White product photography.. White background?

[zampster]

I know a white background is preferred when showing product photo's of the item you're selling, but I have several products which are essentially white all over.

Any suggestions as to what is the best practice in this case would be appreciated, as a white product on a white background will just be a white wash.

[rosszonebricks]

I do my white products on black acrylic or black photo paper.   Same general idea applies, clean background that doesn't distract from your item being sold.

[coffeebean832]

You can photograph white on white as long as there are shadows to define the item. Here's an example- https://www.ebay.com/itm/Hanes-ComfortSoft-Cotton-T-Shirt-Plain-Blank-Solid-Short-Sleeve-Tees-S-4XL-...

You can also use a white background for the lead photo that's pulled into search engines and image searches while using a black background for the rest of the photos.

[zampster]

Thank you @rosszonebricks , thought that might be the case... just wondered if Ebay had any hidden rules or penalties for not sticking to their guidelines exactly lol.

[zampster]

@coffeebean832 Thanks for the reply, from your response... does that mean SEO for search engines and image searches would be effected if the lead photo isn't on a white background? The main concern I have, is for something like this...
https://www.bunnings.com.au/johnson-tiles-200-x-400mm-white-satin-ceramic-wall-tile-18-pack_p6661762

Not very exciting, I mean I could just draw a rectangle with some shading and probably get a better result than a photo.

[coffeebean832 · Accepted solution]

I see what you're saying- but if you search for white tile on google and view the shopping results and the image tab you can see a lot of examples of white on white where retailers make it work- and also examples of retailers that didn't make it work.

The ones that work generally have a shadow (real or faux- both work) or they take a photo of the tile at an angle.

eBay talked about white backgrounds with relation to the mobile image cleanup tool at the town hall last week and this is what they said-

We talked about Image Cleanup so that is launching this week on iOS and Andriod. And remember the importance of image cleanup is, you take a photo and it creates a beautiful white, clean background. That's really important for search engine optimization, key for Google, but more importantly on-platform it is putting the best picture forward. It's the picture that shows up in SRP (Search Results Page), it's the first picture you see in View Item, and it also means that when buyers use the image search capability, they'll have a better match to that photo. It's super cool and I'm just gonna make a call out to Ralli Roots who's gonna be at Up Front Tampa. They did an amazing video showing nine ways they took a photo of a t-shirt on the floor, on the wall, on grass... and every one cleaned up automatically and it was awesome. I highly recommend checking it out if you wanna see how awesome this capability is. And again, that should make the ease of taking photos and listing much, much better.

[fashn_cents]

I saw the You Tube video by Ralliroots as mentioned aboved, but according to them, the background eraser is only available on the mobile app and for iphone, not for android or PC's...Does anyone know if that is true

[coffeebean832]

@fashn_cents- It's only available on the mobile app. It started with iOS and they just released it to Android.

[dinpavent0]

thank you!! I seen it in the update that we could now make backgrounds white but didn't specify if it was on app or desktop. I only list on desktop because it is much easier to see any mistakes and check all the options they sneak in there so I refuse to list from the mobile site on my phone. I only use my phone for offers or to answer a customers question while I am away from computer other than that I have no use for the app. This whiteout thing should be available on desktop too. Why can't they make everything the same?

[jato7367]

Thanks for the reply, out of your response... Does that suggest search engine optimization for search engines like google and yahoo and photograph searches would be effected if the lead image isn't on a white background? Here is The primary concern I have, is for something like this...

[nuclearomen]

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@zampster wrote:

I know a white background is preferred when showing product photo's of the item you're selling, but I have several products which are essentially white all over.

Any suggestions as to what is the best practice in this case would be appreciated, as a white product on a white background will just be a white wash.

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doesn't have to be white background all the time, if you search through ebay see every color under the rainbow used. I use white currently, used black background last year...but I don't edit the backgrounds in adobe to be solid white like others, because that gives the impression it's a stock photo which I explicitly don't use, want people to know the product shown on the listing is the product you have and is for sale so they can see the actual quality... but this is due to what I sell, vinyl mostly, and vinyl fanatics are extremely picky about quality....for other things stock photos are fine though. One thing I like about Ebay above Amazon, as Amazon only allows stock photos/white background... it's hard to feel certain on buying everything like that all the time. 

I believe if you need the stock photo look, Ebay came out with a photo editor for the mobile app only that is suppose to work pretty good for doing that, I don't use the mobile app though so not sure how well it really works.