Flat lay clothing photography: shape, light and a cutout for resale listings

A garment has no shape of its own. A pot or a mirror holds its outline wherever you put it, but a jumper on a floor is a heap until somebody decides what it should look like, and that decision is most of what separates a flat lay that sells from one that looks like laundry. This guide goes through the garment, the surface, the shape, the light and the camera, and then the one step where software helps: cutting the garment out so a whole rail of pieces shares a background and a listing looks like a shop.

Say the limits first. getPNG removes a background. It does not iron a shirt, straighten a sleeve or correct a colour. Those are done on the floor before the photograph. The general home setup of window light, a card and phone settings is in how to take product photos at home, and clothing follows the same rules with a few of its own.

Prepare the garment before you touch the camera

A crease that is one line to the eye is a shadow and a highlight to a camera, and at full size a buyer sees every one.

• Steam or iron it. A flat lay shows the whole front of the cloth at once, so a wrinkle across the chest is the first thing in the picture. A handheld steamer is quicker than an iron for most fabrics, and the care label says which one the cloth can take.
• Remove lint and hair. A lint roller takes a minute and saves a lot of retouching. Dark cloth shows pale fluff, and pale cloth shows dark hair.
• Fasten what fastens. Do up the buttons and zip, so the front lies in the line it has when worn. A shirt with the placket open reads as a pile.
• Leave the tags where they belong. A label inside the neck is part of the item. Tuck it in for the main shot and photograph it separately.
• Work in a clean place. The floor or the sheet will show in the picture, so wipe it first.

The surface: contrast and calm

The surface decides how easy the garment is to see, and later how easy it is to cut out.

• Plain. A sheet, a board, a roll of paper or a clean floor with no pattern. Anything with a print, a plank line or a wood grain competes with the cloth.
• Matt. A glossy surface shows reflections of the window and of you.
• Large. It should run well past every edge of the garment, with room on all sides, so you can crop to different shapes later.
• Contrasting. Put a dark garment on a light surface and a light garment on a dark one. A navy jumper on a grey floor looks flat and the edge is faint, and the same jumper on a white sheet has an edge a cutout can follow. White cloth on a white sheet is the hard case: use a mid or dark surface for it, and put the garment on white afterwards.
• Not the garment’s own colour. A green top on a green cloth hides the edge from you and from the software.

Shape: make it look as if it is worn

Flat does not mean flat-looking. The best flat lays have a small amount of body in them, and it comes from three habits.

1. Smooth it from the centre out. Work from the middle of the chest to the edges, then the hem, so nothing is pulled to one side.
2. Make both sides match. Lay a tape or a ruler across the shoulders and down the centre, and move the cloth until the two sides mirror each other. A lopsided collar or an uneven hem is obvious in a symmetrical object.
3. Give it volume with tissue. Roll a little tissue or a folded sheet of paper and slide it inside the collar, along the sleeves and under the chest, out of sight. The cloth holds its shape instead of collapsing, and the garment looks as if there were a body in it.

Then place the sleeves. Straight down the sides is the neutral choice, and bent slightly in is a little more natural. Pick one and use it for every item, because a set of garments with sleeves in different places looks like different shops.

For trousers and skirts, smooth the waistband flat and keep the legs straight and even. A folded garment is a different choice: it is fine for stacked knitwear, but a buyer cannot see the length, so show one open as well.

The camera: straight down, level and the same every time

A flat lay is a photograph looking straight down at a surface, and it only works if the camera is parallel to it.

