How to Photograph a Lined Hat for a Shop Listing

A lined hat photographs badly by default. The inside is a dark bowl, the satin throws the flash straight back at the lens, and the one detail a buyer wants to see, the lining, comes out as a grey blur. That is a shame, because the lining is often what makes somebody choose your hat over the identical hat next to it. A few minutes of care turns the inside shot from the weakest picture in the listing into the one people stop on. None of this needs a studio.

Light it from the side, never the front

The mistake is pointing a light, or a phone flash, straight into the crown. Satin is a shiny weave and it mirrors whatever you put in front of it, so you get a white blowout in the middle and blackness around the edge. Put your light to one side instead, at roughly forty five degrees, and let it rake across the lining. The sheen then runs across the satin as a soft band rather than a hot spot, and the colour reads true. A window on an overcast day is the best light most people have. Turn the flash off.

Open the crown towards the camera

Tip the hat so the opening faces the lens at an angle of about thirty degrees rather than straight on. Straight on gives you a flat circle and a lot of shadow. Tipped, you see the curve of the crown, the lining running down the sides, and the sweatband at the front edge, which is the shot that tells a buyer the hat is properly finished inside.

Hold the shape

An empty hat sags and the lining creases. Put a rolled towel or a hat block inside the crown before you shoot so the sides stand up and the lining sits smooth. If you are photographing a soft hat, stuff it gently until the crown is round again. Smooth the lining with your fingers first, because a fingerprint or a fold shows far more in a photograph than it does in the hand.

Shoot the logo square

A foil or printed logo in the top of the crown is the detail worth a picture of its own. Shoot it square to the crown top, from directly above the opening, with the light still off to one side so the foil catches. Gold and silver foil need that angled light to read as metal rather than as a dull yellow or grey patch; head on lighting flattens them. The custom liner ordering guide covers what a logo needs to reproduce well in the first place.

Give the colour something to sit against

Photograph the hat on a plain background in a neutral tone, mid grey or off white, so the camera has something honest to balance against. A coloured cloth will pull the lining colour with it, and a burgundy lining on a red background will not look like the burgundy the customer receives. If the colours in your pictures still look off, set the white balance by hand rather than trusting auto.

The five shots a listing needs

Outside front, outside side showing the brim shape, the inside at an angle, the logo or label square on, and the sweatband close up. That set answers nearly every question a buyer would otherwise send you a message about, and the last two are the ones most sellers leave out. If the hat has a new leather sweatband, show it: a reeded band with a neat ferrule joining the reed ends is a mark of a hat finished properly, and it photographs well.

One last check before you upload

Look at the pictures at the size they will actually appear, not full screen. A thumbnail forgives nothing. If the lining colour is unclear at that size, reshoot rather than caption your way around it. Our liner colour guide shows the shades we carry, and the colour card lets you compare them on screen, which is worth doing before you promise a customer a colour name.