Flat Lay Product Retouching – A Case Study

An Australian company approached us many years ago with images of flat lay products, comprising mainly of shoes and apparels, and needed quick turnaround. The company was quite popular (and still is) as a leading retail, wholesale and e-commerce group in Sydney and Melbourne. It deals in branded footwear and clothing lines from across the world and sells them through several e-commerce websites and retail outlets it owns in the country.

The Problem

The group’s in-house photographers shot white t-shirts on a white background, making it difficult to separate the product from the background in post-production. Also, there was insufficient lighting and the garment was not laid out properly for a wrinkle-free shot. There were a multitude of issues across several products images, which must be tackled with for higher customer satisfaction.

Issues with problem images

We scrutinized the images and came up with following issues.

Distracting backgrounds

As with most flat lay product photography, backgrounds remain the single most factor that create distraction and inconsistencies across images. Obviously, the background needed to be cut out and replaced with something that would complement with the product and go in sync with brand consistency. A muted background works great in bringing back the focus on the products.

Wrinkles

Products made of fabrics often give rise to wrinkles if not properly handled while shooting. Evidences support that neat and wrinkle-free images of products tend to attract more customers.

Dust and scratches

One often forgets to clean the product and background before shooting. It is often a case that such imperfections only come to notice during post-production.

Dull and inconsistent lighting

Though the client had a well-equipped studio to take product photos, some images did show effects of inconsistent lighting, such as harsh shadows, unwanted reflections and inconsistency in luminance.

Color issues

Images may not accurately represent the product’s true color due to a number of camera and lens issues, leading to many common complaints, such as dull color, lack of color consistency and color cast.

The Solution

Our team had a look at the images the client had supplied and quickly created an action flowchart or a workflow to tackle the flat lay product photography issues that the client was struggling with. The workflow included steps to target specific problems in images and devise solutions that were appropriate, cost-effective and geared towards quicker turnaround time and higher customer satisfaction.

Our solutions

We followed the workflow to tackle each identified issue with a precise solution.

Clipping path

Removing distracting background was the first thing we needed to do and nothing comes close to clipping path when you need crisp, clean edges of a product. Using clipping path is a time-consuming job depending on the shape and size of image. However, we were (and still are) an expert in this field and could knock out tens of such images in an hour, maintaining the quality.

Exposure adjustment

You need to have a good idea of shadows, highlights and midtones to work with exposure balance. We Identified overexposed and underexposed areas, and increased or decreased lighting intensity as required. We made subtle changes as it was important not to lose details.

Color correction

We tweaked a number of global settings, such as curves, levels and color balance to adjust brightness and contrast, remove color cast, and improve color consistency. You have to be experienced enough to bring back true-to-life color. Even more skills are required to match colors and apply color grading correctly.

Fabric smoothing

This was the most challenging aspect since you must not lose texture detail while removing wrinkles and smoothing fabric. Frequency separation is a good tool to use as it helps creating two layers. Use brushes like spot healing brush and clone stamp to remove wrinkles the low-frequency layer and keep the the high-frequency layer as it is for texture preservation. Finally merge the two layers and you have a clean, realistic-looking product image.

Shadow creation

Shadows help give a product necessary depth and realistic look. The best is to use the original shadow. We tried keeping the existing shadows while removing background. It may be necessary to correct shadow contrast and exposure, and remove harshness.

The Steps

Here are the detailed steps of our flat lay clothing retouching workflow.

Open image

Open the raw image file.

Selection

Make selection using the pen tool.

Layer mask

Create a layer mask.

White background

Make the background white (or keep it transparent if required by the client).

Global settings

Tweak on a number of global settings to adjust exposure, lighting, color and vibrancy.

Local adjustment

Work with brushes like cloning, healing, dodge and burn to clean product, smoothen fabric and remove dust, spots, scratches and imperfections. We also use liquify tool to smoothen wrinkles and refine edges.

Save

Sometimes, we need to cut the image into half and flip the best side to complete and straighten the image. Save the image in the format that the client desired.

Conclusion

Flat lay product photography is a good and easy technique to capture a product’s visual appeal from all dimensions. Despite all cares, some discrepancies might crop up, which must be addressed in post-production.

A company experienced in flat lay product retouching can easily deal with all nuances of photography discrepancies. Outsourcing flat lays to such a company not only gives you enough time to focus on your core business, but also ensure professional quality and industry standard.

Testimonial from the client

We got a few words of appreciation for our quality service, low cost and quick turnaround from the client.

The images look good. Thanks for your speedy turnaround.

That really helped us to improve and maintain quality and consistency throughout all those years. No wonder we continue to serve the client with the same zeal and fervor even today.