PRODUCT PHOTOGRAPHY
Small products can be done in the studio and for oversized products like furniture, floors, kitchens, etc., the photo shoot can be performed at your preferred location.
We are located in the LONGMONT / BOULDER (Colorado) area: for local clients we can discuss pickup/drop-off for items OR you can ship your products to us.
You’ll get true colors and optimized results. Whatever your goals are, we do offer production and post-production ranging from standard to high-value advanced productions.
The complexity of a shoot varies: Standard (streamlined basic but solid results) OR Advanced / Composites (advanced compositions allow to go beyond in-camera possibilities, also called advertising shoots). Scroll down to our Portfolio Gallery to see examples of different complexity.
We offer professional Photoshop Editing to any degree. If you want to take your product photography to a new level with CGI, static or animations, please send your project brief and request an estimate from us.
Tell us about your project and specify any custom request: prepping and staging requirements, model / talent requirements, lifestyle setting wish list or requirements, deadlines, on-location requirements and restrictions (e.g., after you installed the product at your customer’s site: furniture, kitchens, stairs, floors, etc.)
If your product is food-related, let’s talk what the food item is and where and how it can be captured best. See Food & Beverage Photography
Get a custom estimate from us!
- product on 100% (rgb, 255, 255, 255) white background (like e-Commerce shops / Amazon require it)
- product on any colored background, white-gray-ish (equals a natural white shot), black, or virtual backgrounds
- product in lifestyle setting / usage scenario (usually the scene resembles how and where the product is used or how it looks in a real environment or associated scene — photographed either in a studio-staged environment with props or anywhere on-location)
- Groups of products (natural scene or designed grids)
- Flat-lay (clothing and other suitable products)
- Some of our services are available as Level STANDARD or Level ADVANCED, so we can make it work for your budget
- Creative product photography, Concepts, Composites, Retouching
- Design Service for eCommerce, online advertising, etc.
- CGI and 3D projects
Note: MINIMUM ORDER AMOUNTS MAY APPLY.
All pricing is subject to change and so are service descriptions and inclusions / exclusions.
Only our estimates will itemize and show the actual costs for your project!
Additional costs (if applicable): ADD-ONS, EXPENSES & CHARGES, OTHER FEES, OTHER LICENSE OPTIONS, etc.
Discounts are also possible, project- and quantity-dependent.
+++ all prices in USD; all pricing subject to change;
the following is a non-binding rough price idea to get you started +++
PRODUCT ON-WHITE BACKGROUND / e-Commerce
ON-WHITE BACKGROUND is the most common type for eCommerce shops: the product background is 100% white (rgb 255)
We offer different levels of sophistication you can choose from:
Level THE BASE (eCOMMERCE): the economical foundation — pricing per SKU per image
Our photos and our setup for the photo shoot goes beyond what you get for the discount pricing you’ll find on the web. We analyzed the competitive discount market and came to the conclusion that of course the production quality had to be reduced if a company offers at the budget level. Even when losing potential clients, we do not see a way to make photos that are not top-level and gorgeous … just because we would try to compete in a discount market that requires compromises.
THE BASE means it is the FOUNDATION on which you can built your marketing strategy — and as we know, a foundation needs to be top quality and solid.
Our Pro photo shoots are resulting in detailed, solid photos for your product.
To offer a solution at this economical price level while not jeopardizing quality, our workflow must be predictable and streamlined regarding set-up, styling, prep, photo shoot, post-processing.
Products with shiny surfaces, transparency, shine-thru/look-thru/reflection aspects need to be put on the NEXT_LEVEL photoshoots or PRO ADVERTISING LEVEL.
Next Level On-White — ADVANCED: going beyond the eCommerce basics — pricing per SKU per image
This category offers results with specific attention to set-up, details, transparency/look-thru/shine-thru aspects of your product, reflections + light, PANTONE guidelines, creative guidelines, weight/size challenges.
Level PRO-ADVERTISING: See the tabs ADVANCED/LIFESTYLE/HERO or CUSTOM SHOOT for additional information on more Advanced Photo Shoots.
Included in eComerce On-White:
The following is valid for Level STANDARD; more features are included in the higher service levels.
- basic product prep: wipe off (dust mitigation, surface), basic assembly or unpackaging (< 5 min), product inspection, light wrinkle / fold mitigation.
