As a small business owner, sometimes you just have to do things yourself. When it comes to product photography this may be the only option, especially if time is short and the budget isn’t there to hire a professional. You might be getting a gift package together for Valentine’s Day and it is a last-minute rush. In this blog we share with you how to quickly improve your photos using Canva. Unlike Photoshop which can be complicated and unwieldy, Canva is a god send to thousands of small business owners.
Good images make the Difference between sales and not sales
Every eCommerce owner knows that image is everything. Because your customers can’t come into your shop they can’t touch or feel the product and if someone else has a better or sexier image than you they will make the sale. Which is why when you upload a dodgy-looking pic with shadows and dirt on the table you took it on, it won’t be a good sign for the buyer.
In a perfect world, you have brought all the kit you need, like a lightbox, and some lights and have a tripod at the ready. These don’t cost the earth and can be found on Amazon for very little investment. Or you may just have your mobile phone and a few seconds in which to point a lamp at the product. Either way getting the light right so there is no background shadows or marks can be time consuming and next to impossible.
How to remove the background using Canva
Background removal tools are excellent in that they can remove all of the shadows, table or cloth fluff and stains that make your image less than sexy. If you try doing it in Photoshop using the lasso tool you could take hours. Believe me I have spent hours doing this. If there is a tiny bit of white along the product edge you might as well try and fly to the moon. The lassoo will suddenly invade your product and you lose the ability to remove the background.
10 Easy steps to background removal
- Download the image from your camera to the computer.
- Upload the image to Canva
- Create a new design – This is your opportunity to choose square or rectangle depending on how your images are portrayed.
- Drag your image onto the blank canvas and align it centrally so you don’t have to crop it later.
- Click on the image and click “edit image” on the top right of your screen.
- Choose BG Remover (that is short for background remover)
- Let Canva do its work.
- Name the image correctly (product name)
- Share the image – You get options to save as a JPG or PNG, you also get a tick box saying transparent background.
- Image will download.
Other Canva Time Saving Tips
Getting your images looking good is so important. What we try to do all the time is save you time which is why you need to see what else can be done in this process to speed up your work flow and stop you from having to return to the image again to crop or shrink it.
Remember speed is essential in eCommerce. When you save the image you can also reduce the file size. In the share menu, there are options to reduce file size and lower quality. That way you don’t need to go back to photoshop to shrink.
Why no Background is a good thing
If you save as a PNG the file size will be bigger, but it means you can use the product image on graphics. Very useful with social media and banners on your website. If you save as a jpg you can make the image much smaller and faster but slightly less quality. We recommend using jigs for product images but with no background. This of course depends on if you are looking to create lifestyle images or plain white backgrounds. This is a great tool for Shopify especially..
