DIY Photography Backdrop Ideas To Make Your Pictures Pop

DIY photography backdrops allow brands and creatives to design effective photos on a relatively small budget. Using materials like fabric, ferns, and fruit, you can evoke specific moods or feelings while still highlighting the product or person in the foreground.

While photography backdrops are, by nature, in the background, their design plays a key role in shaping customer perception and brand affinity. Research shows that using contrasting colors can improve a customer’s sense of how innovative a brand is, while placing a product in a contextual environment or scene elicits more favorable reactions than a plain background. 

In this article, you’ll find ideas for your next DIY backdrop, along with tips for making your DIY shoots effective. 

Why photography backdrops matter for ecommerce 

A thoughtful photography backdrop makes your brand’s products look more appealing and professional on your website and social media channels. The right backdrop also communicates aspects of your brand personality, suggesting how customers should use or perceive your products. The colors, textures, and visual feel all present opportunities to double down on your brand identity. 

For example, placing your brand’s moisturizing serum on a high-end bathroom shelf helps your audience envision the product on their own shelves. A woodland scene can communicate your brand’s commitment to eco-friendly practices, while a minimalist studio setup draws all the attention to the unique bottle design or artistic label. 

Piecework Puzzles, for example, is a brand known for their maximalist, fun-loving scenes. They capture each puzzle set on a plain background as well as in the environment that inspired the image. This allows customers to have a clear idea of what the finished puzzle looks like and imagine the immersive puzzling experience. Their Poolside Gossip puzzles product photos, for instance, include a pool and drinks as part of the backdrop. 

The brand’s cofounders started creating fun backgrounds themselves in a series of experiments. “Some of the early photo shoots were literally in my grandmother’s garage,” cofounder Rachel Hochhauser says on an episode of the Shopify Masters podcast. “We didn’t even have a shot list. We just went into it with a ton of props we thought were cool and figured it out.”

5 DIY photography backdrop ideas

• Paper and vinyl
• Hard materials
• Fabric
• Greenery and produce
• Props

Whether you’re looking to evoke the simple, studio-lit backdrops of a high-end brand, or inject some playful energy into your visuals, here are a handful of DIY photo backdrop ideas for a tight budget and a range of product types and sizes: 

Paper and vinyl

Craft paper rolls create a seamless curve that eliminates a visible horizon line in your photos. Peel-and-stick wallpaper panels, vinyl swatches, and faux-tile backsplashes help create a specific environment (like a staged kitchen or bathroom) or a particular mood or design style (natural stone, for example, or bold stripes or speckles). 

The eco-friendly toilet paper and cleaning products company Who Gives a Crap shows their Scrub Sponges on a crisp, cream-colored background that can be achieved by a roll of paper and studio lighting. The minimalist setup helps you zero in on the sponge’s texture. 

You can also use paper to create an overlapping, collage feel: glue down squares of tissue paper to a poster board backing with a craft adhesive like Mod Podge. Peruse craft and hardware stores, or independent online retailers and designers for single-use samples.

Hard materials

Experiment with materials like stone, marble, and metal slabs for simple but effective product photos. For metal, look for patina finishes to reduce glare. Concrete walls and barriers can be effective backdrops to achieve the high-low contrast of street photography. 

Meanwhile, wooden backdrops (everything from reclaimed pallets to fluted cabinet or wall paneling) lend a tactile character to your photographs, grounding products in real-world elements. 

In this example from the haircare brand Oribe, the bottles of shampoo and conditioner lie flat on a marble surface that evokes a luxury bathroom. Visit local quarries for sample pieces, or purchase single tiles from hardware stores or resale marketplaces like Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace to achieve a similar look.

Fabric

Fabric backdrops add texture, natural shadows, and dimension. They’re widely available in unlimited colors, weaves, and thicknesses, and they’re easy to source. Beyond fabric, you’ll need clamps and scaffolding to hang or drape pieces over, or you can use strong tape to affix lightweight fabrics to a wall. 

Clean, neutral bedsheets, curtains, tablecloths, fabric swatches, rugs, throw blankets, and canvas painter dropcloths all make for soft, comforting backdrops that are easy on the eye. Experiment with cotton versus more textured materials like linen, velvet, canvas, or sheer fabric that you can use to soften lights placed behind the product.

