Shoot and edit product photos that hold up on a US marketplace

Most product-photo advice is generic because it's written without opening a rulebook. The rules exist, they're specific, and one of them contradicts the most common piece of advice given to new sellers.

So: what one marketplace publishes in writing, what the others do differently, how to shoot so the editing is short — and the watermark habit to drop before you list anything.

What Amazon publishes in writing

Amazon's clothing and accessories imaging guide is a public document — Amazon hosts the PDF itself, outside the seller login — and it's the most detailed image spec any major US marketplace puts in the open. The edition quoted throughout this article is the one titled Spring 2021, and that matters twice over: read the numbers as apparel numbers, and open the current page in Seller Central before a bulk upload, because a five-year-old specification is a good starting point rather than today's rulebook. What hasn't aged is the shape of the requirements, which tells you what a strict marketplace cares about generally.

The main image requirements

For the main image, that guide states:

• Pure white background — "RGB Value 255, HEX Value #FFFFFF". Not off-white, not light gray.
• The product must fill at least 85% of the image area.
• A single product, not a stack of multiple products in one frame, except for multipacks and sets.
• All adult apparel should be imaged on-model. All kids, baby, accessories, multipacks and sets should be off-model.
• JPEG or TIFF, with JPEG preferred.

And it closes that page with the consequence: failure to meet the requirements may result in your listing being removed from search.

What the main image must not contain

The don't-list is longer and more specific than most sellers expect:

• Gray backgrounds
• Food, drink, handbags, accessories or props not included with the purchase
• Child or baby models — all kids and baby items must be off-model
• Models kneeling, leaning or lying down
• Multiple product views in a single image
• Visible mannequins, and ghost mannequins. The guide states flatly: "mannequins are not allowed in product images"
• Promotional text such as "sale" or "free shipping"
• Logos, text, graphics or other badging that isn't part of the product
• Packaging, brands or swing tags

That second-to-last one is the reason the watermark section below exists.

Resolution and file setup

For zoom to work, the guide asks for images at least 1,600 pixels in height, not exceeding 10,000 pixels on the longest side, at 72 dpi. It recommends exporting as 8-bit JPEG or PNG-24, and prefers RGB over CMYK because CMYK can shift tonally on the website.

Practical read: build one square master per product at 2,000 px or more and export downward. You cannot recover resolution later, and every platform you add will want its own size.

The other marketplaces publish their own, and they don't match

This is where most articles start reciting numbers. This one won't: eBay's picture policy and Etsy's image guidance both sit on pages that would not load on the day this was written, across repeated attempts and several URLs. A specification nobody re-read is worse than a missing one, because you'll act on it. So no eBay or Etsy pixel figure appears here.

The shape of the differences is still worth having:

• Only Amazon's main image demands a pure white background. Etsy is a browsing shopfront where a styled scene often performs better, and square is the shape that survives thumbnail cropping.
• Marketplaces differ most on what may be added on top of a photo — borders, text, graphics, marks. Copying one platform's habit to another is what gets listings suppressed.
• Secondary images are freer than main images almost everywhere. Lifestyle scenes, scale references and detail shots live there.

Open the current policy page for the platform you're listing on before a bulk upload; that page is what gets enforced, not this one. For the white-background workflow and the platform breakdown, see white-background product photos for marketplaces.

Get it right in the camera

Every minute here is five saved later.

• Shoot next to a window, out of direct sun. Soft daylight gives accurate color and manageable shadows; direct sun gives hard shadows and blown highlights, and neither is fixable afterwards. Color accuracy is what returns get opened over.
• Use a plain, seamless backdrop. Poster board curved up behind the product is enough. A uniform background gives the cutout an easy edge to find, so the product comes back with a better outline.
• Shoot more angles than you think you need. Front, three-quarter, back, and a tight detail on whatever the buyer will squint at. Keep the same order across the catalog.
• Brace the camera. Elbows on the table, or a tripod. Softness reads as low quality even when the buyer can't say why, and it's the one flaw no editing pass genuinely repairs.
• Clean the product first. Dust, lint and fingerprints photograph far better than they look, and removing a background doesn't remove them.

Clean it up afterwards

Cut out the background and place the product on a uniform white, so every listing matches and a backdrop that photographed warm or blue stops being a rejection risk. If the original is small or soft, upscale before retouching — enlarging a smoothed image just enlarges the smoothing. Remove strays from the frame, a cable or a price sticker or a hand at the edge, rather than resetting the shot. Then export to spec, per platform, from the master.

Watermarks: where they help, and where they'll get you suppressed

The standard advice to new sellers is to watermark photos before posting so nobody steals the images. On a US marketplace listing, that advice is backwards.

