How to Photograph Challenging Products Like Eyewear and Jewelry
In e-commerce, photography isn’t just a picture—it’s the customer’s only connection to the product. A shopper can’t hold the glasses, feel the texture of the frame, or judge the true glossiness of the metal. When the image doesn’t reflect reality, the result is disappointment, higher return rates, and ultimately, a loss of trust in the brand.
Glass, metal, and other high-gloss surfaces are among the most demanding subjects in product photography. Their reflective and transparent qualities often create uncontrolled highlights, inaccurate colors, or flattened textures. The visual may look polished at first glance, but if it misrepresents the product, it undermines both customer confidence and brand value.
E-commerce is already fragile. According to the National Retail Federation, return rates for online purchases remain significantly higher than in-store, with apparel, accessories, and jewelry among the most frequently returned categories. Inconsistent or misleading product images are a direct driver of those returns.
In 2024, U.S. retailers expect returns to total approximately $890 billion, equating to 16.9% of annual sales. During the holidays, return rates can spike as much as 17% above the yearly average, per data from the National Retail Federation (NRF).
Recent data shows that 30% of online shoppers return products because they don’t match online photos. Some products, including eyewear and jewelry, are complicated to photograph because of their materials, reflectivity, and sensitivity to color shifts.
After more than a decade of photographing products across the jewelry, eyewear, consumer goods, and lifestyle industries, I’ve seen these challenges play out repeatedly. In this article, we’ll analyze two real-world examples — eyewear and jewelry — to uncover the most common pitfalls and show how to avoid them. You’ll learn which mistakes quietly erode sales, how to master difficult materials without artifacts, and why the images that resonate with buyers are not just “beautiful,” but accurate, consistent, and strategically crafted.
Eyewear: When Your Highlights Destroy the Detail
Uncontrolled versus Controlled Light: Why it Matters
When photographing eyewear for e-commerce, lighting makes or breaks the frame. Compare two images of the same pair of glasses:
- In the uncontrolled setup, light floods the scene without structure. The plastic frame becomes undefined, the lenses lose clarity, and the color representation is inaccurate. Overexposure and overly diffused light erode surface qualities, leaving buyers uncertain about what the product actually looks like. The result feels cheap and misleading.
- In the controlled setup, every decision about light placement, power, and diffusion is intentional. By positioning the key light in front with a carefully chosen diffusion panel, reflections are sculpted rather than scattered. This preserves the true material feel of the plastic and the clarity of the lenses.
- Focus Stacking for Full Depth: Eyewear rarely sits on a single focal plane. Focus stacking — capturing multiple frames at different depths and combining them — ensures that both the front edge of the frame and the temple tips remain sharp. For e-commerce, this accuracy is critical: buyers must trust that every part of the product is as crisp in real life as in the photo.
- Color Accuracy Through Controlled Highlights: Uncontrolled lighting shifts hues dramatically, often by 10–20%. With calibrated lighting and a ColorChecker reference, the second image preserved the authentic tones of both lenses and frames. For buyers, accurate color isn’t a detail — it’s the difference between keeping and returning the product.
- Gradient Lighting to Accentuate Form: Eyewear surfaces are highly reflective but also subtle. Introducing controlled gradient highlights (achieved by angling diffusion material and light placement) emphasizes curvature and transparency without falsifying the product. In post-production, additional soft gradients can enhance depth, but the base lighting must already be correct.
- Polarization Control: Using a polarizing filter helped minimize distracting reflections while preserving necessary ones that define shape. Cross-polarization (polarizer on both the light source and the lens) is particularly effective for eliminating glare from glossy plastics and lenses.
- Lens Choice and Working Distance: A macro lens (90–105mm) is often the sweet spot for eyewear. It minimizes distortion while allowing precise control over depth of field — especially important when combining focus-stacked frames. Shooting too wide introduces perspective errors that make frames look bulkier than they are.
- Diffused Gradient Lighting for Metal Surfaces: Jewelry’s polished metals demand smooth, controlled reflections. By placing large diffusers at strategic angles, highlights become long, elegant gradients instead of harsh, broken patches. This preserves the perception of craftsmanship and quality.
- Restoring Dimensionality with Shaped Light: The braided gold weave in the ring flattened under uncontrolled light. Gradient lighting, combined with controlled fill from below, restored its three-dimensional form and depth. The result isn’t just visibility—it’s tactility.
- Focus Stacking for Complex Features: Using focus stacking ensures that both the top edge of the braid and the inner setting remain sharp, conveying complete clarity of design. Without it, parts of the jewelry fall out of focus, creating an incomplete record.
- Color Fidelity in Gold and Gemstones: Jewelry buyers are extremely sensitive to color. A gold ring that photographs too orange or too pale can erode trust instantly. Color calibration, consistent white balance, and soft reflection management preserved a believable gold tone that is luxurious but accurate.
- Shadow Management for Clean Presentation: In the uncontrolled image, hard shadows distracted from the jewelry. In the corrected version, shadows were softened and placed intentionally, framing rather than competing with the product.
- Micro Accents for Controlled Sparkle: Jewelry requires a delicate balance: too much sparkle looks artificial, too little looks dull. Small, low-angle accent lights were used to introduce controlled points of brilliance, while the main gradients carried the sense of form.
Professional techniques made the difference:
Takeaway: Controlled lighting isn’t just about making an image look beautiful. It’s about creating a technically accurate, trustworthy visual record of the product. For eyewear in particular, where material, transparency, and fit define purchase decisions, every detail matters. The first image fails because it hides those details; the second succeeds because it reveals them with precision.
Jewelry: When Harsh Light Flattens the Design
Jewelry photography is even less forgiving. In the uncontrolled version of the ring photo, the design is compromised by blown highlights, flat textures, and inaccurate color. The piece doesn’t look luxurious; it looks cheap instead. In e-commerce, that kind of misrepresentation directly undermines sales.
Professional Techniques That Make the Difference
Takeaway: In jewelry, precision is value. Controlled light and color management elevate the product from generic to premium, ensuring that online shoppers perceive the same quality they would in person.
The Bigger Picture: Light as Trust
Whether it’s eyewear or jewelry, the principle is the same: uncontrolled light and sloppy technique destroy trust. Controlled highlights, accurate color, and deliberate precision build it.
As product photographers, our responsibility goes beyond aesthetics. Our task isn’t just to make objects look appealing, it’s to make them look real. The line between a sale and a return often comes down to whether the photograph honors that responsibility.
Controlled light doesn’t just sell products. It protects trust, minimizes returns, and keeps e-commerce sustainable.
About the author: Alexander Gusev is a commercial photographer with 10 years of experience, specializing in challenging materials—from fine jewelry to high-gloss surfaces. Founder of Snapshot Studio LA (Los Angeles). Member of PPA and APA.
Image credits: Alexander Gusev (Snapshot Studio LA)