All prep work done at our sole discretion — if more than minor problems with the product are detected, we might need to reject to shoot the involved SKUs or ask for replacement. - one-time basic optimization: colors, brightness, WB, sharpness, digital dust removal before presenting the image to client.
- Final image dimensions: 3000px in a square JPG format which you can easily extend horizontally or vertically if you would need portrait or landscape format.
Larger final image dimensions may be available as an ADD-ON if you are interested.
Note: In the final images, the ratio between white space area and actual product area is depending on the length-height-depth ratio of your product: slim products leave more white space and …so on. - Pure white background (RGB 255,255,255) or Natural White background (slightly gray-ish).
- drop shadow (default setting for Pure White background; recommended to make the image realistic and believable on a white plane, but optional)
OR natural shadow (default for Natural White and optional for Pure White background.
Shadow preferences other than the default setting must be requested before project start or photo shoot) - cloud delivery
- Usage rights: COMMERCIAL license — additional and extended licenses available as ADD-ON.
- No retouching or reshoots or revision cycles included, unless we made a mistake. 😉 Don’t blame us for crooked labels or how your product actually looks under a high-resolution camera lens: all imperfections will show up!
RETOUCHING, RESHOOT, REVISION CYCLES available as ADD-ON.
NEXT_LEVEL & PRO_AD
NEXT_LEVEL (advanced) and PRO_AD category shoots are those where extra work, time, resources are involved. Where is the line? It depends on the product and your expectations. For many use scenarios a streamlined BASE on-white shot does the job.
Then, some products are more difficult to shoot, e.g. because of reflections of shiny materials — to achieve top results, more time and effort on all level is required — commonly these items require the NEXT_LEVEL.
CUSTOM / PRO_AD takes it to perfection, we will need even more time for the set-up, lighting, and retouching.
Anyway, to put it simple: if e.g., you decide for a 60-dollar / per item shoot, you cannot expect the results you would get for a PRO-Advertising shot that takes days to finalize.
We do the best possible for any category you choose.
RETOUCHING NEEDS: The degree of retouching depends on the client’s input and goals. Retouch can add days of work in extreme cases. Many clients go back to a more natural look which requires less retouching. In general, if retouch is taken to the extreme (mirroring, cloning, composites etc.) a product may look even not that natural anymore, just because the eye expects ‘imperfections’.
We are open to any level of retouching but recommend a natural approach. We also use AI for streamlining and perfecting retouch processes. Get in touch and let us know what your RETOUCH preferences are.
A product shoot’s phases in general: planning & pre-production, setup, shoot & production, post-production and post-processing, and revision cycles.
Here some examples for criteria to determine in what category an item falls: extended or complex scene set-ups, material challenges like shine-thru, look-thru, reflection, retouching and mitigation of crooked material, symmetry corrections, consistency mitigation, PANTONE color requirements, odd shape/ size/weight products, etc. — many result images are created as composites to fulfill the desired outcome.
GET A FREE ESTIMATE
What are your product’s specs? If you are unsure in which category your product shoot will fall, just send over a description and as many details as available and we get back to you with a custom estimate and any open questions. No obligations!
Popular TYPES OF IMAGES
LIfestyle Images
What is a Lifestyle Setting shot? Such image shows your product in a lifestyle setting / usage scenario: usually the scene resembles how and where the product is used or how it looks in a real environment — photographed either in a studio-staged environment with props or anywhere on-location.
The scene must be planned, prepared and staged, photographed. The complexity ranges from simple to demanding. It’s important that you provide us with a pretty detailed vision (idea) you have in mind for your product because the interpretation of how to style a scene and present the product is an open and wide field and a very subjective matter.
Lifestyle Image — … if you are bound by a tight budget, here are some cost factors to consider…
In order to keep the costs as low as possible some prerequisites are required:
-
- YOU do the brainstorming, research, providing ideas and samples of the desired scene; we try to make it happen.
- The scene (including props) must be considered simple, and the dimension should not exceed 24x24x24 inch — …scene evaluation at our sole discretion 😉
- Small product group possible with up to 5 items — and again, every situation is so different that we cannot guarantee that your ideas fit into a certain price model.
Many ADD-ONs possible.
