Product photos are the single biggest predictor of whether a stranger will buy from you. Better photos beat better prices, better copy, and most kinds of marketing — at least until you have a brand strong enough to overcome a bad first impression.
Here is the recipe we teach every new Vinoraam merchant.
The setup
You need three things:
- A window with indirect daylight. North-facing is best. Avoid direct sunlight — it creates harsh shadows. Cloudy days are a gift.
- A neutral surface. A piece of off-white poster paper from any stationary store works. Lay it flat against a wall and let it curve up — this hides the seam between floor and wall.
- Your phone. Any phone made in the last 5 years has a camera good enough.
Total cost so far: under NPR 200.
The shot
Place your product 60–90 cm from the window. The light should come from the side, not behind you. Hold your phone with both hands and tap on the product to focus and meter the exposure.
Take three photos:
- One from directly above
- One from a 45-degree angle
- One straight on, at the product's height
Always shoot in landscape, even if the final image will be square. You can crop in, but you cannot crop out.
The 30 seconds of editing
Open the photo in your phone's built-in editor:
- Bump brightness up by 10–15
- Bump contrast up by 5
- Pull highlights down by 10 (rescues the brightest spots)
- Push shadows up by 15 (opens up the darker areas)
- White balance — pull slightly cool (negative) if your photo looks yellow
Save. That's it. Most phone photos go from "obviously a phone photo" to "looks fine on a product page" in under a minute.
When the phone isn't enough
For some products — jewelry, dark fabrics, anything with reflective surfaces — the phone alone is a struggle. You can either pay a studio in Thamel (Rs 200–500 per photo), or use Vinoraam's AI Photo Studio, which is included in the Premium plan.
Upload a raw phone photo, and the AI generates a studio-quality version: clean background, balanced lighting, sharper focus. For most products this saves the cost of one studio visit on the first day, and pays for the whole month of Premium by the third.
The shortcut that doesn't work
Do not use stock photos of products that aren't yours. Customers spot this immediately — the image will appear on a hundred other stores via reverse image search, and your trust evaporates. Take the 15 minutes to shoot your own. You'll thank yourself the first time a customer messages you saying "your photos made me click buy".