How to write a product photography brief for faster shoots and fewer revisions | Omi.so

2. Style & creative direction: what are we trying to communicate? 

Secondly, describe your creative vision for these photographs and provide context about your brand’s style. Reference photos are invaluable here, so try to find some examples with the same mood you’d like to evoke. 

Share the style guide your in-house creatives use, and background on your target audience. 

Your photographer should know who the images are for, which aspects of the product to emphasize, and how the visuals should make your audience feel.

Include:

• Moodboard and/or sample images (source creative product photography examples from Instagram, Pinterest, or competitors’ materials) 

• Brand guidelines (colors, lighting preferences, tone)

• Internal marketing documents about your target audience (customer profiles, market research, key messages) 

• Words that describe the look you’re aiming for (e.g. whether you want tropical, luxe, playful, or minimalist creative product shots)

• Brands you admire or model yourselves on 

Example:

“Photography should feel minimal and clean, similar to Aesop’s eCommerce imagery. Use soft natural light and a white background. We’re selling our organic haircare products to middle-class professionals in their 30s. See attached moodboard and brand guidelines.”

Creative direction sample 1: "Creative minimalist". Contemporary art gallery vibes. A stripped-back aesthetic featuring the product front and center, against a neutral background.

Creative direction sample 2: "Zingy and playful". Kitchy, Gen Z vibes. The product is framed by blocks of bold, contrasting colors. Instagram-friendly. Dramatic shadows.

Creative direction sample 3: “Self-care time”. Cosy, warm, indulgent vibes. Props and products crowding the frame to create a sense of abundance. Softly lift with harmonious colors. Tactile surfaces.

💡 Try a smarter workflow: Sometimes, you’ll write a manifesto about the kind of image you want… and the visuals your photographer creates still end up totally off. It’s frustrating, and leads to missed deadlines and expensive re-shoots.  Virtual Product Photography tools like Omi cut out all creative issues to do with collaboration.  Simply:  Send your product to our team  We’ll turn it into a Digital Twin (pixel-perfect 3D model) Use your 3D model in the Virtual Studio to create unlimited product images There’s a prop library of more than 6,000 items to help you tell your product’s story, plus thousands of customizable templates, backgrounds, and textures.  Best of all, the builder is intuitive enough for a non-designer to use. Instead of writing endless email chains, you can bring your idea to life yourself. There’s no limit on the amount of virtual photos you can create, so you can experiment until the result is perfect. “I love using Omi myself because I can turn my idea to reality faster than I ever did before — even when I worked for the biggest groups in the industry.” — Julien, General Manager @ Misencil. The team at beauty brand Misencil used summery props to accessorize this scene, creating a warm and carefree ambience. With Omi's library of 6000+ 3D assets, you can get creative in telling your product’s story.

3. Intended use: where will we publish these photos?

Describe the use case for the images you’re commissioning. This helps your photographer identify best practices for this type of product images: specifications like aspect ratio, file format, and image size, as well as the conventions of images in each location. 

Let your photographer know if you’re publishing the images across several channels, like website, social, and email . That way they may offer to share raw, unedited files for your in-house team alongside the final versions (or they may include shots they otherwise would’ve discarded). 

Include:

A mention of the platform(s) where this image will appear, which could be: 

• eCommerce sites (Shopify, Amazon, Etsy, etc.)

• Paid ads (Meta, Google Shopping, Amazon)

• Print or packaging 

• Your website 

• Social media sites (LinkedIn, Instagram, X, Reddit) 

Example:

“Main packshot photos for Amazon listings (white background, 2000 x 2000px), plus lifestyle shots for Meta ads (portrait orientation). May be re-used in lead nurturing emails.”

Energy drink brand 'Jane' uses Omi to create product visuals for a diverse range of marketing channels, including socials and PDPs.

💡 Try a smarter workflow: perhaps you don’t know every single marketing channel you’ll need images for in the next six months. With traditional product photography, that might mean repeating photoshoots when a new use case comes up — in other words, starting this long, expensive process all over again.   Omi allows you to create product images on demand. You could create an image for a Pinterest post, then decide six months later to repurpose it for a printed brochure, or even a billboard advert.  With the Virtual Studio, you can save images as templates, so you can come back to them in the future, without any additional setup. For French beauty brand, Peggy Sage, this has proved the key to scaling their content production whilst keeping quality sky high. They used Omi to build a library of 620 new product images, quickly 5Xing their content output.  “We can easily diversify images thanks to the large number of (3D) objects available. This gives us more flexibility and diversity in the images offered, without depending solely on graphic designers.”  — Peggy Sage

4. Shot list: what images do you actually need?

Send a shot list alongside your descriptions of these photos’ intended uses. Never assume your photographer will know what “a few angles” means for your product or vertical. For some teams, that means 3 images. For others, it’s 10. Be specific.

