AI Helps Photographers Overcome Christmas Decor Limitations
Wiki Article
During the holiday season, I've had a lot of pressure being a commercial product photographer working on holiday e-commerce and advertisements. Clients expect their product images to be festive, but working with the few items available and a limited budget, along with a deadline, creates a challenge. Fortunately, AI now makes this easy.
Here is a typical example of how I've experienced this. In early November, a fashion company contacted me to produce 100 photos of its products for an advertising campaign launching in the second week of November, all with a "luxurious, festive Christmas" theme. Their budget was the bare minimum. Their deadline was extremely tight, and their expectations were sky-high.
The first option available to me was to use physical decorations. I would need to purchase or rent artificial Christmas trees, festive ornaments, twinkling lights, winter themed fabrics, and various other props. The full cost of these items for one decent set is likely to be around IDR 15 to 20 million. The issue I face is that all these decorations will only be used for 1 to 2 months of the year; the other 10 to 11 months, they’ll take up space in my warehouse and money in warehouse rental expenses.
The second option is renting a studio with ready Christmas decor. Sounds practical, but availability is very limited during peak season. All decent studios are fully booked since October. What's available is usually overpriced or has outdated and generic decor, the same as used by dozens of other photographers. The resulting photos lack distinction.
Creativity Limitations with Physical Decor
The lack of ability to use creativity is what is most frustrating. Once I set up my physical decorations, I am locked into that style for my entire photo shoot. If a client wants different styles (premium category has an elegant winter/white Christmas feel, whereas the casual category is colorful and fun), I have to take down the entire display and set it back up. This requires 2-3 hours of productive time, which could be used for shooting.
In addition, there are issues with lighting and shadows. The lighting changes throughout the day, and as the sun rises or sets, shadows shift, therefore when I need to change my camera angle or move a product around, the background will never look the same as when I first set it up. These factors disrupt my ability to achieve detail and consistency in my product photography.
Transformation with AI Background Swap
Visboom's discovery was a game-changing moment for my business. It made me radically change how I conduct seasonal product shoots due to its AI photo editing software’s background swapping technology.
My workflow is now much more efficient. When I photograph products, I use a crisp, neutral background, such as seamless white or grey paper, both of which I always keep in my studio. By doing this, I can completely concentrate on getting the absolute best lighting, angles, and detail on the products themselves, as there are no distractions from busy backgrounds.
After I have completed the shooting process, I can then upload all the photographs in one batch to Visboom. Their selection of backgrounds for the seasonal holidays (Christmas and winter) is impressive in both quantity and quality; providing options such as traditional-looking rooms with fireplaces and decorated Christmas trees, views of snowy windows, high-end dining tables for festive occasions, and minimalistic Scandinavian styled Christmases and more! So many options, I now have unlimited creative possibilities using virtual backgrounds versus using physical decorations.
Maximum Efficiency and Flexibility
What's game-changing is the ability to apply different backgrounds to the same product in minutes. One winter jacket can be presented in five different Christmas settings for clients to choose which aligns best with their brand identity. This level of iteration isn't realistic with traditional methods.
Visboom's AI is also incredibly smart in maintaining product integrity. Shadows, reflections, and color cast from my original lighting are preserved excellently. There are no weird edges or unnatural compositing artifacts that ruin the professional look. My clients don't even realize the backgrounds are AI-generated, they just see beautiful, cohesive product photos.
Significant ROI
When viewed through a lens of economics, changing over to an automated process that uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a no-brainer. The elimination of physical decorations and the costs associated with renting a studio has cut my seasonal operating expenses by approximately 70%. In addition, using AI has allowed me to be more productive, effectively allowing me to handle three times as many clients than I do currently at peak season, so client satisfaction increases, resulting in repeat clients returning each year due to my consistent high-quality images and speedy turnaround.
For other product photographers out there still dealing with the limitations placed upon them by using physical decorations for Christmas shoots; AI tools like Visboom are worth serious consideration. Changing to AI does not mean cutting corners; rather, it is about improving our skill set as professionals.
By utilizing technology, we can now produce images that are of higher quality, with more diversity and faster turnaround times than we ever could before. In today’s competitive market for product photographers, the type of advantages that technology offers to photographers can mean the difference between flourishing and merely surviving as a professional. I have made the switch to AI, and I have never looked back.