Product Photography Guide for Shopify eCommerce Merchants

Product Photo Guidelines

Can be a square or tall rectangle.
Placement of product(s) must be consistent; i.e., all product dead center with a good amount of space (15% of total width/height for each edge) around the top, sides, and bottom of the frame (NO tight crop).
Orientation must be consistent; whether you opt for square or rectangle, the choice must be used for all of the product photographs.
Color/lighting/tone must be consistent throughout product photographs.
The maximum product image size allowed by Shopify 2048 x 2048 pixels. For the best magnification, use this maximum dimension for width and/or height.

Hero, header, and other photographs that will be used in the design of the website

Horizontally oriented photographs with a good bit of negative space for hero images (at least 60% of the image should be available if we are to apply text to the image).
In general, horizontally oriented photographs work best because browsers still account for the majority of webpage views.
Photographs should be at least 1,800 pixels wide and high resolution.
Vertically oriented images will likely not be used unless they can be incorporated into a diptych.

Page photographs (headshots and other images included on pages)

A lot more freedom here; as long as they’re high res and look good (subject matter is clear) at a minimum of 450 pixels, usually anything will work.

Reading next