Most image guides tell you how big your photos should be. Almost none tell you what your photos are not allowed to show. That second question is the one that gets listings suppressed, ad accounts restricted and stock stranded in a warehouse.
If you sell supplements, skincare, cosmetics, medical devices, alcohol or anything with a regulated label, your product images are treated as marketing claims. A platform's automated review reads the pixels on your packaging, the text you burned into a lifestyle shot and the transformation you implied with a side-by-side. Get it wrong and the listing goes down without warning.
Here is what the major platforms actually enforce in 2026, category by category, plus the shot list that keeps you compliant.
Why images count as claims
The core principle across Amazon, Google, Meta, TikTok Shop, Shopee and Lazada is the same: anything visible in an image is treated as a statement about the product. Amazon is explicit about this. When it reviews a suppressed listing for prohibited disease or medical claims, it inspects your product packaging and images alongside your title and bullets. In most cases, if the claim is printed on the packaging shown in your photo, no amount of rewriting the listing copy will lift the suppression.
That is the trap that catches sellers repeatedly. They strip "boosts immunity" out of the bullet points, resubmit, and stay suppressed, because the phrase is still legible on the box in image two.
Supplements and nutraceuticals
Supplements have the strictest image requirements of any mainstream category, and they got stricter in 2026 as Amazon expanded third-party cGMP verification from a handful of high-risk subcategories to every dietary supplement on the US marketplace.
Images you must include
- The full Supplement Facts panel, legible at zoom. Amazon treats this panel as the reference point for the entire listing.
- The complete ingredient list, including "other ingredients".
- All sides of the label, with the batch or lot number, or date code, visible.
- Manufacturer or distributor details as printed on the pack.
Every one of these must be readable, not merely present. A 500-pixel shot of a bottle will not resolve 6-point regulatory type. Shoot the label flat or at a shallow angle, fill the frame with the panel alone, and upload at 1600 pixels on the longest side so zoom is enabled. That single detail — panel images at full zoom resolution — resolves a large share of "ingredient list not legible" rejections.
What will get you removed
Amazon does not accept computer-generated images or mock-ups of the product or its packaging for supplements. Renders that are fine for a mug are a violation here. Beyond that: no before-and-after transformation imagery, no unsubstantiated certification badges or logos, and no disease claims anywhere in frame.
Note the asymmetry on marketing surfaces. Meta now allows supplements to appear in catalogues and Shops, but requires the disclaimer "This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease" in the ad copy itself — ads missing it are auto-rejected. Putting the disclaimer only inside your image does not satisfy that check.
Cosmetics, skincare and beauty
Beauty sits in an awkward middle ground: the product is usually unregulated as a drug, but the imagery is heavily policed.
Meta softened one rule in 2026. From 22 July 2026, side-by-side and before-and-after imagery for weight loss and cosmetic ads is no longer auto-rejected; only violative claims are. That is a real change, but it is narrower than it sounds. Implied transformations — the product photographed beside an idealised body or face — are still assessed as transformation claims, and body-part-focused imagery that implies shame, pinched-fat shots, skin-whitening claims and sensational health claims remain banned outright.
TikTok Shop has not followed. Before-and-after transformation images remain prohibited there for skincare, supplements and beauty, and weight-management products with misleading claims or before-and-after photos are explicitly listed as prohibited.
For Singapore and Southeast Asian sellers there is a second layer. Cosmetic products supplied in Singapore must be notified to the Health Sciences Authority before supply, and Shopee requires sellers to enter the HSA notification number as a listing attribute. Supplying an un-notified cosmetic product is an offence carrying a fine of up to S$20,000 and up to 12 months' imprisonment. Shopee and Lazada both work directly with HSA to detect and remove illegal health product listings — in one joint operation HSA removed over 3,000 listings. Your images are part of the evidence: a photo showing a claim like "whitens" or a pharmaceutical-sounding ingredient can be what flags the listing for review.
Medical devices and health products
Google restricts healthcare-related content in Merchant Center, and those restrictions apply to images as well as text: photos must not be misleading or promote unapproved products. In practice this means no clinical settings implying medical endorsement, no doctors in white coats unless you can substantiate the relationship, no efficacy graphs baked into the image, and no regulatory marks you do not hold.
The safest approach for devices is documentary: the product on white, the product with all included accessories, the label and its regulatory markings shot legibly, the instruction card, and a plain scale reference. Leave the outcome to the copy, where you can qualify it.
Alcohol, tobacco and cannabinoids
Availability differs sharply by platform, so check before you shoot.
- Google Merchant Center: alcohol is restricted, not prohibited — permitted with age verification and country-specific compliance.
- TikTok Shop: alcohol, tobacco, nicotine and vaping products are prohibited. There is zero tolerance for THC edibles, CBD oils and hemp-derived supplements, regardless of local law.
- TikTok Shop EU: where alcohol categories exist, sellers must display the ABV percentage on the product image as well as the packaging — a rare case where a regulatory figure is mandated in the pixels.
The overlay rules that apply to everyone
Regulated or not, promotional overlays are the most common cause of image rejection.
| Overlay element | Amazon main image | Google Merchant Center |
|---|---|---|
| Price, "Sale", "New", "Free Shipping" | Not allowed | Not allowed |
| Best-seller or award badges | Not allowed | Not allowed |
| Watermarks and retailer logos | Not allowed | Not allowed |
| QR codes, URLs, phone numbers, emails | Not allowed | Not allowed |
| Decorative borders or frames | Not allowed | Not allowed |
| Unheld certification marks | Not allowed | Not allowed |
Google's stated requirement is an unobstructed view of the product on both ads and free listings. Amazon's main image rules run the same way, with the added requirement that a product label image accurately represents the actual label — so no retouching a panel to tidy up a value.
A workflow that keeps you compliant
Shoot one clean master set at full resolution, then derive every marketplace size from it. That way the compliant frame is the source of truth and you are never re-cropping a claim back into view. Resizing hundreds of label and pack shots to each marketplace's dimensions by hand is where mistakes creep in; a batch tool such as PixelPrep handles the size and format conversion so your attention stays on what is actually in the frame.
Keep a per-SKU note of which claims are substantiated and which regulatory numbers appear on-pack. When packaging is revised, reshoot the label images the same week — a stale panel photo that no longer matches the physical product is a compliance failure even if nothing on it was ever prohibited.
Pre-upload compliance checklist
- Read every word visible in the image, including small print on packaging, and check each against the platform's prohibited claims list.
- Remove all overlays: prices, badges, watermarks, borders, URLs, QR codes and contact details.
- Remove any certification, award or regulatory mark you cannot document.
- For supplements: include a legible Supplement Facts panel, full ingredient list, all label sides and the lot or date code — no renders or mock-ups.
- For cosmetics and wellness: no before-and-after or implied-transformation composites unless the specific platform and surface permits them.
- For devices: no clinical or professional-endorsement staging you cannot substantiate.
- For alcohol in the EU: display the ABV percentage in the image.
- Upload label images at 1600 pixels on the longest side so zoom renders the fine print.
- Confirm required listing attributes, such as an HSA notification number for Singapore cosmetics, are filled in.
- Re-check the set whenever packaging, formulation or platform policy changes.
The unglamorous takeaway: in regulated categories, the best product image is the boring one. Show the product, show the label, show it clearly, and let the compliant copy do the selling.