Product Photos on a White Background

The short version

1. Open the background remover and add your product photo.
2. When the cut-out appears, choose White as the background.
3. Choose JPG as the format and download.
4. Crop the result in the image cropper so the product fills most of the frame. Use the Square 1:1 preset for stores that show square images.
5. Check the size against the store's minimum (see the table below) and compress if the file is too big.

The photo never leaves your browser, which is useful when the product isn't public yet.

What the big marketplaces ask for

Rules change, and categories have their own exceptions, so treat this as a starting point and read the current guide for your store before you list. These are the figures the stores themselves publish or state:

Amazon is the strict one. Its main image has to be on pure white, and the check is about the actual pixel values, not about what looks white to you. eBay, Etsy and your own Shopify store don't demand white, but a white background is still the safe default: it looks clean in a grid of search results, it suits every theme, and buyers are used to it.

Why a photo taken on white is usually not white

Here's the mistake almost everyone makes once. You put the product on a sheet of white paper or in a light box, take the photo, and it looks white. Then you upload it and, next to the store's white page, the background is clearly grey, or the listing gets flagged.

A camera exposes for the whole scene. Unless the background is lit much brighter than the product, white paper comes out as a light grey. On its own that reads as white. Beside true white (255), it doesn't. Pushing the exposure until the background hits 255 usually blows out the highlights on the product too.

We checked our own test photos. None of the three product shots we used had more than 0.6% pure-white pixels to start with. After running them through the background remover with White selected, the entire background was exactly 255, 255, 255, and it stayed exactly 255 after saving as JPG at the tool's quality setting. Only the softened pixels along the edges of the product sat just below, between 250 and 254, which is what keeps the edge from looking cut out with scissors.

So the dependable route is to shoot for a clean cut-out, then let the tool supply the white.

Shooting for an easy cut-out

The background remover finds the product and removes everything around it. It does that best when the product clearly stands out. That changes how you should shoot:

• Contrast beats whiteness. The background doesn't need to be white at all. Our test shots all had dark, busy backgrounds, and all three cut out cleanly. What matters is that the product and the background differ in brightness or colour.
• White product? Use a darker background. A white mug on white paper gives the model very little edge to find. Shoot it on a mid-grey or coloured surface, then put it on white afterwards.
• Soft, even light. A window with daylight, or two lamps either side, avoids hard shadows that can be mistaken for part of the product.
• The whole product in frame. Anything cut off by the edge of the photo gets a flat, straight edge in the cut-out. Leave a margin; you'll crop later.
• Nothing touching the product. A hand, a stand or a price tag overlapping it will often be kept as part of the object.
• Enough pixels. Shoot at your phone's full resolution. A cut-out made from a small image has soft edges and won't reach the zoom thresholds.

One thing the AI can struggle with: when something else in the frame is more eye-catching than the product. In one of our tests, a grey cat in front of bright green leaves, the model kept the leaves. If the cut-out keeps the wrong thing, crop closer to the product and run it again.

Making the product fill the frame

A product floating small in the middle of a big white square looks cheap in search results and wastes the zoom. Amazon's guidance is that the product should fill about 85% of the image.

Our coffee-mug test photo shows how far off a normal shot can be. The cup took up only 42% of the width and 58% of the height of the 3940 × 2686 photo. Cropping a square of about 1930 pixels around it brought it up to roughly 85%, and at 1930 pixels the image is still nearly twice Amazon's 1000-pixel zoom threshold.

How to do it:

1. Open the white-background JPG in the image cropper.
2. Choose Square 1:1 (or the shape your store uses).
3. Drag and resize the frame until the product nearly touches two opposite sides, with a thin, even white margin. Don't let it touch the edge.
4. Check the "Selection" readout under the photo. It should be at least 1000 pixels for Amazon, 1600 for eBay's recommendation and 2000 for Etsy's.
5. Download as JPG.

Crop after the background is white, not before. That way the margin you leave is already pure white and nothing from the old background creeps back in at the edges.

Size and format

Save product photos on white as JPG. There's no transparency to keep, and JPG is far smaller than PNG for photos. From our tests, all with the product on white:

• Mug, 960 × 1280: 40 KB as JPG, 283 KB as PNG.
• Canvas dog shoes, 1280 × 959: 155 KB as JPG, 1,036 KB as PNG.
• Coffee mug, 3940 × 2686: 597 KB as JPG, 3,059 KB as PNG.

Those JPGs fit comfortably within every store's upload limit. If a site or a form asks for something smaller, the image compressor can aim at a target size in KB; for a typical product photo, 2000 pixels wide at around 300 to 500 KB keeps plenty of detail for zoom. See the guide to compressing an image to 100 KB if you need to go much lower.

If a store wants a transparent PNG instead (some print-on-demand services do), choose Transparent rather than White. The guide on how to make a background transparent covers keeping the transparency intact and the file size down.

Before you upload

• Look at the edges at 100%. Thin parts like straps, cables, handles and fringes are where a cut-out can miss a bit or keep a sliver of the old background. If something's wrong, a better-lit reshoot fixes it faster than anything else.
• Watch for halos. A faint dark outline means the original background was dark and some of it remains in the soft edge pixels. Shooting on a lighter, but still contrasting, background reduces it.
• Keep shadows honest. The tool removes the shadow along with the background, which gives a clean floating look. Some sellers prefer a soft shadow under the product; if you do, check that your store allows it on the main image.
• Remove location data. Marketplaces usually strip camera data, but your own website, a forum or a file shared with a supplier may not. Photos taken at home can carry GPS coordinates. The guide on how to remove location from a photo explains how to check and clean them with the metadata remover.
• Be accurate. Removing the background is fine. Changing the product's colour, hiding defects or adding things that aren't included in the sale is not, on any marketplace.

Common reasons product photos get rejected

• The background is off-white or light grey instead of pure white.
• The product is too small in the frame, or touches or runs off the edge.
• Text, badges, watermarks or borders added to the main image.
• Props or accessories that don't come with the product.
• The image is below the minimum size, often because it was saved from a phone's messaging app rather than the original.
• More than one view of the product squeezed into the main image.

Frequently asked questions

How do I make a product photo background pure white?

Open the background remover, add the photo and choose White. The tool cuts out the product and places it on RGB 255, 255, 255. In our tests the background stayed exactly pure white after saving as JPG. Then crop so the product fills most of the frame.

What background does Amazon require for the main image?

Pure white, RGB 255, 255, 255, according to Amazon's image guide for clothing and its staff in the seller forums. The product should fill about 85% of the frame, and images of 1000 pixels or more on the longest side enable zoom. Check the current guide for your category before listing.

Why does my white background look grey on the marketplace?

Because it isn't pure white. A camera usually records white paper or a light box as a light grey, which looks white on its own but turns visibly grey next to the page's real white. Replacing the background fixes it.

What size should a product photo be?

For Amazon, at least 1000 pixels on the longest side for zoom. eBay asks for at least 500 and recommends 1600. Etsy recommends at least 2000 pixels on the shortest side. A square of 2000 × 2000 covers all three.

JPG or PNG for product photos?

JPG. On a white background there's no transparency to keep, and JPG files are several times smaller: our mug photo was 40 KB as JPG at 960 × 1280. Use PNG only if the store asks for a transparent background.

Is my product photo uploaded anywhere?

No. The background remover runs in your browser, so photos of products that haven't launched yet stay on your device.

Related guides

• Make Background Transparent
• Compress Image to 100KB
• Remove Location from Photo