Think through everything a customer needs to visualize to make a confident buying decision, and build your shot list around that. Still not sure which angles to request? Opt for 360 product photography, an interactive content type which allows users to zoom, rotate, and flip your product images. It’s been shown to boost average order value by 30%. 

Include:

• Specific angles for images (front, back, side, detail, packaging, etc.)

• Lifestyle vs. studio shots

• In packaging vs in use 

• Number of images per product

Example:

“For each product, we need:

• 1 front-on image

• 1 close-up of texture

• 1 packaging shot

• 2 lifestyle shots in bathroom setting”

5. Specifications: which file requirements to ask a product photographer for

Be specific about the file requirements & deliverables you require from your product photographer, right down to how they should name images for your internal filing system. This will prevent last-minute handoff issues and costly admin work. 

Include:

• File format (JPEG, PNG, PSD)

• Product image resolution / aspect ratio / dimensions

• Naming conventions 

• How to deliver the files 

Example:

“JPEGs, 300dpi, square crop. Name files by SKU. Delivered via Google Drive.”

💡 Try a smarter workflow: with traditional photography, you need to specify output dimensions upfront, or risk delays and rework later. Omi gives you the flexibility to export your product visuals in any file type, aspect ratio, or size you need, whenever you need it. You can even scale up resolution without any loss in quality. Energy drink brand Jane uses Omi to export their scenes into many aspect ratios.

6. Copyright and credit: who owns the final images?

Don’t assume you’ll automatically own the photos you commission. You should agree on how (and if) your photographer wishes to be credited, and the extent of your intellectual property rights to the content.

Otherwise, you may be hit with unexpected charges if you repurpose images for a different campaign.

Agree on:

• Whether you receive full or limited usage rights

• If rights are global and perpetual

• Whether the photographer expects credit or watermarking

• What it would cost to upgrade your license if needed later

This protects you from legal or licensing headaches down the line. 

7. The timeline: how to manage the collaboration process

Prevent delays by locking in the process before the shoot starts. Misalignment on timelines or delivery expectations derail your production schedule, leading to missed deadlines and lost opportunities. Define the workflow upfront so everyone knows what to expect and when.

Set these five things in advance:

1. Shoot date and milestones: work backward from your target date to define deadlines for briefing, draft delivery, revisions, and final files

2. Delivery expectations: agree on turnaround times for each phase: first proofs, edits, and final assets

3. Communication channels: decide how you’ll collaborate — via Zoom, email updates, or project management tools

4. Edit rounds: confirm in writing how many revision rounds are included in your photographer’s fee, and what counts as out-of-scope

5. Approval points: assign who’s responsible for feedback and sign-off at each stage 

A clear process, documented in writing, mitigates against teamwork-related delays. 

Example:

“Shoot on August 10. First drafts by August 15. One feedback meeting on Zoom on August 20th. Final delivery by August 25.

The main contact will be Sarah (sarah@brand.com). Please send her drafts via email. She’ll give you feedback within 48 hours.”

💡 Try a smarter workflow: even with a clear plan, collaborating with an external photographer often involves feedback loops and unexpected delays. After all, creative work is inherently unpredictable, and there will be multiple stakeholders with different opinions who need to sign off on these product images.   Omi eliminates this back-and-forth and speeds up the turnaround time of your production by anywhere from 3-20X. You know your brand best: its visual conventions, its mood, and what resonates with its customers. With Omi, you create the product images yourself — so there’s no danger of missing the mark on these. That means faster decisions and visual output that genuinely reflects your brand.  Just ask the team at Dialect Fragrances. They switched to Omi to create sumptuous imagery for their luxury scents, and never looked back.  “Before Omi, producing product images and ad creatives took a lot of time and was expensive. Today, thanks to Omi, creating all our product visuals, marketing content, and ads is much faster and easier.” – Dialect Fragrances Fragrance brand Dialect uses Omi to create product images with minimal process-related issues (without compromising on quality or creativity)