What is post-production?
Post-production is the stage that starts once the shooting is over and ends with a file ready to publish. In photography it covers selecting frames, processing RAW files, colour correction, retouching, sharpening and export.
The term comes from film. Wikipedia describes post-production, often shortened to ‘post’, as part of the process of filmmaking, video and audio production and photography. A film editor works on a timeline and a soundtrack; a product photo has neither, so the effort goes into the detail of each frame.
Post-production steps for product photos
- Selection - choosing the frames that go forward for editing.
- RAW processing - exposure, white balance and colour profile, for example in Capture One or Lightroom.
- Denoising - only when the photo was taken at high ISO or in poor light.
- Colour correction and grading - accurate product colour first, mood second, if at all.
- Retouching - background, edges, dust, scratches and creases.
- Sharpening and export - last of all, matched to the final size and file format.
The order matters. Sharpening before denoising amplifies the noise, and retouching a file whose colour has not been corrected means redoing the work later. That is why editing starts from the source file, ideally a RAW file, and the JPEG is saved once, at the very end.
At marszalstudio, basic editing (crop, exposure and colour) is included in the price of every photo. Full product photo retouching, covering the background, edges and texture, is ordered as a separate service. After the shoot the client receives a contact sheet, and their approval is the signal to start retouching.
Export depends on where the photo will appear. Our standard shop file is a JPEG, 2000 × 2000 px, 72 DPI, RGB, on a white background. For a printed catalogue there is the 6K Resolution add-on (6000 px, 300 DPI), and for graphics with a cut-out product the Remove background add-on delivers a PNG with a transparent background.
Photo retouching
Photo retouching is the part of post-production that fixes specific areas of an image: removing dust, scratches and creases, cleaning up the product's edges and evening out the background. Editing changes the whole photo (exposure, colour, crop); retouching works on detail.
The word is older than digital photography. Wikipedia notes that traditional, analogue image editing, done by hand with tools such as the airbrush, is known as photo retouching. Today the same work happens in Photoshop and similar software, more and more often with help from AI tools.
In product photography, retouching is not about making things prettier than they are. Its job is to show the product exactly as it is, minus the traces of the shoot. The typical scope:
- Background - even and clean; on a packshot, pure white
- Edges - crisp, with no fringing or leftover background
- Surfaces - free of dust, fingerprints and fine scratches
- Fabrics and packaging - creases smoothed out, labels straight
- The series - the same white and the same product colour in every photo
Marketplaces set their own rules for that white. For the main image, Amazon asks for a pure white background (RGB 255, 255, 255) with the product filling 85% or more of the frame, according to a summary posted by Amazon on its Seller Forums. Cutting a product out of its background is a separate technique; the AI tools for it are compared in our guide to removing backgrounds online.
From the studio: a packshot costs €9 net without retouching and €18 net with premium retouching, which covers edges, creases, texture and a perfectly white background. AI retouching costs €3 net per photo as a launch offer (regular €5): it removes dust, scratches and fingerprints, evens out light and colour and also gives a perfectly white background, without drawing anything in. One round of retouching revisions is included, and the other rates are on our product photography pricing page.
The most common mistake is over-retouching: wood, leather or knitwear smoothed to nothing looks like a 3D render. The second is retouching without colour control, which leaves a spotless product in the wrong shade. Colour is settled earlier, at the colour correction stage.
Colour grading
Colour grading (color grading in American spelling) gives a photo or film an intended look: its tonality, mood and palette. It follows colour correction, which removes faults such as a colour cast from the light and brings back natural colours.
The line between the two is blurred. Wikipedia notes that the terms are often used interchangeably and that grading applies to motion pictures, video and still images alike. It separates primary corrections, which affect the whole image, from secondary ones, which isolate a chosen range of hue, saturation and brightness.
| Feature | Colour correction | Colour grading |
|---|---|---|
| Goal | accurate, neutral colours | an intended mood and style |
| Order | first | after correction |
| Tools | white balance, exposure, curves | colour wheels, changes to selected colours |
| Where in e-commerce | packshots, catalogues, marketplaces | advertising, lifestyle, social media |
In Lightroom Classic, grading happens in the Color Grading panel: three wheels for shadows, midtones and highlights, plus a global wheel that tints the whole image. In 2020 the panel replaced the old Split Toning panel, as Julieanne Kost explains.
For product photos the rule is simple: the background and the light can carry a mood, but the product's colour stays true. If a jumper looks warmer on screen than in real life, the customer will notice the moment they open the parcel. The starting point is a correct white balance.
