Product photography for PrestaShop: shoot, prepare and publish
Plan useful product photos, build a simple shooting setup and publish sharp, accessible images with the right PrestaShop sizes and formats.
Create product photos that show what you sell, how big it is and which details matter. Then check how PrestaShop generates and displays those photos on your actual theme.
What we would do
We would trial a representative product family before reshooting the catalogue or buying equipment. Use customer questions and return reasons to identify missing evidence, then decide whether the problem is the photograph, its generated file or the gallery controls. Your route depends on the existing theme, image modules, import and feed integrations, source quality, languages and markets, and the time your team can spend maintaining the result.
For changes to image types, formats or gallery software, use a staging copy with the same theme and modules. Isolate its outgoing feeds and customer messages. Save the current image files and settings, rehearse generation and the checks below, and prove that you can restore the previous result. Make the tested change during a planned live window, with someone responsible for checking the storefront and feeds afterwards.
| What is missing? | Starting choice | Evidence before spending more |
|---|---|---|
| The gallery does not answer a recurring size or material question. | Add the missing scale or detail photograph. | A customer can identify the relevant feature in the published gallery. |
| The finish is difficult to photograph accurately. | Trial controlled lighting, then compare specialist help if needed. | A sample shot preserves the physical product's colour, texture and reflections. |
| The source looks clear but the storefront does not. | Inspect the generated file and theme before reshooting. | You can locate where detail or framing is lost. |
| The photographs are useful but customers cannot inspect them. | Test the current gallery's controls before considering a replacement. | The proposed change resolves the failed mobile or keyboard task with your real images. |
If you want a chosen gallery module installed and tested, the PrestaShop Module Installation & Configuration Service covers its agreed setup and the relevant customer journey.
Plan a gallery around customer questions
Start with the information a customer needs to choose the right item. Match the shot list to the product instead of filling a fixed image quota. For each planned view, write the question it answers in your shot list. If support repeatedly explains a connector, lining or fastening that the gallery never shows, make that a shooting priority.
| Shot | What to show |
|---|---|
| Cover | A clear view that identifies the product at category-thumbnail size. Keep the full item visible and leave room around its edges. |
| Alternate angles | The back, sides, top or underside when they reveal useful information. Show clothing from front and back, electronics ports, or an accessory's closure. |
| Details | Texture, stitching, labels, engraving, connectors, hinges and finish. Make the feature large enough to inspect on a phone. |
| Scale | A ruler, a hand, a person wearing the item, or a familiar object. Include written measurements too; perspective can mislead. |
| Context | The item in its intended setting, such as a mug on a desk or a lamp beside furniture. Show accessories separately when they are not included. |
| Packaging | The box or presentation when it matters to the purchase, such as gift packaging or the contents supplied. |
Remove near-duplicates that add no information. Test the order on desktop and mobile. Start with a clear cover, then place the most useful scale, context or detail views early. Gallery order, cover selection and zoom behaviour depend on your theme.
In the product editor, upload images, choose the cover and arrange their positions. Check category listings, product pages, quick view and any feeds separately. A feed module may apply its own image-selection rules.
A worked example: a messenger bag
Suppose shoppers ask whether a bag holds their laptop and whether its strap detaches. Keep a clear cover, add a view of the open compartment with a recognisable laptop and a close-up of the strap clip. State the compartment measurements in the description too: the device shown is an example, not a promise that every laptop fits. Put the view answering the most frequent question early in the sequence.
For colour combinations, associate the correct photographs with the matching combinations and test each selection. A blue cover followed by brown detail shots can suggest that the customer has changed variants. Show shared construction details only where the colour difference is clear, and check that the cart and feed select the intended image.
If your current gallery cannot provide the inspection controls you need, Gallery Revolution offers zoom and full-screen viewing using existing catalogue images. Trial it with your theme and combination changes before replacing the current gallery.
Build a repeatable home shooting setup
A phone or camera, a stable support, a plain background and controllable light give you a useful starting setup. Test your existing equipment before buying more. The Shopify product-photography guide includes a practical window-light setup.
- Clean the product and camera lens. Remove dust, fingerprints and stray packaging.
- Curve a sheet of paper or posterboard from the wall onto the table to create a background without a visible corner.
- Place the product beside a window with indirect light. Try the light from one side and put white card opposite it to lighten the shadows.
- Diffuse harsh sunlight and avoid mixing window light with room lighting of a different colour. Check white balance whenever the light changes.
- Fix the camera position on a tripod or stable support. Record the camera height, product distance, background and reflector position.
