How to prepare landscape plant images for rendering

What to upload

An image of the whole plant, in the first image slot. Renders place it the way they place a piece of furniture: in Studio it takes the place of a plant found in your scene, built from your image, and nothing else in the image is copied: not the nursery, not the bench, not the backdrop.

The thumbnail and lifestyle slots are optional. Studio and Editorial render a piece from a lifestyle image first and a thumbnail next, ahead of the main image, so leave them empty unless they show the whole piece clearly.

The ideal image

A healthy, well-grown plant, the way a buyer hopes theirs will look.

• The whole plant in frame, from the soil line to the top, with a little space around it.
• A plain, light background: a wall, a backdrop or a sheet behind it, not the rest of the nursery.
• Straight on, from about the plant's mid-height, so its shape isn't foreshortened.
• Soft, even light: an overcast day or open shade, not midday sun throwing hard shadows through the leaves.
• In the season you sell it for: in flower for a flowering shrub, in full leaf for foliage.
• The plant alone: no labels, stakes, ties or neighboring plants. A black nursery pot can come into the scene with it, so show it planted, or in a plain pot, where you can.

Measurements

Plants vary in size far more than furniture does, so two numbers matter.

• Height, in inches: from the soil to the top of the plant.
• Width, in inches: its spread, across the widest point.
• Enter the size of the plant your image shows. To show a plant grown in, use an image of a mature plant and enter its mature height and spread: the image and the numbers should describe the same plant.
• Depth isn't used for plants.
• Left blank, Studio sizes it from typical proportions for that kind of plant, read against the doors, steps and fences in the scene. Editorial has no such guide for it, so enter the size when you know it.

Where it can go

In Studio, a plant takes the place of one found in your scene. Editorial offers it only where you say.

• Under More details, tick Plants among the spots it can take in Editorial. With none ticked, Editorial doesn't offer it.
• A planter, pot or plant stand is furniture: file it under Furniture.

Before you save

Check each image:

• The whole plant, soil line to top, on a plain background.
• Soft, even light, true color, in leaf or in flower.
• Lifestyle and thumbnail slots empty, unless they show the whole plant.
• Height and spread entered, for the plant the image shows; Editorial spots ticked.
• JPEG, PNG or WebP, 4.5 MB or less.