We cannot guarantee that the lowest price works for your ideas, but we are happy to give you a free estimate for the Lifestyle Image you have in mind.
Lifestyle Image — Pro_AD level
The time, effort, skill that goes into a LIFESTYLE IMAGE can vary extremely — We like to her about your ideas and take your direction, OR we do brainstorm, throw-in our ideas, suggestions, and take over creative direction. That collaboration will take up some time but will produce wonderful results.
Please send your RFE / RFP / project brief and we provide a free itemized estimate.
Lifestyle Image as A Stock Photography ComposiTION
We take the image of your product and compose it into a licensed high-quality Stock Photo. Your product is melted into the scene. That is a cost-effective approach which does not require a complex Lifestyle scene set-up.
Hero Images
What is a HERO shot? That is a term used in marketing / sales and applies mostly for product photo shoots. A HERO shot can be defined as the primary image of your product which makes a customer longing for the product. It is a kind of entry / gateway image leading to the product or campaign.
Hero shots can be either quite simple ones or extraordinarily complex ones that require lots of planning, prep work, production time and effort, and so on. High-value productions lead often to the creation of COMPOSITES.
FLAT-LAY
Flat-Lay is common for clothing photography, but can be applied to many other products as well — some options as examples:
- on-white or colored backgrounds
- in a lifestyle scene often as a BASIC-SETUP feasible
- 1 product or grouped items
Pricing ranges from STANDARD-ON-WHITE (plus ADD-ONs) to any ADVANCED scenario.
COMPOSITES
COMPOSITES, in general, are images where multiple shots with changed settings are composed into an optimized composite – why doing that? Because it is mostly impossible to capture all aspects of a product in its best possible way at the same point in time… therefore, the creation process takes longer – that is what you would see in larger budget advertising campaigns, and those cannot be compared to standard streamlined shoots for an eCommerce catalog.
Custom shoots & CONCEPTS
Please describe your project and request a custom estimate.
A custom shoot can consist of either a few or many tasks, among them: brainstorming, sketching, meeting and discussion, prepping, photo shoot, post-production. The latter can be quite complex for composites and therefore can consume many hours of time. It can get even more complex if talents, rentals, on-location work, travel, permits etc. are involved. Pricing also depends on license type, revision cycles and other aspects that come with more complex projects.
CGI
We will need a detailed insight into your goals and what you envision. What files (incl. file -types) can you deliver as a starting point for us? At what budget range are we looking — a CGI project is time and resource-consuming and we all need to be on the same page before we start.
Please describe your project and request a custom estimate.
CONCEPT PHASE, Complexity and Budget considerations
If you want us to work on a CONCEPT and present IDEAS, you need to provide a deep insight into your product, company, and goals.
Providing a budget range is always a good idea because we can feel on what level of sophistication, we should plan a solution. Remember the car analogy… you can’t just say “I want to buy a car”, you NEED to check your budget first.
On-Location
Costs depend on your product(s) and time needed on-location plus necessary post-production. Send your project description and we provide our free estimate.
On-location is basically a photo shoot that can be produced either on your premises or for example at your client’s location where you have installed your product, let’s say a kitchen, furniture, floors, solar, landscape design, et cetera, whatever your product or service might be.
We can imagine visualizing your business environment, your manufacturing process, your warehouse logistics, your business culture, and whatever is important for your marketing.
Design Service
INFOGRAPHICS
Creating INFOGRAPHICS is a related service to photography:
The complexity of Infographics ranges from simple to very complex — it is a combination of marketing information and photos and design elements and drawings.
Since Infographics are a marketing tool, we will need YOUR specific input — only you know what you want to emphasize.
The pricing of an Infographic depends on the type and number of images and the design time — PLEASE SEND YOUR BRIEF and we’ll give you an estimate.
IF not already part of a given custom project estimate, there are some ADD-ONs you can add to a STANDARD CLASSIC photo shoot project or any other (if applicable). See our list below, but if there’s something else, we haven’t put there, just ask us.
- for Designers: PSD files with separate layers (if existing)
- for Designers: Paths / or Masks (results also in a PSD file; pls specify what exactly you want)
- Group Images (3+ objects in one scene) — note: for grouping items with white space in-between them we need to charge for single images
- Pairs are a special form of a group with just 2 items that ‘belong together’ like front view/back view or open/closed — Pairs can save costs if you do not need 2 separate images
- Grid-view Groups (any groups composed/edited from single image shots)
- Choice of background: color, gradient, multiple colors, other background image, etc.
