Brand photostyle: rules of shooting and retouching
What to do on the set to avoid redoing in retouching
Shooting and retouching are not two separate stages, but one chain of decisions. Each decision on the set either saves hours of processing or creates a problem that the retoucher will have to fix manually. Exposure, camera position and light source determine most of the final quality — retouching fine-tunes the rest, not the other way around.
- Shoot with a small exposure margin (better slightly underexposed than overexposed) — you can recover shadows in RAW, but you cannot restore burned-out details in highlights.
- Fix the white balance according to the gray card on each lighting change, and do not rely on the camera's automatic settings.
- Shoot the product and model at an angle that immediately gives the desired composition — cropping in retouching reduces resolution and often fails to meet marketplace requirements for minimum frame size.
- Remove dust, fuzz and reflections physically on the set (anti-static, sticky roller, polarizing filter), and do not leave this to the retoucher.
Natural light or studio lighting: how to choose
The choice of light source depends on which emotion the frame should convey, not on the convenience of the shooting day. Natural light from a window works for image and lifestyle shoots — it creates a lively, warm atmosphere and is suitable when the brand's task is to show character and naturalness. Staged lighting (softboxes, strip boxes) is the choice for product shoots where result repeatability from frame to frame is important.
There is a simple practical rule: an angle of 45° to the window or softbox produces soft shadows that emphasize the object's form without sharp black holes. Direct sunlight and front flash create hard, contrasty shadows — these are exactly what require retouching hours, because it is almost impossible to soften a sharp shadow programmatically without losing detail.
| Parameter | Natural light | Studio lighting |
|---|---|---|
| When to use | Imagery and lifestyle shoots | Product and catalog photography |
| Result control | Low, depending on weather and time of day | High, repeatable from shift to shift |
| Shadow character | Soft under diffused light, hard in sunlight | Managed through angle and diffusers |
| Retouching requirements | Color correction is often needed to match the location lighting | Minimal with proper setup |
Errors in shooting that retouch cannot fix
Some defects cannot be corrected post-processing — the information simply isn't in the frame. Knowing this list saves the brand money on reshoots.
- Overexposed areas (white-out details) — there is simply no texture data there, so they cannot be realistically redrawn.
- Motion blur due to short exposure when the model or product is moving — sharpness is not programmatically recoverable.
- Too low resolution for the target platform — for example, a photo below 900×1200 px will not meet Wildberries' requirements, and upscaling results in a mess.
- Incorrect angle where the product or the model's face is optically distorted — perspective distortions from a wide-angle lens are not removed by retouching without losing proportions.
- Too warm or too cool frame under mixed lighting (window + lamp) — color correction will stretch one light source but not both simultaneously.
Retouching: product, lifestyle, and image shooting — different processing logic
A common mistake among brands — applying the same level of retouching to all types of content. These are different tasks with different allowable degrees of intervention.
| Type of content | What is removed | What is not touched |
|---|---|---|
| Product shooting | Dust, fuzz, reflections, background defects | The real texture of the material — otherwise the product in the photo will not match the product in the buyer's hands |
| Lifestyle | Technical frame defects, extra items in the background | Natural facial expressions and poses — over-retouching kills the feeling of a live scene |
| Image shooting | Color correction to brand palette, light skin correction | Individual characteristics of models — the goal is to show character, not a standardized face |
There is a separate set of requirements for marketplaces: for example, Wildberries requires an aspect ratio of 3:4, a minimum of 900×1200 px, a white background, the sRGB color profile, and also forbids text and watermarks on the main photo. These requirements need to be built into the shooting plan in advance, not adjusted after the fact.
What a photo style consists of: 8 parameters for a guideline
To ensure that the photo style is reproduced identically by different photographers and retouchers, it needs to be described specifically, not through adjectives like 'premium' or 'lively'. The brand documentation sets out eight parameters:
- Genre — staged studio shooting, documentary, product photography.
- Model types — age, gender, characteristic emotions, allowable poses.
- Lighting — natural or artificial, degree of contrast, direction of light.
- Color palette — dominant hues, frame temperature, correspondence to brand colors.
- Composition — angles, shot size (wide, medium, close-up), cropping rules.
- Background type — solid color, textured, location, allowable objects in the frame.
- Degree of retouching — what can be corrected, what is forbidden to touch.
- Number of people in the frame — optimally 2-3 people maximum, more than that — and the composition loses focus, faces become small and unexpressive.
Large brands (VK, Corum Group, KEAZ) specify these parameters in the brand book with examples of «such and such is good / such and such is not good» — this works better than a textual description because it eliminates misinterpretations when handing the task over to a new contractor.
How to compose a brief for a photographer so that the result matches the photostyle
A brief consisting of the phrase «make it look good and in the brand style» will inevitably result in a shot that has to be retaken. A working technical brief is built according to a checklist:
- References of 3-5 frames with notes on what to take (lighting, angle, emotion) and what not to copy.
- Exact shooting parameters: type of light (natural/staged), angle, background, shot size.
- Requirements for the placement area — size, aspect ratio, color profile, if the content is going to a marketplace.
- List of permitted retouching — specify directly what cannot be changed, such as the texture of the product or the features of the model's face.
- Camera technical specifications — minimum resolution, recording format (RAW is mandatory for further color correction).
The more detailed the technical specification at the outset, the fewer revisions at the end — and the fewer discrepancies between what is conceived in the brand book and what actually appears in the feed or on the product card.
