How to Take Quality Product Photos on an iPhone: Settings, Light, and Export

Key takeaways

• Light matters more than the phone. Put the product a few feet from a window with a sheer curtain over it, add a white card on the shadow side, and turn the flash off.

• Shoot at 2x, not 1x. Stepping back and using the 2x lens (or 4x on an iPhone 18 Pro) cuts the distortion that makes the nearest part of a product look too big.

• Lock focus and exposure. Touch and hold the product until AE/AF Lock appears, so the phone stops readjusting between shots.

• Use the Standard Photographic Style and the same settings every time. Preserve Settings keeps your choices between sessions, which keeps a catalog consistent.

• Any current iPhone has the pixels. A square crop of a 12MP photo is 3024 x 3024 pixels, more than Amazon or Walmart asks for.

• Export as JPEG. iPhones save HEIF by default, and marketplaces such as Walmart take JPEG, PNG, or BMP only.

What you need

You don't need much: a current iPhone, a tripod with a phone mount, a roll of white seamless paper or a large sheet of white poster board, two white foam boards or cards for fill, and a sheer curtain or white sheet to soften window light. A small light tent helps with jewelry and other little items. If you shoot after dark or need the same light every day, add two continuous LED lights with softboxes.

Every iPhone Apple sells now has a 48MP main camera, and every model except the iPhone 17e has a Camera Control button. The iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max add a 4x telephoto, a variable aperture, manual shutter and white balance, and ProRAW. The iPhone Air and 17e have no Ultra Wide camera, so they have no macro mode. The steps below work on all of them, and we've marked the Pro-only extras.

Step 1: Set up the Camera app once

Do this once, before the first shoot; it's slow to sort out mid-session.

1. Turn on the grid and the level. Settings > Camera, then turn on Grid and Level. The level helps you shoot straight down on flat-lays and square to the front of a box.

2. Pick the file format. Settings > Camera > Formats. High Efficiency saves HEIF, which keeps files smaller at the same quality; Most Compatible saves JPEG. Either works, because you'll export JPEGs at the end. One catch: you can only change a Photographic Style after the fact on photos captured in High Efficiency.

3. Choose a resolution. Under Formats > Photo Mode, pick 12 MP or 24 MP as the default. For 48MP, turn on Resolution Control (or ProRAW & Resolution Control on the 18 Pro), then tap the format control at the top of the Camera screen when you want it.

4. Set the style to Standard. Settings > Camera > Photographic Styles > Use Standard. Styles change tone and color, and a product photo has to show the color the customer will receive.

5. Keep your settings. Settings > Camera > Preserve Settings, then turn on Photographic Style, Macro Control, Exposure Adjustment, and Resolution Control. Otherwise some of them reset when you close the Camera app.

6. Turn on Lens Cleaning Hints (Settings > Camera) so the phone warns you about a smudged lens. Wipe it with a soft cloth before every session anyway.

Apple's iPhone User Guide lists every camera control, including the ones that differ by model.

Step 2: Build the set near a window

Window light is free and soft, and it's where Etsy's seller handbook starts. Put the table a few feet from a window that doesn't get direct sun. If the sun does come through, hang a sheer curtain or a white sheet over the glass to diffuse it. Overcast days give the most even light.

Make a sweep for the background. Tape one end of the seamless paper to the wall or a chair back, let it curve down onto the table without a crease, and weigh down the front edge. Put the product several inches in front of the curve, not against it, so the background goes smooth behind it with no line where the wall meets the table.

Light from the side, with the window to the left or right of the product. Then stand a white foam board on the opposite side to bounce light back into the shadows. Move it closer for brighter shadows and farther away for more contrast.

Turn off the room's overhead lights. They're usually too weak to help, and mixing warm bulbs with daylight gives you two color temperatures on one product, which no slider fixes cleanly.

Step 3: Mount the phone and frame the shot

Put the phone on a tripod. Even with stabilization, a handheld phone drifts between shots, and you want every angle of a product, and every product in a catalog, framed the same way.

Use the 2x lens for most shots. Perspective distortion comes from how close the camera is, not from the lens itself: shoot a mug from a foot away at 1x and the rim nearest you looks bigger than the base. Step back and switch to 2x, and the proportions look right. On an iPhone 18 Pro, 4x (a 100 mm equivalent) flattens it further for small products. Tap the marked zoom buttons rather than pinching to an in-between value; the marked steps are what Apple calls optical-quality, and pinching past them is digital zoom.

Leave room around the product. Marketplaces want a tight crop on the final image (Amazon's main image should fill about 85% of the frame), but it's easier to crop a little later than to reshoot a product that touches the edge.

If you need a square image, you can set it in the camera: tap the More button, then Aspect, then 1:1. Shooting 4:3 and cropping later keeps more options open.

Step 4: Lock focus and exposure

Tap the product to focus, then touch and hold until AE/AF Lock appears. Now the phone won't refocus on the background or brighten the frame when you move a card. Tap anywhere on the screen to unlock it.

White products on white backgrounds fool the meter, and the phone tends to make them gray. After you lock, drag up next to the focus box to brighten the exposure until the background looks white but the product still has detail in its highlights. If you want that adjustment to stay put across shots, use More > Exposure instead, and it carries over (with Exposure Adjustment turned on in Preserve Settings).

On an iPhone 18 Pro, the More button also gives you Lens Aperture, Shutter Speed, White Balance, and a histogram. A smaller aperture (f/2.8 or f/4.0) keeps more of a deep product in focus, and setting white balance manually stops the color from shifting between shots.

Step 5: Stop the phone from switching lenses

Get close to a product on an iPhone with an Ultra Wide camera and the Camera app switches to it automatically for macro, as close as 2 centimeters. That's useful for a stitch or a label, and annoying when you just wanted a closer framing at 1x.

