These tips aren't just for new sellers; they're important for everyone selling on Amazon. Here are eight Amazon image best practices that can help you monetize your product photography.

What are Amazon Image Best Practices?

1. Check out Amazon’s Seller Support Image Guidelines

Amazon has established rules for the main image of a product that all sellers must follow. These guidelines change frequently, so it's important to keep reviewing the Seller Support Image Guidelines. They don't process other images (those are not "featured" images), so they only apply to your main photo.

While some guidelines, such as the ideal image size, may change frequently, most recommendations have remained the same over the years.

Here are additional Amazon image best practices to ensure your products consistently appear on Amazon product search results pages.

2. Make your product the sole focus of your main image

Your main product photo should showcase what you're selling without being distracting. If you have multiple items in your inventory, show only one item in your main product photo. This means your team members should avoid using watermarks, illustrations and text in your main product images.

When photographers take professional photos of your product, make sure they only take a single frontal image of the actual product, with nothing else in view. By guiding your image framing, you can guarantee photographers take high-quality photos that image editors can handle.

Leave beautiful graphic elements for secondary images of your products. Therefore, you will avoid text, props, background items, and individuals. Don't worry – you can use lifestyle photos and product comparison photos as your secondary product images.

3. Use a plain white background

Product photography is challenging and requires multiple tools to get the job done. Amazon requires a plain white background on all primary images.

Of course, you can use Amazon photography services and outsource photo editing if you want. However, if you have a graphic designer on your team, they should be able to edit photo backgrounds with ease. About 15% of the main product image should be blank.

However, not just any white will do. Make sure they set the background RGB color to 255, 255, 255. It's the pure white that Amazon prefers, which makes the product look like it's "floating" in the e-commerce marketplace.

That's right, Amazon sellers shouldn't use white mixes or other background colors to try and get attention, as this could result in a product being deactivated! Leave the fun colors to your alternate images.

4. Use realistic colors by setting the correct color mode

If you're a smartphone user, you've probably seen all the fun social media image filters you can use on your photos. While these filters appear to make images more vibrant, they also tend to distort colors. For example, Instagram's VSCO filter adds a blue tint to images.

This is not what you want when you are trying to sell a product on Amazon. To avoid this problem, you need to set the correct color mode for your camera settings.

5. Avoid images that are too bright or too dark

Amazon sellers often try to achieve a certain effect by using images that are too bright or too dark. While this may seem appealing at first glance, it can actually end up hurting your listing.

The reason is that Amazon uses a color contrast algorithm to determine if a product is visually appealing. When the brightness or darkness of the image is too high, the algorithm fails to detect the true color of the item. Therefore, the algorithm will deem the product unattractive and may avoid showing your listing.

If you want your product images to attract customers, skip high contrast and show only accurate product images. Therefore, you should not add smooth edges, color blocks, or any other filters that violate Amazon's strict requirements.

6. Take a close-up photo of the main product

The main product image should occupy around 85% of the image frame. If your branded products seem too small, it will be difficult for customers to compare them to your competitors' options. However, in some seller categories such as Books, Music, and Video, the cover art should fill 100% of the image frame.

Keep in mind that Amazon uses multiple sizes of product images in ads, search result thumbnails, and product suggestion results. Therefore, your images must be sharp, close-up, well-sized, and well-cropped. Imagine how small your product thumbnails would be if you only filled 25% of your image frame.

A great product image will ensure that customers can use Amazon's zoom feature and see an accurate close-up of your product. Customers can view product features in the main image and switch between other photos, such as lifestyle images, to see how they will use the product.

7. Use the correct size and proportions

The size and proportions of your product images are critical if you want to sell your products on Amazon. Your image should be at least 1000px wide at its shortest dimension so buyers can trigger the zoom feature.

It's also an Amazon Image best practice to make sure your main image has a square (1:1) aspect ratio so you can get the most out of your image.

While you can create and upload flat files with rectangular images, this isn't the norm on Amazon. Plus, it runs the risk of making your brand look less professional. By following Amazon's image best practices with specs, you're bound to notice higher conversion rates.

8. Add all other images

While it may seem obvious to capture and upload as many product photos as possible, most sellers fail to feature an additional eight product images on Amazon. Unfortunately, the failure to add secondary and alternate images is a major issue.

Customers like to look at products from other perspectives to accurately judge their quality and value. Plus, these images can help shoppers compare your products to your competitors' options.

Therefore, one of the best Amazon image best practices is to add all other product images to your listing. Be sure to add lifestyle images, images from different angles, and other shots that your audience will want to see. Yes, your secondary image is just as important as your primary image file.