• Shoot from directly above. Stand over the garment, or put the phone on a tripod or a stack of books above it. If the camera is tilted, the garment looks tapered, with the shoulders wider than the hem, and the picture cannot be rescued by cropping.
• Switch on the grid. The phone’s grid lines help you square the garment to the frame and keep the camera level. Many phones also have a level that shows when the lens is parallel to the floor.
• Centre it with room around it. Leave a margin on every side, because you will crop to a square for most listings and need the room.
• Zoom with your feet. Stand back and crop later, because a phone lens close to a garment stretches the nearest edge.
• Keep your shadow out. If you stand between the window and the garment, you will be in the picture as a dark patch. Stand on the side away from the window or hold the phone out over the garment.
• Use the same height and position for every item. Mark the floor with tape so the next garment lies where the last one did. Product photography setup explains why repeatable marks are one of the cheapest upgrades.

The light: a window from one side

Window light does most of the work, as it does for any product.

• Place the garment beside a window, out of direct sun, so the light comes from one side. It shows the texture of the cloth and gives a soft shadow that lets a knit or a collar look three-dimensional.
• Avoid direct sun. It makes hard shadows and bright patches. A bright overcast day is ideal, and a thin white curtain softens a sunny window.
• Turn the lamps off. A warm bulb and daylight together give two colours on one garment, and the cloth cannot be correct in both.
• Fill the far side with a white card. A sheet of white card or paper lifts the shadows on the side away from the window.
• No flash. It flattens the cloth and gives hard shine to anything satin or sequinned.

Colour is the thing buyers return clothes for, so take it seriously. Set the white balance on a white card in the same light, or tap on a neutral area, and compare the picture with the real garment under the window. If the screen cannot show the colour exactly, say so in the listing.

The details a buyer needs

A flat lay shows the whole front. A buyer also wants what it cannot show, and a few extra frames answer the questions before they are asked.

• The back, laid the same way.
• The label and any size tag, close and sharp enough to read.
• The fabric, close enough to show weave, knit or print.
• Every flaw, photographed plainly: a bobble, a mark, a loose thread. A flaw that is shown costs a little; a flaw that is found costs a return and a review.

Take these before the cutout step, and decide which of them need a plain background and which can stay as they are. The label and flaw close-ups are better left as photographs than cut out.

When a cutout helps

A garment on a sheet is a finished photograph for a post. It is the wrong shape for a few jobs, because the sheet is in it.

• A listing where a plain background is expected. Check what the platform you sell on actually asks for, because the rules differ and change, and this page does not state them. Product photos on a white background explains the rules the marketplaces share, and Etsy product photos covers one of them.
• A shop where the garments should match. Cut out every item and put them on the same white or colour, and a rail of pieces shot on a floor, a bed and a sheet reads as one shop.
• A layout. A transparent PNG keeps the option open: the same cutout goes onto white for a listing, onto a colour for a flyer and into a lookbook.

If you have a whole wardrobe to do, the background remover takes as many pictures as you like at a time. Drop the folder, let the queue run, and every picture comes out with the same settings, saved together as a ZIP. Open any single one in the editor if it needs the brush.

What to check in the compare view

Clothing has a few edges that deserve a second look. Open the compare view and drag the divider along the outline.

• Knit, fur and fleece. The edge of a fuzzy cloth is a soft gradient, not a line. getPNG keeps it soft, which is right, so do not sharpen it hard.
• Lace, mesh and sheer cloth. The sheet shows through them. The cutout keeps some of the transparency and may drop a faint area altogether, so paint it back with the brush if the cloth looks thinner than it is.
• The gap between a sleeve and the body. On a flat lay with bent sleeves, a triangle of the sheet sits between the arm and the side. This is the commonest place for the background to be kept by mistake, and the brush rubs it out.
• Loose threads, drawstrings and ties. Fine lines are small edges. Look at them at full size, not on the thumbnail.
• A rim of the old surface colour. A dark garment on a coloured sheet can keep a thin rim of it. Clean edge colour takes the old background back out of the soft pixels at the edge, and the white halo guide explains why a rim forms.
• The shadow under the garment. A cutout removes it, and a garment with no shadow can look as if it floats. The drop shadow option draws a soft one from the garment’s own outline, with the strength and distance yours to set.

