How to shoot your store's product photos with AI and a phone

TLDR: A good-looking catalog does not need a studio: it needs window light, a fixed shot list and Photoroom to cut out and stage for under ten dollars a month. For campaign images where the product needs a setting you do not have, Getimg.ai generates it. What AI does not fix is an out-of-focus or badly lit photo, so step one is still yours.

This guide is for anyone selling physical products who shoots their own catalog: small shops, makers, marketplace sellers, brands releasing new references monthly. The goal is not winning a photography prize, it is making your catalog look like a serious brand rather than a classified ad.

The idea that orders the whole process: coherence matters more than perfection. Twenty correct, matching photos sell better than five spectacular ones and fifteen improvised.

1. Set up a homemade shooting station

The minimum kit fits on a table next to a window: indirect natural light (never direct sun, which creates hard shadows), a neutral background that can be white or gray card, and something to bounce light into the shadow side, which can be another white card.

Fix the phone’s position and do not move it between products. A cheap tripod or even a stack of books works: what matters is that angle, distance and height are identical across the catalog, because that is what makes your store’s grid look organized.

Half an hour setting that station up once saves repositioning on every batch, and it is the part no tool can do for you.

2. Shoot on your phone following a fixed shot list

Define a shot list and repeat it for every product: front, three-quarter, a detail of material or finish, scale (with a known object beside it or worn) and, where relevant, the product in use. Four or five photos per reference is enough and avoids the uneven catalog where some products have eight photos and others one.

Two technical details that make a difference and cost nothing: lock focus and exposure by tapping the product on screen, and clean the lens before starting, because most blurry phone photos come from a fingerprinted lens.

Always shoot at maximum resolution and without filters. Treatment comes later, and starting from a clean image leaves far more room.

3. Cut out and stage with Photoroom

Photoroom is this phase’s tool: it separates the product from the background precisely, adds a consistent shadow and places it on white or in a generated scene. It works on mobile and web, so the whole process can happen on the phone without touching a computer. Free plan to test, paid from about $7 a month annually.

The feature that changes the work is batch processing: twenty products cut out and placed on the same background in one pass. That is when a catalog starts looking professional.

Review cutouts on products with difficult edges. Hair, sheer fabrics, glass and reflective objects come out with halos or ragged edges and need manual adjustment. If your catalog is jewelry or clothing with transparency, plan for that pass.

4. Build styled scenes with Getimg.ai

Catalog photos sit on clean backgrounds, but hero, campaign and social images need context: the product on a breakfast table, in a marble bathroom, in a studio scene you do not have. Getimg.ai generates those settings with 11+ models and includes editing to combine them with your cutout. From $10 a month, with commercial rights on paid plans.

To produce several setting options without burning your main plan’s credits, NightCafe gives daily free credits and works for exploring styles before generating the final version. From $6 a month with a free trial.

The honesty rule worth respecting: the product in the image has to be the real product. Generating a setting is fine, generating features the product does not have is misleading advertising and ends in returns and complaints.

With the catalog photographed, the next step is writing the pages, and that is in the AI product descriptions guide. Every task in the sector lives in AI for e-commerce.

Common mistakes

Changing the angle between products. That is what makes a store grid look like a flea market. Fixed station and fixed shot list.

Expecting the cutout to fix a bad photo. Photoroom cleans the background, not the blur or the flat lighting. A minute positioning the window properly avoids the whole problem.

Generating the product instead of photographing it. Beyond the legal problem of showing something that is not what you ship, returns from unmet expectations cost more than any photo session.

Publishing without checking at small size. The photo gets seen in a stamp-sized grid. If at that size the product is unrecognizable, the photo does not work.

Frequently asked questions

How much does this pipeline cost?

Photoroom from about $7 a month covers the bulk of the work. If you also generate campaign scenes, Getimg.ai adds $10. Against a single studio session, the difference is two orders of magnitude.

Is a phone camera enough?

Yes, and that is what this guide assumes. Mid-range phones from recent years have more resolution than online commerce needs. What makes the difference is not the sensor, it is light and a consistent angle.

Can I use these images on Amazon or marketplaces?

Yes, white background templates meet the usual requirements. Check each platform’s specific rules on shadows, watermarks and added elements before uploading a whole catalog.

What if my product is transparent or very shiny?

That is automatic cutout’s weak point. Shoot against a contrasting colored background to help the tool, review every cutout and plan on retouching a share of those photos by hand.