What to do on the set to avoid redoing in retouching
Shooting and retouching are not two separate stages, but one chain of decisions. Each decision on the set either saves hours of processing or creates a problem that the retoucher will have to fix manually. Exposure, camera position and light source determine most of the final quality — retouching fine-tunes the rest, not the other way around.
- Shoot with a small exposure margin (better slightly underexposed than overexposed) — you can recover shadows in RAW, but you cannot restore burned-out details in highlights.
- Fix the white balance according to the gray card on each lighting change, and do not rely on the camera's automatic settings.
- Shoot the product and model at an angle that immediately gives the desired composition — cropping in retouching reduces resolution and often fails to meet marketplace requirements for minimum frame size.
- Remove dust, fuzz and reflections physically on the set (anti-static, sticky roller, polarizing filter), and do not leave this to the retoucher.
Natural light or studio lighting: how to choose
The choice of light source depends on which emotion the frame should convey, not on the convenience of the shooting day. Natural light from a window works for image and lifestyle shoots — it creates a lively, warm atmosphere and is suitable when the brand's task is to show character and naturalness. Staged lighting (softboxes, strip boxes) is the choice for product shoots where result repeatability from frame to frame is important.
There is a simple practical rule: an angle of 45° to the window or softbox produces soft shadows that emphasize the object's form without sharp black holes. Direct sunlight and front flash create hard, contrasty shadows — these are exactly what require retouching hours, because it is almost impossible to soften a sharp shadow programmatically without losing detail.
| Parameter | Natural light | Studio lighting |
|---|---|---|
| When to use | Imagery and lifestyle shoots | Product and catalog photography |
| Result control | Low, depending on weather and time of day | High, repeatable from shift to shift |
| Shadow character | Soft under diffused light, hard in sunlight | Managed through angle and diffusers |
| Retouching requirements | Color correction is often needed to match the location lighting | Minimal with proper setup |
Errors in shooting that retouch cannot fix
Some defects cannot be corrected post-processing — the information simply isn't in the frame. Knowing this list saves the brand money on reshoots.
- Overexposed areas (white-out details) — there is simply no texture data there, so they cannot be realistically redrawn.
- Motion blur due to short exposure when the model or product is moving — sharpness is not programmatically recoverable.
- Too low resolution for the target platform — for example, a photo below 900×1200 px will not meet Wildberries' requirements, and upscaling results in a mess.
- Incorrect angle where the product or the model's face is optically distorted — perspective distortions from a wide-angle lens are not removed by retouching without losing proportions.
- Too warm or too cool frame under mixed lighting (window + lamp) — color correction will stretch one light source but not both simultaneously.
Retouching: product, lifestyle, and image shooting — different processing logic
A common mistake among brands — applying the same level of retouching to all types of content. These are different tasks with different allowable degrees of intervention.
| Type of content | What is removed | What is not touched |
|---|---|---|
| Product shooting | Dust, fuzz, reflections, background defects | The real texture of the material — otherwise the product in the photo will not match the product in the buyer's hands |
| Lifestyle | Technical frame defects, extra items in the background | Natural facial expressions and poses — over-retouching kills the feeling of a live scene |
| Image shooting | Color correction to brand palette, light skin correction | Individual characteristics of models — the goal is to show character, not a standardized face |
There is a separate set of requirements for marketplaces: for example, Wildberries requires an aspect ratio of 3:4, a minimum of 900×1200 px, a white background, the sRGB color profile, and also forbids text and watermarks on the main photo. These requirements need to be built into the shooting plan in advance, not adjusted after the fact.
What a photo style consists of: 8 parameters for a guideline
To ensure that the photo style is reproduced identically by different photographers and retouchers, it needs to be described specifically, not through adjectives like 'premium' or 'lively'. The brand documentation sets out eight parameters:
- Genre — staged studio shooting, documentary, product photography.
- Model types — age, gender, characteristic emotions, allowable poses.
- Lighting — natural or artificial, degree of contrast, direction of light.
- Color palette — dominant hues, frame temperature, correspondence to brand colors.
- Composition — angles, shot size (wide, medium, close-up), cropping rules.
- Background type — solid color, textured, location, allowable objects in the frame.
- Degree of retouching — what can be corrected, what is forbidden to touch.
- Number of people in the frame — optimally 2-3 people maximum, more than that — and the composition loses focus, faces become small and unexpressive.
Large brands (VK, Corum Group, KEAZ) specify these parameters in the brand book with examples of «such and such is good / such and such is not good» — this works better than a textual description because it eliminates misinterpretations when handing the task over to a new contractor.
How to compose a brief for a photographer so that the result matches the photostyle
A brief consisting of the phrase «make it look good and in the brand style» will inevitably result in a shot that has to be retaken. A working technical brief is built according to a checklist:
- References of 3-5 frames with notes on what to take (lighting, angle, emotion) and what not to copy.
- Exact shooting parameters: type of light (natural/staged), angle, background, shot size.
- Requirements for the placement area — size, aspect ratio, color profile, if the content is going to a marketplace.
- List of permitted retouching — specify directly what cannot be changed, such as the texture of the product or the features of the model's face.
- Camera technical specifications — minimum resolution, recording format (RAW is mandatory for further color correction).
The more detailed the technical specification at the outset, the fewer revisions at the end — and the fewer discrepancies between what is conceived in the brand book and what actually appears in the feed or on the product card.
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