Clothing Photography Lighting

Today online sales have increased a lot due to the great pandemic that COVID-19 has generated. People all over the world decided to change their business style, looking for new ways to make themselves known and one of the best bets in which you can show your merchandise is through the digital market.

In a world where we have the internet at our fingertips, the sale of products online is being a great success. However, unsurprisingly, many people are also using this medium to make themselves known. This is why having a good quality sample of your products is key to stand out in this market.

Next, we give you some tips so that you can take the best images of your products and thus get many more sales on the web.

What is clothing photography lighting?

One of the products that has always been top sales both physically and online is clothing. This is a very good niche if you want to make sales faster and easier. Both new clothes and second-hand clothes are a goal that many people search for on the web, so a sales website with quality images will attract many interested buyers.

However, lighting for garments is not entirely simple and some tools will be required for the material to be of good quality. There is no need to worry, knowing some lighting techniques or your camera settings is more than enough to improve the quality of your images.

What do I need to take into account when taking clothes photographs?

Here we show you key points that you can improve to increase the quality of your products:

illumination

One of the key points is light. It is important that you know that with good lighting you can style the garments, a very important point for the product to look much more «appetizing» to potential buyers. We know that not all vendors have the budget for the most sophisticated tools, so here are three lighting options:

1. Natural light: One of the easiest lights to use and without having to pay a single penny. This type of lighting is ideal especially in hours where the light is direct (in the morning hours).

To get even more out of it, you can place a white canvas to which the light shines directly to create a kind of photographic studio. This canvas will help the light to soften and spread evenly across the image.

2. Light rings: A very economical and easy to assemble option are the famous light rings. These tools have infinite uses and one of the ways in which they can serve you is precisely to illuminate your garments. Keep in mind that these light rings are a source of hard light, which means that placing the ring right in front of our product will result in photos with very pronounced shadows and with the light focused directly on one point. To reduce this effect, we recommend that you use light diffusers, which will allow an improvement in lighting, achieving a softer and more blurred effect. One option may be white blankets in front of the hoop, blurring the harsh light.

3. Mono lighting kit (single or double): If you prefer a higher quality option, you can invest in a lighting umbrella or a softbox, with which you can obtain much more enveloping and blurred lights, controlling each of the shadows. The final photos will have that professional touch that is expected, styling the garments and their colors. 

There are differences regarding the softbox and the umbrella. The softbox is a tool that uses light diffusing layers and also has a textured reflector, which is very important so that the light bounces many times, producing a very enveloping and diffused light.

Umbrellas, on the other hand, have a reflective but not diffuser canvases, which generates results with less diffuse light than with softboxes. However, these umbrellas are very easy to use being perfect for those sessions where it is required to move the umbrella from one place to another. 

Background curtain

This is a tool whose objective is to attract the attention of what is being sold. It is preferable that you use backdrops with neutral colors, such as white or gray. However, the backdrop can also be used as an identifying element for your brand. To do this, you can use different background colors, but always being careful not to divert too much attention from the product you want to sell. 

Another point to keep in mind is that the curtains must be flat, without seams or folds. Otherwise, you could get shadows that take away professionalism from the image.

Camera 

Many people will believe that the camera is the most important part of achieving high quality. This is not entirely true since the success of your images does not only depend on your camera. We recommend that you use SLR cameras, but if you don’t have one on hand, your smartphone can serve you wonderfully.

Using tripods, the images you can take with your mobile are just as good as those you take with a reflex camera; There are even applications that directly edit the photo on your cell phone, which will give it an even more quality touch. Some very good editing options are: Adobe Lightroom, Afterlight or Snapseed

How to use a softbox for clothing photography?

There is a very useful type of tool on the market for photographing clothing. As we have already mentioned before, there are devices that diffuse light very well, and these are very important to enhance our garments and make them look much more attractive to our customers. Softboxes are very useful for those people who are just learning to improve the quality of lighting, and have a 3D alternative, called light boxes.

The light boxes are tools similar to a tent, whose walls are designed to reflect the light of the flash in a uniform and diffused way. Being in the shape of a cube, the entire background is of a uniform tone, so you will not have to worry about purchasing backdrops, spotlights or blurring systems, since all this will be given to you by the same light box.

However, for the sale of clothing, there are light boxes of such large sizes that mannequins or models with the garments could be inserted into them. We can also find smaller softboxes, where garments such as bags or shoes can be inserted.

Regardless of the size of the light box you purchase, it is advisable to follow these steps:

• Place the object right in the middle of the lightbox: This is important to avoid that the lighting is seen directly more on one side than the other. 
• Manage the intensity of the flash: Depending on the subject you are exposing, it is likely that a low or high flash intensity will suit you better. It is not recommended that the light is very intense as it could burn the photos. 
• Place the softbox in a flat place with very little natural lighting, so that there are no variations in light.
• White balance: a mistake that is usually made at the beginning is the little white balance that we obtain when taking photos. It is important that the intensity of the light is neither so bright nor so opaque. 

Best light boxes for clothing photography

Here are some options for you to choose the one that best suits your needs:

• Large lightbox: This is a very good ally when it comes to placing mannequins that show the garments to be sold. It has LED lights around the edges, which can adjust the intensity of the brightness.

• Medium light box: With a height of 60cm, this light box is perfect for those who are looking for a mini studio for products such as bags, shoes, flowerpots … It has three different background tones (orange, blue and white) and is included With LED lights all around, so you just have to mount it and go. With a price of around € 60, it is ideal for those who are just starting out.

• Small lightbox: Unlike the other boxes, this one is simpler in design. It has a ring of LED lights in the upper area of the box, with which the light will always come from the upper area. The tonality of the lights can vary between cold or warm, in addition to having up to 6 different shades of backgrounds. It has a size of 30cm high and can be taken both from a front view and from a view from above. Its price is around € 30.

• Portable lightbox: With a size of 50x50x50 cm, this lightbox brings with it 120 LED lights, which can be dimmed with remote control. It is very portable and can be carried like a briefcase thanks to the handle it has when it is folded. It has 4 background shades in PVC (gray, white, beige, and white)

Another option a little more complete are the light boxes that have several small light rings to illuminate the products to be sold from different angles:

There are also the typical light bulbs on the market with diffusers (umbrella type) perfect for fill lighting or focal lighting:

Professional photo studio