Outsourced retouching fails for boring reasons. Almost never because the studio cannot do the work – usually because nobody wrote down what “done” looks like. A brief that takes twenty minutes to prepare is the difference between a batch that ships and a batch that comes back for a revision round.
The six things worth specifying
Background
Name the exact value, not the word. “White” is ambiguous; #FFFFFF is not. If the marketplace requires pure white, say so, and say whether a soft contact shadow is wanted or forbidden. Amazon and a brand’s own storefront frequently disagree on this, and a batch prepared for one will be rejected by the other.
Canvas and margin
Give the pixel dimensions, the aspect ratio, and how much clear space should sit around the product. “Product fills 85% of the frame height, centred, 2000 x 2000” is a specification. “Nicely cropped” is not.
Shadow treatment
Decide between a natural shadow retained from the shoot, a constructed drop shadow, a reflection, or nothing at all – and keep it consistent across the range. Mixed shadow treatments in a single category are the most common reason a set looks unprofessional even when every individual image is clean.
Colour accuracy
State which images are colour-critical and against what reference. If a physical swatch exists, say so. If the only reference is another photograph, say which one. Retouchers cannot match a colour they have never seen, and guessing at it wastes everybody’s time.
What must not be changed
This is the one most briefs omit. A visible seam, a texture, a logo placement, a slight asymmetry that is genuinely how the product is made – if it gets “corrected”, the customer receives something that does not match the listing. List the features that are real.
File delivery
Format, colour profile, layered or flattened, and the naming convention. Naming matters more than it sounds: a batch that arrives correctly named goes straight into the system, and a batch that does not is an afternoon of manual matching.
Send a reference set, not a description
One approved image is worth three paragraphs of instruction. If you have an existing catalogue, pick two or three frames that represent the standard and send them with the first batch. If you do not, run a small paid test – ten images, the full specification, real product – before committing to a volume.
Agree the revision terms up front
Decide what counts as a revision and what counts as a change of brief, and write it down before the first invoice rather than after. A missed dust spot is a revision. Deciding after delivery that the shadow should have been softer is a new brief. Studios price those differently, and they should.
Start narrow
Send one category, one specification, one approver. Widen the scope once the first batch comes back clean. Teams that begin with their entire catalogue and three internal opinions spend the first month negotiating with themselves.