- Retouching (making any possible corrections or creating any desired look & feel)
- Photoshop work of any kind
- Graphic design: banners, header images with text, etc.
- shiny surfaces Add-on (STARTER level)
- Apparel Add-on (STARTER level)
- Rush Service (anything faster than standard turn-around time frame for the respective project)
- Additional result file sets
- Additional licenses, NDA’s, etc.
- On-Location time / effort
- Hand-Model (per item or time-based) / Full Model (time-based) / Stylists / any talent
- casting, permits, craft service, meals, insurance, rentals, crew, etc.
- Prop purchases if not available in-house or delivered by client
- Art Direction / Concept / Brainstorming / Research / Scouting
- Stock photography research and purchase
- Additional Revision Cycles (can be applied to all phases of a project)
- Product assembly (if install doesn’t fall into the 5-minute rule)
- Extended product preparation efforts (styling, wrinkle mitigation, etc.)
Above items are example add-on and there can be many more tasks; some items are just applicable for large productions; others are common for any size project.
Pricing depends on the actual degree of effort and time — some things are simple for one project and complex for the other. Just let us know what you are looking for and you’ll get an estimate for it. Best time to do that is right upfront when you contact us and get your initial project estimate BUT if you make up your mind later and decide for add-on, we can still estimate it, but it could become more expensive because we could have done it right away without redundant effort or setup.
TIPS:
CLOTHING: For adult clothing items please select size S or M. For kids clothing any size is ok.
ANY PRODUCT: take enough time to pick only the best examples of your product and watch out for material, label, and other issues. Crooked labels, symmetrical issues, and product imperfections are very common and will create extra costs to fix them later in post-processing. We’ll try to fix minor things without charge, but more time-consuming editing will require extra charges.
Rush delivery / production is possible but depends on our schedule — it will add some extra costs.
Path or Mask option and PSD or PNG file format available as add-ons. Any retouching, modifying of your images / products or adding text is also available as an add-on — just talk to us about what you need.
Get a Free estimate
Pro-TIP: Agencies and other PRO’s, please send your Project Brief / RFP to: team@denalimultimedia.com
If you do not have all information ready, please consider following suggestions to include in your inquiry:
- Project Overview:
- free-style written project intro
- brands involved; products involved; product preview images
- total expected delivery (quantified) / scope definition
- location requirements
- License expectations or description of intended use: Commercial / Editorial / Personal Use? — in which media do you plan to use the work results? — will 3rd parties use the images?
- Special requests: all that is of interest for the project; also, if models are required / what criteria do apply? Any ‘must-have’ things
- Any further notes?
Any kind of important input which is needed for scope definition and the estimate process: e.g., are shipping/delivery costs are covered by client or do they go into the estimate?
Will client provide specific props?
- Budget Info: budget info helps to decide what service level is requested and to right-size the estimate accordingly
- Shot list (if available, it helps to make the estimate more accurate)
- Mood boards / Style refs (helps us to get a feel for your taste and expectations)
- Next Steps, Schedule
- Estimate deadline: expected by [date]
- Talent & Location approval process, timeframe and deadlines
- Production timeframe; earliest starting point, deadline(s), or TBD
- Review / Revision process timeframe:
Review and Revision requires a certain timeframe depending on #-of-cycles - Delivery deadline: expected by [date]
- Other: anything else
- Tell us everything else you deem relevant information — we’ll sort that out and will get back to you with our questions.
- You’ll receive an estimate, and we work on modifications, upgrades, downgrades, and any detail
Notes:
If you provide a budget, we will compile our estimate in order to meet your budget but might have to right-size the scope / expectations. We can add an option which gives you an idea what budget would be required to make the originally proposed project scope / expectation reality.
HOW THE Production PROCESS WORKS
- Approval of estimate / Signing of the order / service agreement (eSign)
- Down payment to reserve the production time slot
- Product(s) / Items need to arrive
- Production start according to agreement
- Revision / Review cycle starts according to agreement
- Delivery and rest-payment
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