1,600 px and 139 KB*

What I wouldn't do: filters, borders, color tints or extra saturation. They make a product look different from the one that arrives, and the shopper notices when it arrives.

Shopify has a background tool built into its file editor (the Color background button), and it can fix an older photo. Check the size it gives you, though: Shopify's Help Center says [generated images are 1 megapixel by default](https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/shopify-admin/productivity-tools/shopify-magic/media-generation), about 1,000 by 1,000 pixels, so a 2048 px photo comes back at half the width. A clean white shot from the tent needs no fixing.

## Image rules on Amazon, Google and Shopify

If your photos go to Google Shopping or a marketplace too, take each photo once, following the strictest rule, and use the same file everywhere:

| Where | Main image rule | Size |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Amazon | Pure white background (RGB 255, 255, 255), the product fills 85% or more of the frame, no text, logos or watermarks | At least 1,000 px on the longest side for zoom, 1,600 px or more is better |
| Google Merchant Center | The product takes 75% to 90% of the image, no promotional text, watermarks or borders, a white or light neutral background recommended | 100 x 100 px minimum now (250 x 250 for clothing), 500 x 500 px for all products from January 31, 2027; about 1,500 px recommended |
| Shopify | No rule on the background | Up to 5,000 x 5,000 px and 20 MB; 2,048 x 2,048 px square usually displays best |

**A square photo of 2,048 by 2,048 pixels on pure white, with the product filling about 85% of it, passes all three.** Write January 31, 2027 in your calendar if you still have old product photos smaller than 500 pixels: [Google's minimum goes up for every product](https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/12159030) on that day. Amazon's rules come from Amazon staff answers in the [Seller Forums](https://sellercentral.amazon.com/seller-forums/discussions/t/13af96ea-6b07-4bf9-8dbe-a13292c2e3b1), so check your category's style guide too.

## Clothing needs photos on models as well as on white

Clothing is where the light tent stops being enough. A shirt flat on white shows the color and the print, but not how it fits, and fit is the question a clothing buyer can't answer alone.

Baymard's apparel research is clear about it: [cut-out images on a white background are not enough](https://baymard.com/blog/human-model) for clothing, and you should use mannequins only when you have no model. Google gives the same advice for its [clothing listings](https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/7348545): show clothing on models.

So **for clothing I'd work with people**. Use a model, a friend or a local actor, in front of a white or light gray paper roll (a backdrop of about 2.7 meters, or 9 feet, is the standard width), with the same soft light. Show the front, the back and a detail of the fabric, and write the model's height and the size they wear next to the photos, so a shopper can compare. Keep a flat photo on pure white for the first image in Google Shopping, and the model photos for your product page.

## A 360-degree turntable for jewelry, watches and small products

For small products with details that change in the light (a ring, a watch, a perfume bottle), **a motorized turntable is worth its $25 to $60**. Put it in the middle of the tent, put the product on it and the phone on the tripod, and record one slow rotation of 10 to 20 seconds. Upload it to the product as a video. The shopper sees every side and every reflection without you shooting twenty angles.

There's less proof than the sales pages of 360 tools suggest.

The one controlled study I found, by [Park, Stoel and Lennon in 2008](https://doi.org/10.1002/cb.237), showed that people who could rotate a product had a better attitude toward it and a higher intention to buy, in a lab. The big conversion numbers you'll see online come from companies that sell 360 software. I'd still do it for small, detailed products, because a turning ring answers questions a still photo can't, and the turntable costs less than one hour of a photographer's time.

## Check that the new photos don't slow the page

The first product photo is usually the biggest thing on the page, and on [76% of mobile pages the largest element](https://almanac.httparchive.org/en/2025/performance) that Google measures for Loading is an image. Shopify already resizes your photos and sends them in modern formats (AVIF or WebP) to browsers that support them, so a sharp 2,048 px JPG is fine there. WooCommerce and Wix stores should check the file size of what they upload: my pack of camel milk powder was **2.1 MB straight from the phone and 139 KB as the edited 1,600 px JPG**, 15 times smaller with no loss a shopper would see. Every store should also check what the theme does with the first photo.

Two things slow a product page more than a good photo does: **a video that plays before the first photo, and a first photo the theme loads lazily**, which makes the browser wait before it even asks for it. After you replace the photos, test the product page again and compare the Loading time with the one before.

> **Store Speed Test:** Test the product page after you change the photos. Paste a product page address and see its three Core Web Vitals scores and the total delay. A free account names the 5 apps that cost the most time, with the fix for your platform. [Test my store](https://carthacker.com/store-speed-test/)

Then shoot the next product the same way, with the tent where you left it and the tripod at the same height. The second product takes much less time than the first, and a page full of photos that match each other looks like a store people can trust.

## Sources

- [Baymard Institute: product page UX benchmark](https://baymard.com/blog/current-state-ecommerce-product-page-ux) (March 2026)
- [Baymard: product images that show the size](https://baymard.com/blog/in-scale-product-images)
- [Baymard: apparel on a human model](https://baymard.com/blog/human-model)
- [Shopify Help Center: product photography](https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/products/product-media/product-photography)
- [Shopify Help Center: image sizes and file types](https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/products/product-media/product-media-types)
- [Shopify Help Center: media generation in the file editor](https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/shopify-admin/productivity-tools/shopify-magic/media-generation)
- [Shopify blog: product photos with a smartphone](https://www.shopify.com/blog/15163633-how-to-capture-high-quality-product-photos-with-your-smartphone)
- [Shopify changelog: automatic image optimization in AVIF](https://changelog.shopify.com/posts/automatic-image-optimization-in-avif)
- [Digital Photography School: exposure compensation](https://digital-photography-school.com/how-to-use-exposure-compensation-to-take-control-of-your-exposure/)
- [Amazon Seller Forums: main image requirements, answered by Amazon staff](https://sellercentral.amazon.com/seller-forums/discussions/t/13af96ea-6b07-4bf9-8dbe-a13292c2e3b1)
- [Google Merchant Center: image size requirements](https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/12159030)
- [Google Merchant Center: image link](https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/6324350)
- [Google Merchant Center: apparel images](https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/7348545)
- [Park, Stoel and Lennon (2008): product rotation and purchase intention, Journal of Consumer Behaviour](https://doi.org/10.1002/cb.237)
- [HTTP Archive Web Almanac 2025: performance](https://almanac.httparchive.org/en/2025/performance)
- [Snapseed help](https://support.google.com/snapseed/answer/6157856) and [GIMP: improving photos](https://docs.gimp.org/3.0/en_GB/gimp-imaging-photos.html)

---

## Cite this guide

Wadowski, A. (2026, November 6). *How to Take Product Photos on a White Background at Home*. CartHacker. https://carthacker.com/growth/white-background-product-photography/

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