- Take a test frame. Check focus, reflections, exposure and product colour before photographing the batch. Open the test frame at full size before photographing the batch, and recheck after moving the camera or product; camera previews can hide missed focus. Keep an approved reference frame beside later batches.
When daylight is too variable, try diffused artificial lights and keep their positions consistent. Two lights placed to either side are one setup to test, not a requirement. Glass, jewellery and reflective finishes may need flags, diffusion or specialist help.
On a phone, start with the main camera and avoid digital zoom. Use the lens that gives the needed framing without distorting the product. Turn off the built-in flash for the initial setup. Lock focus and exposure when your camera supports it, and keep enough source resolution for later crops and zoom.
Edit consistently and keep a usable master
- Correct white balance and exposure while comparing the photo with the actual product. Preserve texture, colour and finish.
- Straighten the image and crop to the ratio used by your catalogue. Leave space so later resizing does not crowd the edges.
- Clean background dust and distractions. Inspect background-removal results around transparent, reflective and fine edges.
- Apply consistent framing, brightness and background treatment across a product family. Batch similar adjustments, then review each image.
- Keep the original master separately. Export a web copy at dimensions justified by your theme's largest display and zoom requirements.
There is no universal 1200-pixel or 2000-pixel limit. Choose dimensions from the rendered size, device pixel ratio, intended crop and zoom detail. A high-resolution source can be useful for close-ups even when the category thumbnail is small.
Compare compression settings at the displayed size. Look for blur, ringing, damaged texture and colour changes. JPEG is suitable for many photographs; PNG can preserve transparency. File weight and visual quality depend on the content and encoder. A quality value is a starting point for inspection, not a guarantee.
Use descriptive source names such as blue-cotton-shirt-front.jpg to manage your archive. Native PrestaShop stores product images using generated image IDs, so renaming the file before upload does not directly rename its published image URL.
Keep a shot record linking each master to the product reference, combination, view and approved export. Give the person uploading images the same record. Similar products and colour variants are easy to mix up, and an import can replace a carefully chosen cover if its image rules differ from the manual workflow.
Consider specialist photography for difficult reflective items, styled scenes, models or product video when your own setup cannot meet the brief. Compare quotes by shot count, retouching, usage rights and deliverables.
Match image types to your theme
PrestaShop generates resized files for image types under Design → Image Settings. Names such as home_default, large_default and cart_default are common, but the theme determines which types it uses and where.
- Inspect the image element in the browser. Compare its rendered dimensions with the requested image's actual pixel dimensions.
- Choose image-type sizes that provide enough detail for the intended viewport and density. Check the full product view and zoom, not only the grid.
- Keep source masters large enough for those outputs. Resizing cannot recreate detail missing from a small source.
- Review storage and regeneration work before adding types or formats. For example, 1,000 products with five images and eight applicable types produce 40,000 type-specific outputs for one generated format, before other files.
- Remove a type only after checking that themes, modules, emails and feeds do not use it.
Padding and cropping have different causes
Core resizing preserves the source proportions and can add canvas padding. If the generated file shows the whole product but the page cuts it off, inspect fixed-height containers, CSS object-fit, theme templates and image-transforming modules. If the file itself is cropped, inspect the uploaded source and any transformation process.
Changing the image-type ratio may help the composition, but it does not automatically remove a crop imposed by the theme. Check the generated file and the rendered element separately.
Trace a fault with a representative image
If a tall lamp loses its shade in a category tile, open the exact image URL requested by that tile. A complete lamp in that file points to the page layout or display transformation; a missing shade in the file means you should trace the source and generation process. If framing is correct but the lamp is soft, compare the source, generated file and rendered dimensions before changing a size. Repeat the check after applying the targeted fix.
Regenerate thumbnails and verify modern formats
After changing image dimensions or generation formats, rebuild the relevant outputs under Design → Image Settings → Regenerate thumbnails. Choose the affected image domain and type where available. Back up images first and run substantial regeneration off-peak. To replace existing thumbnails after a size change, enable Erase previous images. To resume an interrupted run, leave that option off so completed files are kept.
PrestaShop 9.1 added the native thumbnail console command. After backing up the images, run this from the shop root to remove existing product thumbnails and rebuild them:
php bin/console prestashop:thumbnails:regenerate products --deleteThe image domain is required. Omit --delete when resuming an interrupted rebuild. Check the command reference and installed command help for other domains and type selection. Earlier releases need the back-office tool or a compatible, separately supported task. CLI avoids a browser request timeout but remains subject to PHP memory settings, execution settings and hosting limits.
| Version | Format behaviour |
|---|---|
| 1.7 | Do not assume a native WebP switch. Check any conversion module and theme integration before changing delivery. |
| 8.0 | Native WebP saving was introduced in the image generation options. |
| 8.1 | Multiple-format generation, including WebP and AVIF, was introduced as an experimental feature. It needs server support and compatible theme output. |
| 9 | Image Settings exposes generated formats. AVIF availability depends on server support. Check the options in your installed minor release. |
Generation and delivery are separate checks. In browser developer tools, inspect the requested URL, response content type, dimensions and transferred size. Confirm that the theme selects the intended format and has a working fallback. Test representative colours, textures and transparent edges instead of assuming a fixed percentage saving.