In this example, Piecework Puzzles features their Chicken Lemongrass bar soap tucked into the folds of a white sheet, which creates a soft, layered effect. 

Greenery and produce

Greenery, fruits, and vegetables bring an assortment of textures and colors to complement or contrast your product. Depending on how you use them, they can directly point to the ingredients in your products, imply where and how your products are used, or simply evoke a color story or theme. 

Glossier, for example, features their apple-flavored Balm Dotcom lip balm next to dewy apples to communicate the product’s flavor and texture. The color combination of the red apples and white background also echoes the product’s color scheme. 

Go minimalist with delicate taped flowers and single-leaf stalks, or embrace excess with bright combinations of dried and silk plants found at any craft store. Plants and produce are also an easy way to promote and signal seasonal collections (gourds and leaves for fall, flowers for spring and summer).

Props

The world of props (and what you might count as a prop) is endless. Think sequined or foil curtains you’d see at a party photo booth, colored glasses and vases for your greenery, lifestyle accessories (like sunglasses, pens, matchbooks, newspapers/books, and cutlery), and more. 

Props are the supporting characters of your backdrops, so make sure they each have a good reason for being there. Each one should be working to enhance the connection your customer makes with each photo, as in this example from Smart Sweets. A box of fruit snacks sits atop a gym bag and soccer equipment, letting you know it’s an ideal post-practice snack.

Thrift stores, estate sales, and flea markets host an abundance of unique, budget-friendly props; or you can scout online marketplaces like eBay or Etsy. 

Tips for using DIY photography backdrops

• Embrace a scrappy mentality
• Keep basics on hand
• Make the product the hero
• Use AI tools to help execute big ideas

Lighting, angles, and editing are all key pieces of great product photography. Here’s what to remember to ensure your backdrop sets you up for success:

Embrace a scrappy mentality

Tackling your own DIY photo backdrops in-house, even without experience, can come across as undeniably authentic. And that authenticity is increasingly important; a 2024 Getty Images report found that nearly 90% of customers want to know when an image uses AI. 

“We have a vision,” Hugz founder Lexi Hensler said on Shopify Masters. “We understand the business more than anyone. You don’t need crazy money and experience to create something meaningful.” Sometimes, she says, the photos from these impromptu sessions outperform the ones they hire professional teams for. 

To get the most out of a DIY shoot, call on everything you know about your customer and target audience. Ask yourself what they respond to most; What brings them to your brand in the first place? Use it to inform the scenes and styles you incorporate. 

Depending on your brand style, you can lean into a behind-the-scenes (BTS) style, which highlights the raw mechanics of the shoot, like exposed paper edges, lighting, rods, or tape (and saves you from chasing a hyper-polished final result). 

Keep basics on hand

Keeping an assortment of basic tools available means you’re always prepared to tackle a new idea. Think a large, level table; spring clamps, gaffer tape, and small weights for holding backdrops in place; paint brushes and rollers for different effects; simple wooden boxes that you can drape and prop things up on; and scaffolding rods to hang paper rolls (the best way to achieve a smooth, crease-free background).

Make the product the hero

It might sound obvious, but remember that your backdrop should serve to spotlight the product, not distract from it. Avoid patterns, textures, or colors that will compete with or interfere with the look of your product—unless that’s specifically the style you’re looking for. Matte finishes help reduce distracting reflections by diffusing light evenly and making the product appear sharp and clear by contrast. 

Use AI tools to help execute big ideas

Depending on your vision, you may not need any physical tools or photography skills to pull off an attractive backdrop. Shopify’s Sidekick (or free apps like Tinker) makes it easy to generate realistic, high-quality photo backgrounds for both lifestyle imagery and product portfolios using natural language prompts. 

This can be especially useful for troubleshooting lighting, achieving difficult prop styling effects (stacking or floating, for example), or sourcing real-life elements that are out of season or hard to find (like vanilla orchids and fresh coconut for your hand-poured candle).

You can also use AI-powered tools to make the process more efficient by experimenting with different colors, layouts, or combinations before committing to the one you’ll go on to shoot in real life