Books, notebooks, greeting cards, planners and art prints look like the easiest products in the world to photograph. They are flat, they do not move and they have no awkward shape. Yet paper goods generate a surprising number of rejected listings, "not as described" disputes and low click-through rates. Glossy covers throw glare, white pages vanish into white backgrounds, and a used book photographed from a stock image can cost you a refund.
This guide covers the marketplace specs, lighting set-ups and shot lists that work for booksellers and stationery brands in 2026, whether you sell on Amazon, eBay, Etsy, Shopee, Lazada or your own Shopify store.
Marketplace Image Specs for Books and Paper Goods
Paper products follow the same general image rules as everything else, with a few category-specific twists. Here is a summary of what the main platforms expect.
| Platform | Recommended size | Minimum | Aspect ratio | Book or stationery quirk |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon | 2000 x 2000 px | 1000 px on longest side (for zoom) | 1:1 preferred | For books, the cover should fill the frame with no surrounding white space |
| eBay | 1600 px on longest side | 500 px on longest side | Any, square displays best | Catalogue (stock) images are allowed as the main photo for pre-owned books, but must match the exact edition and condition |
| Etsy | 3000 x 2250 px | 2000 px on shortest side recommended; 635 px absolute minimum for the first photo | 4:3 (thumbnail crops to square or 4:5) | Keep the design centred so cards and prints survive the thumbnail crop |
| Shopee | 1024 x 1024 px or larger | 500 x 500 px | 1:1 | Max 2 MB per image; cover shot first, then interior spreads |
| Lazada | 1000 x 1000 px or larger | 330 x 330 px | 1:1 | Max 3 MB; white or light background for the main image |
| Shopify | 2048 x 2048 px | 800 x 800 px for zoom | Consistent across the store | Pick one ratio for all stationery so collection grids line up |
The biggest trap is the ratio mismatch. A book cover is typically around 2:3, a greeting card is often 5:7, and A5 notebooks are roughly 1:1.41. None of those are square, so you need to decide deliberately how the product sits inside a 1:1 or 4:3 canvas rather than letting each platform crop it for you.
Handling portrait products on square canvases
For Amazon book listings, the main image is the front cover itself, cropped tight. For everything else, the cleanest approach is to place the portrait product centrally on a square white canvas with even padding on the left and right. This keeps the product large in search results while avoiding cropped titles. Tools like PixelPrep can pad portrait shots onto square canvases in bulk and export marketplace-ready sizes for Shopee, Lazada, Amazon and Shopify in one pass, which saves a lot of manual canvas work when you list dozens of titles a week.
Lighting: Beating Glare on Glossy Covers
Glare is the number one problem in book and stationery photography. Laminated covers, foil-stamped notebooks, spot-UV greeting cards and shrink-wrapped planners all act like mirrors.
Use large, diffused light at an angle
- Diffuse everything. A softbox, a light tent or a window covered with baking paper spreads the light so reflections are faint rather than a hard white hotspot.
- Light from 45 degrees. When shooting straight down on a flat product, place two lights at roughly 45 degrees either side. Reflected light then bounces away from the lens instead of straight into it. This is the same principle used in copy stands for art reproduction.
- Add a polariser. A circular polarising filter on a camera, or a clip-on polariser for a phone, cuts reflections from glossy laminate and shrink-wrap. Rotate it while watching the screen until the glare disappears.
- Tilt slightly if needed. If one stubborn hotspot remains, tilting the book a few degrees is often enough. Correct any keystone distortion afterwards.
Protect white pages from vanishing
Cream or white paper against a pure white background loses its edges. For interior spreads and notebook pages, either use a very light grey backdrop for secondary images or add a subtle natural shadow beneath the product so buyers can see where the page ends. Keep the main image on pure white (RGB 255, 255, 255) where the marketplace requires it.
The Shot List for Books
New books
- Front cover, straight on, filling the frame.
- Back cover showing the blurb and barcode.
- Spine, useful for box sets and collectors who shelve by spine design.
- Three-quarter angle to show thickness and binding type (hardback, paperback, spiral).
- Two or three interior spreads, especially for cookbooks, children's books, colouring books and illustrated titles. Buyers want to see the layout, not just the cover.
Used, rare and collectible books
Condition drives the price, so the photos are your evidence. Add:
- Copyright page, essential for proving first editions and printings.
