Packshot photography for catalogues and webshops
Clean background, accurate colour, true proportions. The same light, angle and scale on every product in your range, shot in our 180 m² studio in Welle, Belgium.
Packshots are their own discipline at Studio Ballena. The brief is accuracy, not mood: the product as it is, lit so the shape, the label and the material read, for webshops, marketplaces, catalogues, packaging back panels and product sheets. The work is planned for a whole range and around your launch calendar.
Below is a selection of packshot work from fifteen years with food, drinks, consumer goods and industrial brands. Looking for advertising work with a set, props and a light plan of its own? That lives on our product photography page.
What a packshot set from the studio includes
Each product gets the views a buyer would check by holding it: the front, a three quarter view, the back or underside where there's information on it, and the pack beside its contents where there is one. Details are shot as their own frames, with the light set for that surface, so a leather grain or the finish on a praline reads at full size. New to the term? Start with what a packshot is.
The reasoning, view by view, is in our guide on what a product page needs from its packshots.
Consistent packshots across a product range
A range only looks like a range when every product sits in the frame the same way. The camera position stays fixed for each view, so the perspective matches from the first product to the last. The light stays the same shot after shot, and scale stays true, so a small jar looks small next to a large tin.
The settings are written down. When a product is added next season, it's shot to match the ones already online.
Catalogue photography and files for every channel
One shoot covers the webshop, the marketplace listing, the printed catalogue and the product sheet for retailers. The master file stays large for print, and each channel gets a version sized for it.
• Cut outs on white, for webshops and for marketplaces that ask for white background product photography
- • Cut outs on a transparent layer, for designers who place the product on a coloured layout
- • Versions with the product's own shadow, and without
- • High resolution masters for catalogues, packaging and print
Tell us the formats before the shoot day, so the frame leaves room for each crop.
Sectors we shoot packshots for
Most of the gallery above is chocolate and confectionery, drinks and food. The same process runs for cosmetics, household products, medical products and industrial parts: one set of views, one light and one scale for the whole range.
Trusted by global brands, production houses and agencies including
Packshot questions
Do the products come to the studio, or can you shoot on location?
Usually they come to us. Send or bring the products to the studio in Welle. A delivery truck can pull up on our driveway and unload straight into the studio through the sectional door, and there's parking right outside. Packshots on location are possible when a product can't travel, but the studio is where the light is most consistent and the work goes fastest, so that's what we recommend.
Do you deliver cut outs with a transparent background?
Yes, with a clipping path in the file, either on a transparent layer or on white. Ask for one version with the product's own shadow for the webshop, and one without for the designer.
Can products added later match the existing range?
Yes, when we shot the range. The camera and light settings are written down for each view, so a product added next season is shot the same way. More answers are on our FAQ page.
Need packshots for a launch or catalogue?
Tell us how many products, which views and where the photos will be used, and we'll come back with how we'd shoot the range.