What Is Packshot Photography?
Packshot photography - sometimes called product packshot or catalogue photography - captures a product on a plain, usually white, background under controlled lighting. The goal is to document the product accurately: its shape, colour, proportions, and packaging, with no distraction from background elements.
Packshots are the backbone of ecommerce: they are required by most marketplaces, used in catalogues, price comparison sites, and product data feeds. Every online retailer needs packshots of every product they sell.
Packshots vs. Lifestyle Photography
Where packshots prioritise clarity and accuracy, lifestyle photography prioritises aspiration and context. A packshot of a leather bag shows the bag cleanly; a lifestyle photo shows it slung over the shoulder of someone walking through a city. Both serve different purposes at different stages of the buyer journey.
AI tools like Bryft use packshots as the input for generating lifestyle content - taking the factual accuracy of a packshot and wrapping it in an emotionally engaging scene.
Best Practices
- Use a pure white (255,255,255) background for marketplace compliance
- Shoot from multiple angles: front, back, side, and detail
- Use consistent lighting to maintain colour accuracy across SKUs
- Capture at high resolution for cropping and zoom flexibility
- Ensure products are clean, pressed, and properly styled
Real-World Example
An apparel brand photographs their new 200-piece collection as packshots on white backgrounds. These images are uploaded to Amazon and their Shopify store. They then feed the same packshots into Bryft to automatically generate lifestyle imagery for Instagram, email campaigns, and paid ads - getting maximum value from a single shoot.