- Dust jacket edges, including chips, tears and price-clipped corners.
- Page edges for foxing, yellowing or remainder marks.
- Close-ups of every defect, such as inscriptions, highlighting, water damage or loose hinges.
- Signatures, shot in raking light so the ink impression is visible.
Even though eBay allows catalogue images as the main photo for pre-owned books, real photos of your actual copy are the safest way to avoid "item not as described" claims. At minimum, add your own condition photos after the stock image.
The Shot List for Stationery and Paper Goods
| Product | Must-have shots | What buyers are really checking |
|---|---|---|
| Notebooks and journals | Cover, open spread, page ruling close-up, spine or binding, elastic and ribbon details | Lined, dotted, grid or blank; lies flat or not; paper weight |
| Planners | Cover, monthly spread, weekly spread, tabs and pockets | Date layout, start month, writing space per day |
| Greeting cards | Front, inside message, back, card with envelope | Blank or printed inside, envelope colour, finish |
| Art prints and posters | Flat print on white, framed mock-up, print on a wall with scale | Actual size, paper texture, colour accuracy |
| Stickers and washi tape | Full sheet, single sticker close-up, on a planner or laptop for scale | Size of each sticker, finish (matte, glossy, holographic) |
| Pens and writing sets | Product group, nib close-up, writing sample on paper | Line width, ink colour, how it writes |
Show paper weight and texture
Buyers of premium stationery care about paper feel, and a flat front-on photo cannot convey it. Use low-angle side lighting (sometimes called raking light) across the page to reveal texture on watercolour paper, cotton cards and letterpress. Photograph fountain pen ink on a page to prove there is no bleed-through, and show a page held up to the light if thickness is a selling point. State the paper weight in GSM in both the image overlay and the listing text.
Always show scale
"A5" or "5 x 7 inches" means little to many buyers. A notebook held in a hand, a print next to a pen, or a sticker sheet on a laptop lid answers the size question instantly and cuts returns.
Colour Accuracy and Flatness
Paper goods are often bought to match a colour scheme, such as wedding stationery or a pastel planner set, so colour errors lead straight to returns.
- Set a custom white balance using a grey card, or shoot RAW and correct later.
- Export in sRGB. Wide-gamut files uploaded without conversion often look dull or oversaturated in marketplace apps.
- Keep the camera parallel to the product. Any tilt turns a rectangle into a trapezium, which makes prints and cards look cheap. A copy stand, a tripod with a horizontal arm, or even a phone on a stack of books will help.
- Flatten curling paper by leaving it under a heavy book overnight, or hold edges down with small clear acrylic blocks that you retouch out afterwards.
Batch Workflow for High-Volume Booksellers
Booksellers and stationery shops often list hundreds of SKUs, so speed matters as much as quality.
- Fix the set-up. Tape your camera position and product marks to the table so every cover lands in the same place.
- Shoot in sequence. Photograph all front covers, then all back covers, then all spreads. Changing angle once is faster than changing it per title.
- Name files by ISBN or SKU, for example 9781234567897-01-front.jpg, so images match listings automatically.
- Batch crop, pad and resize. Export one master set at 2000 px or more, then generate each marketplace size from it. PixelPrep handles this step in bulk, so you are not resizing the same cover six times for six platforms.
- Compress sensibly. Aim for 200 to 500 KB per image for Shopee and Lazada, well under their 2 MB and 3 MB limits.
Checklist: Books and Stationery Photos That Sell
- Main image on pure white, product filling at least 85% of the frame (book covers fill it completely on Amazon)
- Glare removed with diffused 45-degree lighting or a polariser
- Camera parallel to the product, with no keystone distortion
- Portrait products padded onto square canvases, not cropped
- Interior spreads shown for any book or planner where layout matters
- Copyright page and every defect photographed for used or collectible books
- Texture, ink behaviour and paper weight demonstrated for premium stationery
- A scale reference in at least one image
- Colour checked with a grey card and exported in sRGB
- Files named by ISBN or SKU and resized per marketplace from one master
Flat products reward precision. Get the lighting angle, the framing and the ratios right once, lock the set-up in place, and you can photograph a whole shelf of books or a full stationery range in a single afternoon, with listings that look sharp on every marketplace.