A macro button appears on screen when this happens. Tap it to turn macro off for that shot. To keep it off, go to Settings > Camera > Preserve Settings and turn on Macro Control. If the image goes soft at 2x or 4x because you're too close, back up rather than switching lenses.

On the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone Duo, the Focus tool (More > Focus) lets you pick the Ultra Wide, Main, or Telephoto camera and stay on it, with a manual focus slider.

Step 6: Take the shot without touching the phone

Pressing the on-screen shutter shakes the phone. Use one of these instead:

• The timer: More > Timer, then 3, 5, or 10 seconds.

• A volume button, which works as a shutter, or the Camera Control button on models that have it.

• An Apple Watch. The Camera Remote app shows the iPhone's viewfinder on your wrist, lets you set exposure by tapping the preview, and uses a 3-second timer by default. It works within normal Bluetooth range, about 33 feet.

Leave the flash off. Built-in flash makes products look flat and washed out, and both Etsy and eBay tell sellers to avoid it. Turn off Live Photos too (More > Live > Off) unless you want the short video.

Skip Portrait mode for catalog shots. Its simulated blur can soften the edges of a product, and a blurred room behind the product doesn't meet a white-background main image rule. Save it for lifestyle shots, where a soft background is the point.

Step 7: Shoot the full set of angles

One good photo isn't a listing. Before you move the tripod, shoot every view the product page will need:

Shoot every variant the same way. If the black version has front, back, and side shots, the tan version needs the same three, from the same distance.

Keep notes on the setup: where the light came from, the time of day, the lens, and the exposure adjustment. Next month's products will then match this month's.

Step 8: Edit in Photos

Open a photo, tap Edit, then Adjust. Fix exposure first, then crop. Keep the edits honest: the image has to match the product a customer receives, and color-shifting filters break that.

• Exposure: Use the Exposure, Highlights, and Shadows sliders until the background is clean and the product has detail.

• Crop and straighten: Tap the crop button, choose Square from the presets, and use the straighten and tilt sliders to square up boxes and bottles.

• Copy the edits across the set. On the edited photo, tap the More button, then Copy Edits. Select the rest of the set, tap More, then Paste Edits. Photos adjusts white balance and exposure on each pasted photo to match, so you don't have to edit every angle by hand.

Photos can also lift the product off its background: touch and hold the product until an outline appears, then copy it. Check the edges closely before you use a cutout, especially on glass, fine hair, clear plastic, and white-on-white products. The Apple Intelligence tools in Photos (Clean Up, Extend, and Reframe) can remove a stray crumb or speck, but use them lightly on product photos: most images edited with them in iOS 27.2 or later carry a hidden SynthID watermark, and marketplaces want the photo to show the real item.

Nothing's permanent: More > Revert to Original takes a photo back to how you shot it.

Step 9: Export for the marketplace

iPhone photos are much bigger than any marketplace needs. A 12MP photo is 4032 x 3024 pixels, and a 48MP one is 8064 x 6048. What you're fixing at export is the file type and the file size.

The Preview app on the iPhone handles both. Open the image in Preview, tap More, then Adjust Size to set the dimensions, and export as JPEG, using the Size slider to bring the file under the limit. A 48MP HEIF is already about 3 to 5 MB, and JPEG compresses less than HEIF, so full-resolution JPEGs can run past a 5 MB cap.

Common targets:

Our guides to Amazon product image requirements and Walmart Marketplace image requirements cover the rest of each marketplace's rules.

When you share straight from Photos, tap Options in the share sheet and choose Most Compatible to send JPEGs. Sharing also includes the date, location, and device in the file's data unless you turn that off in the same Options screen.

Common mistakes

• Shooting at 1x up close. The nearest part of the product looks too big. Back up and use 2x.

• Mixing daylight and room lights. The product ends up warm on one side and cool on the other.

• Letting the phone choose exposure. White products turn gray. Lock and brighten.

• Leaving a Photographic Style on. Colors drift from the real product.

• Uploading HEIF. Convert to JPEG before upload.

• Shooting variants differently. Shoppers compare colors side by side, and mismatched framing makes the cheaper one look worse.

Frequently asked questions

Can you take professional product photos with an iPhone?

Yes. Every current iPhone has a 48MP main camera, and a square crop of a 12MP photo is still larger than Amazon's or Walmart's targets. The light, the background, and a tripod decide whether the photos look professional, far more than the phone does.

What iPhone camera settings are best for product photos?

Turn on Grid and Level, set Photographic Style to Standard, turn off flash and Live Photos, use the 2x lens, and lock focus and exposure by touching and holding the product. Turn on Preserve Settings so the setup stays the same between shoots.

Should I use Portrait mode for product photos?

Not for the main image. Its simulated background blur can soften product edges, and a main image usually needs a plain white background. Portrait mode works for lifestyle shots.

How do I stop my iPhone from switching to macro?

Tap the macro button that appears when you get close, and turn on Macro Control under Settings > Camera > Preserve Settings to keep the choice. Or back up and use the 2x lens.

Should I shoot in HEIF, JPEG, or ProRAW?

HEIF or JPEG for most sellers, since you'll export JPEGs either way. ProRAW (iPhone 18 Pro only among current models) gives the most editing room, but a 48MP ProRAW file is about 75 MB, which is a lot for a catalog.

How do I get a white background with an iPhone?

Shoot on a white paper sweep with soft window light, lock exposure, and brighten it until the background reads white. For the cleanest result, do it in the shot rather than cutting the product out later, because cutouts struggle with glass, fine edges, and white products.