What a cutout cannot do

A cutout takes away what is around the garment. It leaves the garment exactly as the camera recorded it.

• It does not remove creases, so steam first.
• It does not fix a colour cast from a warm lamp.
• It does not straighten a crooked hem or put volume into a collapsed sleeve.
• It does not make a faded or stained garment look new, and a listing that implies it does will be returned.

The honest order is therefore the garment first, the shape second, the light third and the cutout last.

What usually goes wrong

• A tapered garment, from a tilted camera. Shoot level, straight down.
• A lifeless heap, from laying it flat with no volume. Pad the collar, chest and sleeves with tissue.
• A lost edge, from a surface the colour of the cloth. Choose a contrasting one.
• A dark patch on one side, from standing between the window and the garment. Move round to the other side.
• A set that does not match, from a different height, surface or sleeve position each time. Mark the floor and repeat the shot.

A pressed garment, a plain sheet, a symmetrical shape, a window and a camera held level above are most of what a flat lay needs. The cutout is the last step, and what it adds is consistency across the shop.

The steps, in short

1. Prepare the garment. Steam or iron it, take off lint and pet hair, fasten the buttons and zips, and leave off any hanger or pin marks you can smooth away.
2. Choose a surface that contrasts. Lay a large plain sheet, board or clean floor by a window. Put a dark garment on a light surface and a light garment on a dark one, so the edge is easy to see and to cut out.
3. Shape the garment. Smooth it flat, make both sides match, place the sleeves naturally and pad the collar and chest with a little tissue so they hold their shape.
4. Shoot straight down. Stand over the garment with the phone level and centred, window light from one side and a white card on the other, and take the same shot every time, plus close-ups of the label and any flaw.
5. Cut it out and check the edge. Drop the photo into the background remover, check the sleeves, hem and any loose threads in the compare view, then save a transparent PNG or a version on white.

Questions

How do I make a flat lay of clothes look good?

Prepare the garment, then control four things: the surface, the shape, the light and the camera. A plain surface that contrasts with the garment, a smooth symmetrical shape with the collar and sleeves padded, soft window light from one side, and a camera held level directly above give a flat lay that looks deliberate. Most of the difference between a good one and a poor one is the ironing and the shaping, not the camera.

What is the best surface for a flat lay of clothing?

A large, plain, matt one that contrasts with the garment: a white sheet or board for dark clothes, a dark sheet for pale ones, a clean floor that has no pattern. A glossy surface shows reflections, a patterned one competes with the garment, and a surface close to the colour of the garment makes both the photograph and the cutout harder to read.

How do I stop a garment looking flat and lifeless?

Give it a little volume. A sleeve or a collar laid flat looks deflated, so slip a roll of tissue or a folded sheet of paper inside the collar, along the sleeves and across the chest, out of sight. Position the sleeves as if the arms were at the sides or slightly bent, and keep the hem straight. The shape reads as a body, not a pile of cloth.

Should I use a flat lay or a hanger?

A flat lay suits knitwear, T-shirts, shirts and anything that sags on a hanger, and it gives every garment the same viewpoint. A hanger suits structured pieces such as a coat, but the hanger and the wall behind it have to be dealt with. Pick one way for a whole shop, because a mix of both looks inconsistent. If you are unsure, flat lay is the simpler of the two to repeat.

Can I cut clothing out of its background?

Yes, and a garment on a plain surface is an easy subject. Look at the edges that are soft by nature in the compare view: knit and fur, lace, loose threads, sheer fabric and the gap between a sleeve and the body. The brush paints back anything removed and rubs out any background kept. getPNG keeps the photo at its full resolution and the picture is never uploaded.

Does a cutout hide creases or wrong colour?

No. It takes away what is around the garment and leaves the garment exactly as the camera recorded it, so creases, a colour cast and a wrinkled hem stay in. Iron before you shoot, light the garment evenly, and say in the listing what the real colour is if the screen might shift it.