Amazon's apparel guide puts "logo, text, graphics, or other badging not part of the product" on the main-image don't-list, alongside promotional text, and states that failing the requirements may pull the listing from search. A shop logo in the corner is exactly that kind of badging. eBay's picture policy also addresses marks added to listing images; its page could not be opened to be re-read on the day this was written, and a domain-restricted search of eBay's own help content returns a notably strict reading — so treat eBay as a place where a watermark is likely to cause a problem, and confirm on the live policy page rather than on the strength of this sentence.

Keep the two uses apart:

• Watermark your own surfaces — your website, social posts, lookbook, images sent to press or wholesale buyers. That's where attribution does something for you.
• Don't watermark the listing image. Not the main image, not for copyright, not subtly. The marketplace's own protections cover you there, and the mark is a rules violation with an enforcement path attached.

If your images are genuinely being copied, that's a claim to make through the platform's process — not something a logo in the corner solves.

Clothing, swimwear and intimate apparel

Apparel is a normal category with its own published rules, and they're more specific than in other categories. From the same Amazon guide:

• Adult apparel is imaged on-model. That includes adult swimwear and intimate apparel.
• Mannequins are not allowed in product images — visible or ghost. This catches a lot of small sellers who assumed an invisible mannequin was the safe option.
• Kids' and baby items are off-model — photographed flat or laid down, not worn.
• Shots of underwear, swimwear or leotard products on child or baby models are strictly prohibited and subject to removal.
• Images that display nudity or are sexually suggestive are prohibited and subject to removal.
• Products that look second-hand or slightly used are prohibited.

The guide also sets crop conventions for these categories — bras and sports bras framed above the navel, swim tops below it to distinguish them from bras, underwear and swim bottoms above the navel and below the ribcage. Useful to know before a shoot day rather than after.

Those are Amazon's rules for listing on Amazon, quoted as published. Other platforms set their own.

Keep the whole shop consistent

Pick your variables once — background value, crop shape, how much of the frame the product takes, the order you shoot angles in — and reuse them for every listing. Scrolling a grid built that way feels like one shop; when one product fills 80% of its frame and the next floats at 40%, the grid looks careless even though each photo passes on its own. It's also the cheapest item on this list: one decision, nothing per photo afterwards.

If a person appears in your shots, the portrait side is covered in smoothing skin without the plastic look. And if you'd rather describe an edit than select it, the product group of our AI photo editing prompt library is built around these shots.

Frequently asked questions

What does Amazon require for the main image?

Per its published clothing and accessories guide, Spring 2021 edition: pure white (RGB 255, hex #FFFFFF), the product filling at least 85% of the image area, one product per frame, no logos or text or badging that isn't part of the product, and at least 1,600 px in height for zoom. Adult apparel on-model; kids, baby, accessories and multipacks off-model. Other categories have their own page inside Seller Central.

Can I put my shop logo or a watermark on marketplace photos?

Not on Amazon's main image — badging that isn't part of the product is on the don't-list, and non-compliance can pull a listing from search. eBay's policy also covers marks on listing images; check the live page. Save watermarking for your own site and social channels.

Do I need a pure white background everywhere?

No. It's a main-image requirement at the strict end of the market, not a universal rule. Square is the safer universal choice, since that's what thumbnail grids crop to.

How do I photograph swimwear or intimate apparel for Amazon?

Adult items on-model, kids' and baby items off-model. Shots of underwear, swimwear or leotard products on child or baby models are strictly prohibited and subject to removal, as is nudity or sexually suggestive imagery. No visible or ghost mannequins. Those are Amazon's published rules for listing on Amazon.

Is a phone camera good enough?

For nearly everything, yes. Window light, a plain backdrop, a braced camera and a clean product beat a better camera used carelessly.

Do one product end to end

Shoot four angles by a window, cut out the background, put it on white, export square, and check it against the current spec page for your platform. If it clears, the rest of the catalog is the same routine with a different object.

How this article was made

• Written — seo-content produced the en-US version of /blog/meo-chup-va-chinh-anh-san-pham-de-ban-hang-online under brief I18N-11, 2026-08-29.
• Reviewed — seo-review re-ran the §G publication gate on 2026-09-06 (VIPIX session s148) on an earlier revision and returned PASS-WITH-FIXES, and the next revision fixed the issues that verdict names. Verdict on file: reviews/en-US-regate-s148-verdict.md (earlier gates, 2026-08-29: en-US-T1-regate-verdict.md, en-US-T2T4-gate-verdict.md, en-US-T3-gate-verdict.md). Since then, the article's internal links have been updated, and on 2026-09-28 this note was corrected.
• Process — content drafted by the Vipix SEO team's LLM under a reviewed brief; edited and checked by the Vipix SEO team; no native-speaker contractor was engaged.