Photo denoising
Photo denoising (noise reduction) removes the grain and coloured speckles that appear at high ISO, in poor light or after heavy shadow lifting. Good denoising takes out the noise but keeps the texture of the product.
Where noise comes from is covered in our entry on noise in photography, and its link to sensor sensitivity in the guide to ISO. Noise has two components: luminance (fine grain) and chroma (multicoloured blotches). According to Wikipedia, most noise reduction algorithms split the image into these two components, and some tools let you control them separately.
AI denoising in RAW software
Simple smoothing filters blur the image along with the noise, which is why fabric and wood lose their texture under a heavy slider. Machine-learning tools are trained to tell noise from real detail. Three examples:
- Denoise in Lightroom and Camera Raw (since April 2023) - removes noise and demosaics the RAW file in one pass, then saves the result as a new DNG file. At launch it worked only with Bayer and X-Trans raw files.
- Enhanced Denoise in Capture One - built to recover real detail from high-ISO shots.
- DxO PureRAW 6 - DeepPRIME technology, also works as a Lightroom plug-in; sold as a perpetual licence with a 14-day free trial.
Eric Chan of Adobe's Camera Raw team advises in the Adobe article on Denoise to run it early in the workflow, before healing and masking, because AI tools such as Content-Aware Remove work better on a clean image. That is the same order as in the post-production steps above.
Denoising photos online
Online denoisers run in the browser on a finished JPEG. They are fine for a phone photo for a listing, but a JPEG holds less data than a RAW file and every re-save adds compression artefacts. For shop photos, denoising the RAW file before export gives a better result.
In a studio, noise is prevented rather than removed: a camera on a tripod and studio flash make it possible to shoot at the lowest ISO. The typical mistakes are over-smoothing, which turns fabric and wood into plastic, and denoising a file that has already been sharpened.
High pass filter
High pass (a high-pass filter, HPF) keeps the edges and fine detail in an image and suppresses large, smooth areas. In Photoshop it is used mainly for sharpening and for boosting local contrast.
The name comes from electronics and audio: a high-pass filter passes signals above a cut-off frequency and attenuates lower ones. In a photo, frequency means how quickly brightness changes between neighbouring pixels: sharply at the edge of a label, hardly at all across a white background. The unsharp mask found in image editors is a close relative, a high-boost filter built on the same idea.
Straight after the filter, the image turns mostly grey and only the edges stay visible, a bit like a pencil outline of the original. That grey layer is then blended back over the photo to sharpen it.
High pass sharpening in Photoshop
- Convert the layer to a Smart Object, or work on a duplicate, so the effect stays editable.
- Choose Filter > Other > High Pass. The image turns grey, with only the edges showing.
- Set the radius. Adobe suggests a value between 1 and 7 pixels: the lower it is, the subtler the effect.
- Change the layer's blend mode to Overlay (stronger contrast) or Soft Light (gentler).
- Adjust the strength with layer opacity and use a mask to limit the effect to the product.
The menu path, the radius range and the two blend modes come from Adobe's guide to the High Pass filter. In product photography, high pass helps with the edges of electronics, the facets of gemstones in jewellery and small print on labels.
The usual mistakes are too large a radius, which draws bright halos where the product meets the white background, and sharpening a noisy file. The filter boosts every detail, grain included, so denoising comes first. Without Photoshop, a free browser tool does a similar job:
Capture One
Capture One is software for processing RAW files and for editing and organising photos, valued for its colour control and for shooting with the camera connected to a computer (tethering). It is made by Capture One A/S, which became a separate company in 2019, when the software department of the Danish camera firm Phase One was spun off.
The software launched in 1998 as Lightphase Capture and has been called Capture One since 2002 (Wikipedia). It runs on Windows and macOS, and since 2022 also on the iPad, with an iPhone app following in 2023.
Main features of Capture One
- Tethering with Live View - photos go straight from the camera to the screen, and Live View shows what the camera sees in real time
- Colour editor - hue, saturation and luminance sliders for a chosen range of colours
- Layers and masks - local adjustments, plus heal and clone layers for removing dust and marks
- Assisted masking - automatically detects the subject or the background
- Sessions and catalogues - two ways of organising files, for a single project or a whole archive
- Enhanced Denoise - recovers detail from high-ISO shots
- Camera support - the maker lists more than 550 supported cameras
The feature list is based on the Capture One Pro product page and the maker's introduction to layers.
In product photography, tethering is the biggest win: each frame lands on the monitor straight from the camera, so focus, reflections and colour are checked during the shoot rather than after it. How it works is explained in our guide to tethered photography.
From the studio: the same idea of checking photos during the shoot is behind the Live session included in every marszalstudio shoot. The client opens a link with a password, with no account needed, marks each photo as OK or for correction, draws notes with a brush or a pin and chats with the photographer and the retoucher.
