Best background scenes for each product category

The catalogue is large enough that browsing it end to end is not the way in. Every scene is filed under seven dimensions, and each one is a browsable route, so the quickest path is to pick the dimension you already have an opinion about and start there. If you know you want something pared back, start from style. If the feeling matters more than the setup, start from mood. If your product photographs badly under hard light, start from lighting.

The other five are category, composition, background type, scene type and collections, which are hand-picked groupings rather than a single attribute.

A listing image and an advert want different things from the same product. Marketplace listings usually reward a plain, uncluttered scene: the shopper is comparing several tabs at once, and props that look charming in isolation become noise in a grid. Social and advertising placements work the other way, where a styled scene with context gives someone a reason to stop scrolling.

This is worth deciding before you generate rather than after, because the aspect ratio follows from it. Lume groups ratios into kits for square, social, e-commerce and ads, so the same product and the same scene can be produced in the shapes each destination expects without re-shooting anything.

One practical habit: for a catalogue, keep one plain scene as the consistent first image across every product, then vary the styled scenes for the secondary images. Shoppers read a consistent first image as a sign the catalogue is maintained, and the variety in the later slots is where the personality goes.