Check lazy loading in the rendered page. Defer offscreen gallery images when appropriate, but let the main visible product image load promptly. If your current theme does not handle this reliably, Automatic SEO Images Lazy Tags provides controls for delayed images and individual exceptions; check for overlap with existing loading code. See PrestaShop image optimisation for delivery checks.
Rehearse the catalogue update
- Include difficult examples in the staging trial: a tall item, a reflective finish, transparency where used and a product with colour combinations.
- Record the current type dimensions, formats, gallery settings and image mappings. Keep a restorable backup of the relevant image files and data before changing them.
- Generate the affected outputs and check for missing files, server errors and resource limits. Do not delete existing outputs repeatedly to restart an interrupted job.
- Run the storefront checks below and a test feed export. Identify who generates, deploys and restores each affected part.
- Apply the tested changes to the current live shop in the agreed window. Do not overwrite current orders or catalogue changes with the staging database. Recheck representative live URLs and purge relevant image caches if they still serve the previous files.
Write useful legends and test the finished gallery
Edit image legends or captions in the product image editor, including the required language versions. Fallback text varies by version and theme. In PrestaShop 9, the product image presenter uses a nonempty image legend first, then the product meta title when nonempty, otherwise the product name. In PrestaShop 1.7.8, Classic product-gallery templates supply the product name when the presented legend is empty; its listing template can shorten that name. Inspect the rendered alt attribute in each view.
For an informative photo, describe the useful distinction: Blue leather messenger bag, rear pocket open. Avoid keyword lists. Linked images need text that communicates their purpose. For purely decorative images, check that the rendered HTML contains alt="". Leaving the legend blank may trigger the fallbacks above; ask your developer to adjust the relevant template if necessary, following W3C guidance.
Google image guidance covers the published URL, alternative text and relevant surrounding content. The local source filename is not something Google reads before upload. For generated legend patterns, see the Automatic SEO Images Alt Tags help page; preview bulk changes, preserve useful existing text and review generated descriptions for image-specific accuracy. Product-name patterns alone cannot distinguish an open pocket from a front view, so add those distinctions to the relevant legends.
- Open the product on a phone and desktop. Test swiping, controls, enlargement, keyboard navigation and variant-image changes.
- Inspect category, cart and product views for softness, cropping, excessive padding and layout movement.
- Check that important images load quickly and that the content matches the physical item and included accessories.
- Test one gallery change at a time, such as the cover angle, order or number of useful views. Use comparable traffic and account for promotions and seasonality.
- Monitor add-to-cart, purchases, support questions and return reasons together. Choose a sample size and duration that can support your decision rather than a fixed visit or week threshold.
What to ask your developer or agency
- Which image types and files does our actual theme request in listings, quick view, the gallery and zoom?
- Which importer or feed integration can overwrite covers, positions, legends or combination associations?
- Can you show the staging evidence for format delivery, fallback, mobile controls and the selected combination?
- What will be backed up, how will regeneration resume after interruption, and who restores files and settings if launch fails?
Keep the agreed shot list, export recipe, configuration changes and acceptance results together. Your team should be able to publish the next product family without guessing how the first one was prepared.
Questions owners ask
Can video replace the still photographs?
Use video for a question that needs movement, such as how a folding mechanism opens. Keep still views that buyers can inspect without playing it. Check mobile playback and the page's initial loading cost before adding video across a product family.
How do I brief a photographer without losing control of the result?
Agree a sample product and approve its test gallery before commissioning the batch. Specify the required views, crop margin, colour reference, masters, web exports and usage rights, including the channels where the images will appear.
Can I reuse supplier photographs?
Confirm permission for your intended shop and advertising use, and check that the photos show the exact supplied version, finish and included items. Supplier images can supplement your own scale or detail views; keep the permission and product mapping with your shot record.
Must I reshoot after changing themes?
Review the archived masters against the new theme's framing and enlargement needs. Suitable masters may only need a new export or regenerated outputs. Reshoot when the source lacks the needed detail or view, and test the new gallery before rolling it across the catalogue.