Capture One vs Lightroom
| Feature | Capture One Pro | Lightroom Classic |
|---|---|---|
| Licence | monthly or annual subscription, or a one-off perpetual licence | subscription only; Lightroom 6 was the last version sold with a perpetual licence |
| Price (13 October 2026) | depends on the plan (Pro, All in One, Studio); see the maker's price list | £11.99 a month in the Lightroom plan, £19.97 a month in the Photography plan with Photoshop (incl. VAT, annual plan billed monthly) |
| Free trial | 7 days | 7 days (Lightroom plan) |
| Tethering | yes, also in the iPad and iPhone app | yes, in Lightroom Classic only |
| Organising photos | sessions and catalogues | catalogue, originals stored on a local drive |
| AI denoising | Enhanced Denoise | Denoise |
| Devices | Windows, macOS; iPad and iPhone in the All in One and Mobile plans | computer only; the cloud-based Lightroom also runs on mobile and in a browser |
Licences, prices and trial periods come from the Capture One and Adobe UK price lists, checked on 13 October 2026; the details on Lightroom 6 and tethering in Classic come from Wikipedia. The free Capture One Express, which handled raw files from Sony, Fujifilm and Nikon cameras, was switched off on 30 January 2024 (bythom.com).
Capture One suits tethered studio work and anyone who would rather buy a licence than pay a subscription. Lightroom makes sense if you need Photoshop anyway, because the Photography plan includes both. Legal ways to get Lightroom cheaper or for free are covered in our guide How to Get Adobe Lightroom for Free.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between post-production and retouching?
Post-production is the whole stage after the shoot: selection, RAW processing, colour correction, retouching, sharpening and export. Retouching is one part of it and deals with detail, such as the background, edges, dust, scratches and creases on the product.
What is a high pass filter used for?
In photo editing, a high pass filter keeps edges and fine detail and turns smooth areas grey. In Photoshop it is used for sharpening: apply High Pass to a Smart Object or a duplicate layer, then set the blend mode to Overlay or Soft Light.
How do I denoise a photo online?
Online denoisers work on a JPEG in the browser and are fine for phone photos. For shop photos, denoise the RAW file instead, for example with Denoise in Lightroom or Enhanced Denoise in Capture One, before compression adds its own artefacts.
Is Capture One free?
No. The free Capture One Express edition was switched off on 30 January 2024. Capture One Pro is sold as a monthly or annual subscription or as a one-off perpetual licence, and you can try it free for 7 days.
Capture One or Lightroom for product photography?
Both support tethered shooting, Lightroom only in its Classic version. Capture One Pro can be bought without a subscription. Lightroom is subscription-only, but the Photography plan bundles it with Photoshop for £19.97 a month including VAT (October 2026).
What is the difference between colour grading and colour correction?
Colour correction removes faults and restores natural colours, such as a neutral white. Colour grading comes afterwards and gives the photo a mood or style. In product photos, grading may change the background and the light, but never the colour of the product itself.
How much does product photo retouching cost?
At marszalstudio a packshot costs €9 net without retouching and €18 net with premium retouching (edges, creases, texture and a perfectly white background). AI retouching is €3 net per photo as a launch offer (regular €5), also with a perfectly white background, and one round of retouching revisions is included.
Sources
- Wikipedia: Post-production (accessed 13 October 2026)
- Wikipedia: Image editing (accessed 13 October 2026)
- Amazon Seller Forums: main image requirements (accessed 13 October 2026)
- Wikipedia: Color grading (accessed 13 October 2026)
- Julieanne Kost: Color Grading in Lightroom Classic (20 October 2020, accessed 13 October 2026)
- Wikipedia: Noise reduction (accessed 13 October 2026)
- Adobe: Denoise demystified (18 April 2023, accessed 13 October 2026)
- DxO PureRAW, product page (accessed 13 October 2026)
- Wikipedia: High-pass filter (accessed 13 October 2026)
- Adobe: Using the High Pass filter in Photoshop (accessed 13 October 2026)
- Wikipedia: Capture One (accessed 13 October 2026)
- Capture One Pro, product page (accessed 13 October 2026)
- Capture One: Introduction to layers (accessed 13 October 2026)
- Capture One, pricing (accessed 13 October 2026)
- Capture One, free trial (accessed 13 October 2026)
- bythom.com: The Software Saga Continues (accessed 13 October 2026)
- Adobe UK: Lightroom plans and pricing (accessed 13 October 2026)
- Wikipedia: Adobe Lightroom (accessed 13 October 2026)
