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Mable Product Photography Guidelines

  • Updated

To provide retailers with a delightful online shopping experience, we now require that all products listed on Mable meet a set of requirements. If a portion of your products have photography that meets our guidelines, we are happy to activate your brand profile with the products that are ready to be sold and work with you to offer photography guidance or services for the rest of your products. 

 

Approved Photos ✅

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Not Approved Photos ❌

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Packaging not shown

Packaging not shown

Blurry/Low quality

Poor lighting


Requirements:

  1. Accurate depiction of packaging
  2. A photo for each size & flavor variant sold
  3. Minimum size 300x300, .png or .jpeg only
  4. Plain, well-lit background. White is recommended.

 

Examples of photos that do not meet the requirements. (We may include these on your profile at our discretion, but they do not qualify as primary product photography)

  1. Contextual photos (showing loose ingredients, products shown on a display, etc)
  2. Photos of just the product label
  3. Photos with added text overlays (hashtags, awards, ingredient call outs)
  4. Multiple products together, that are sold individually

 

Tips for shooting your own photography

  • Backdrop
    • The first thing you’ll want to set up is a backdrop. You’ll want something simple so that your product is the star of the shot. A plain white background is ideal and this can be set up very easily. All you’ll need is a chair, a roll of white craft paper, and some tape. You can push the chair against a wall, tape the craft paper to the wall, and let the paper fall over the chair and to the floor. Now all you have to do is place your product in the center of the chair and you are almost ready to shoot!
  • Lighting
    • The next step is lighting, which is extremely important. You have an amazing product and you want to show it off, so make sure that when you take your photos the products are well lit. You can take advantage of natural light by setting up your backdrop by a window that lets in lots of light. If this light is too harsh, you can tape some white paper over the window to soften the light. This window should be to either the left or right of the subject and then you’ll then want to set up something on the opposite side that will reflect the light onto the unlit side of the product. Either a reflective or white poster board works great for this.
    • Another option is to pick up studio lights. You can get a relatively inexpensive light kit that will work great and be well worth the investment. You’ll want to set one light up in front of the product off to one side and the other light on the opposite side. Look for a kit that comes with some kind of diffuser (these usually look like white umbrellas that can be attached to the lights) so the light isn’t too harsh.
  • Camera
    • Obviously the most important thing you’ll need to take your product photos is a camera, but this could be as simple as using a smartphone. If you have a nice DSLR camera then you can use that, but most smartphone cameras will allow you to take photos that are just as good and are much easier to operate. Whatever camera you decide to use, it is highly recommended that you set it up on a tripod. A tripod will make the process so much easier, your shots will all be stable, and it will keep all the shots consistent. If you are taking pictures for a bunch of products all you’ll have to do is set up the shot for one product and then swap out the products while leaving the tripod in the same spot. This tripod doesn’t have to be too expensive either, you just need something that is sturdy and keeps your camera stable.
  • Editing
    • Finally, once you are done taking your photos you are going to want to edit them. There are plenty of editing tools online that are free and most newer smartphones have their own tools for editing photos on your phone. Editing photos can take a good amount of trial and error, but once you get the hang of the tools you are using, the process will become easier. When editing your product photos, the goal should be to make the image look natural. So while you may want to brighten the photo and enhance the color, be careful not to overdo it.

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