Cut-out images for marketplaces

Your listing image came back rejected, or worse, it went live and looks slightly wrong next to everybody else's in the search results. The product is fine. The photograph is fine. Something about the presentation is not.

A lot of it comes down to three things you control at the shoot: the background was not even enough to remove cleanly, the product has no shadow so it appears to hover, and the item sits at a different size and position from every other item in your own range. They are not the only reasons a listing is refused, which is why the first job is always to read the rules for your exact marketplace, but they are the ones that cost you nothing to fix.

A consistent setup can reduce later correction. Clean edges, shadows and framing may still need post-production, and the marketplace’s current rules decide the final treatment.

Why do listings get rejected?

Because a marketplace is not judging your photograph, it is enforcing its own house rules, and the strict ones enforce a grid.

Amazon main-image requirements are a useful example of a tightly specified listing format. Other marketplaces and categories have different needs. Check the exact current rules for the intended image position before deciding on background, text, props or framing.

Read your marketplace's own image rules once, properly, before a shoot rather than after a rejection, because they differ from each other and they change. They are published, they are short, and the differences between them are small in wording and large in effect. This is a fifteen-minute job that saves an afternoon, and it is worth redoing whenever you list somewhere new or in a new category.

What makes a background cut out cleanly?

Evenness, not whiteness.

A cut-out means the product is separated from whatever was behind it. Software does that separation by finding the edge between the object and the background, and it succeeds when the background is smooth and uniform and struggles when it is patchy, creased, gradient or a similar tone to the product.

Two ways to get an even background without buying much. A shooting tent, which is a translucent box you put the product inside so the light comes through the walls from all directions, is the simplest and the most forgiving with shiny objects. Or a sweep: a single sheet of paper or card curving from vertical down to horizontal in one continuous surface, with no fold or line where the wall meets the table. The curve is the point. A corner produces a visible edge behind the product and that edge is exactly what the software will get confused by.

Whatever you use, keep it clean and keep it flat. Creases photograph as grey lines and are more work to remove than the background itself.

Why does your cut-out have a halo?

A halo can come from the cut-out mask, edge contamination, sharpening or lighting spill. Inspect the edge at a useful viewing size before choosing whether to refine the mask or change the capture.

The instinct is to fix it by brightening the whole image, which blows out the product along with the background and leaves you with a slightly glowing object. The real fix is at the shoot: light the background separately from the product.

A separate background light can help, but avoid spilling so much light onto the product that its edges lose definition. A tent can simplify reflections; it still needs testing and controlled light.

Separation also helps because the further the product sits from the background, the less the background's light spills onto the object and the cleaner the edge is.

Why does a product with no shadow look pasted on?

Because your eye uses shadow to work out that something is sitting on a surface, and without one the object is floating in a white void.

This is the difference between a professional cut-out and one that looks like a scan. It is also the most commonly removed thing, because people assume a white background means nothing but white.

A subtle contact shadow can help the product feel grounded where the marketplace permits it. Check the current image rules for that category and image position before adding or retaining one.

Sizing and centring across a range

The same product, and every other product, has to be in the same place in the frame at the same proportion.

Decide once how much of the frame the product occupies and how much clear space sits around it. Then hold that across the whole range, allowing for different physical sizes as described in the consistency post. Centre horizontally, and be deliberate about vertical: most things look settled slightly below the exact middle rather than dead centre.

This matters more than it sounds because marketplace search results crop and scale images automatically. An item photographed too small in the frame becomes a speck in the row; one photographed too tight gets clipped by the platform's own crop.

What to check before you upload

Seven things, in order, in a two-minute pass.

Background even, with no creases or corners. Edge clean, with no bright rim left behind. A soft contact shadow under the product. Product in the same position and proportion as the rest of the range. Nothing in the frame that counts as a prop, a logo or text, where the marketplace forbids them. Colour corrected against the reference card from the session rather than by eye. And the exact spec for this marketplace and category checked against the file, because that is the one that changes without telling you.

Pull up your best-selling listing and your worst-selling one side by side, at the size they appear in search results rather than full screen, because that is the only size at which anybody ever compares them. Whatever you notice in that comparison is the thing to fix on the next shoot.

Sources and evidence

What here is current marketplace policy, and what is our own pre-upload checklist. Platform behaviour was checked on 4 September 2026.

What is established. Amazon Seller Central's own image rules for its strict-grid marketplace include a pure white background, the product filling most of the frame, and no props, text or logos, enforced so a row of competing listings reads as orderly rather than for any aesthetic reason. Google Merchant Center's own image specification currently recommends 1500 by 1500 pixels or larger and has announced a 500 by 500 pixel minimum from 31 January 2027. Marketplace rules of this kind are published, differ from marketplace to marketplace, and change without much notice, which is why the piece's own advice is to read the current rules for the exact marketplace before a shoot rather than after a rejection.

Our method. Lighting the background separately from the product, keeping a soft contact shadow, and photographing a reference card at the start of a session, are this studio's own working checks before upload, not the marketplace's own rules, which should always be read directly.

References.

• Amazon Seller Central UK. Product image guide. sellercentral.amazon.co.uk. Amazon main-image rules include a pure-white background. Marketplace and category rules can change.
• Google Merchant Center. Image link specification. support.google.com. Current and announced product-image size requirements. Enforcement timing matters; not an Amazon rule. A 500x500px minimum image size takes effect 31 Jan 2027, not yet in force as of 2026-09-04.