Four hundred items for a shop that was moving from photographs taken on a phone against a wall to something their listings could carry.
The saving was in the grouping. The shop's list was ordered by category, which meant a matt box, then a glass bottle, then a chrome kettle, then another box, and every change of finish is a change of lighting. We regrouped the whole list by finish: everything matt, then everything glossy, then everything transparent, then everything with chrome on it. Four lighting arrangements instead of about ninety.
Nine days, four hundred items, delivered twice: a full resolution file at 300 dots per inch for their printed catalogue and a square crop for the listings. A square crop is a different photograph, not the same one resized, and that is the part most product shoots leave out.
The shop's own note afterwards was that their return rate fell, which we cannot take credit for except in the sense that a photograph showing what the thing actually looks like is the cheapest way to prevent a return.