FAQs

Outshinery makes photorealistic product imagery for beverage brands without a camera. A 3D model of your packaging is built from your label file and container specs and rendered, so the image exists before the bottle does and updates when the label changes.
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There are two products. Outshinery Studio is human-led: a trained artist builds every image, for any container, any finish, and any image type, including foil, embossing, debossing, and spot varnish. Outshinery Lite is self-serve and works from a flat label, meaning artwork that prints flat, with no raised or reflective finishes to reproduce. Upload it, pick a bottle from the library, and get a bottle shot in about an hour. If your label carries foil or a raised finish, it belongs in Studio. Which one is for you?

No sample to ship, no shoot to schedule, and nothing to reshoot when the vintage changes.

A photographer needs the physical bottle, a studio day, and retouching to get glass and foil right. Outshinery works from the files you already have for your printer, renders the bottle lit for glass every time, and keeps the model, so a new vintage is a free update in Studio instead of a new shoot.
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The difference that compounds is control. The image is built from your real dimensions and your real print file rather than captured and corrected afterward, so focus, lighting, angle, and label position are set values, not things that happened to come out well that day. Every SKU in your line matches, this year and next. And what you end up owning is not only the picture: it is a digital twin of your packaging that can be re-rendered for scenes, video, point of sale, or whatever channel asks for your product next. A photograph is a finished image and nothing more.
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Outshinery works only in beverage packaging: wine, beer, spirits, cider, ready-to-drink, cannabis and wellness, and other bottled and canned goods. Full comparison: Outshinery vs. product photography.

Outshinery Studio, human-led:

• Product Shots. Your packaging on a transparent background, any container, 1 Shine Credit per view.
• Product Shot updates. Vintage, ABV, and liquid color changes free, forever. Small label edits, closure, or glass color changes 0.5 Shine Credit.
• Pre-Designed Imagery. Your product composited into scenes from our library, shot by real photographers and stylists. Beauty Shots 1 Shine Credit, Lifestyle and Portfolio scenes from 2, Recipe Pairings 4.
• Custom-Made Content. Product video, gift boxes, box and shipper sets, POS displays, and scenes built to your brief. Quoted per project.

Outshinery Lite, self-serve: bottle shots of standard bottles with flat labels, about an hour, $29 per image and $23 after 10 orders.

Beverage packaging, across the category:

• Wine
• Beer
• Spirits and cocktails
• RTD and cider
• Cannabis and wellness
• Other CPG industries: olive oil, sauces, and other packaged goods.

Outshinery Studio covers all of these in any container. Outshinery Lite covers bottled drinks in its library bottles: wine, cider, beer, and any bottled beverage with a flat label.

Any packaged beverage, and most other packaged goods: glass bottles, cans, bag-in-box, pouches, paper bottles, gift boxes and tins, shippers, and POS displays. If it has a container and a label file, Outshinery Studio can build it.

For something unusual, email info@outshinery.com with a photo or drawing and we will tell you what it involves.

Outshinery Studio.Create your account. It comes with 1 welcome Shine Credit, no card required, good for one Product Shot of any product in our shared container library. Submit the request within 5 days of signing up. Then have your layered label file and container details ready; the request form walks you through the rest.
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Outshinery Lite. No account. Go to lite.outshinery.com, pick a bottle and closure, upload your label as a transparent PNG, and pay at checkout. The image arrives by email in about an hour.

Not sure which? Find your plan or read Lite vs Studio.

Shine Credits are the currency of Outshinery Studio. Buy them one at a time or on a monthly or annual plan, then spend them on Studio work. Every service has a set cost and a set deliverable: a Product Shot is 1 Shine Credit and buys the finished image in JPG, PNG, and layered TIF; a Lifestyle scene starts at 2; a vintage update is free.

The more you buy at once, the less each one costs: $129 bought one at a time, about $119 down to $99 each on a monthly plan, and about $114 down to $95 on an annual plan. The plan rate applies to top-ups too, so once you are on a plan every extra Shine Credit is cheaper as well.

Shine Credits are valid for one year and roll over for as long as your subscription is active. If you cancel, what you hold stays valid for one year after that.

Outshinery Lite does not use Shine Credits; it is paid per image at checkout.

Estimate how many you need.

Outshinery Studio: the files you send your printer. A packaged Adobe Illustrator file (.ai), EPS, or a layered PDF, with fonts and linked images included and the spot colors that flag varnish, emboss, and foil. Plus your container details: bottle shape, glass color, closure, and paper stock if you know it. No physical bottle, at any point.

What we cannot build from is a low-resolution export: a TTB COLA approval, a screenshot, a compressed file pulled off a website. The render is only as sharp as the artwork it is built from, so if a file looks soft or pixelated on your screen it will look exactly that way on the finished bottle. The rule of thumb: if you would not send it to your printer, do not send it to us. Label file guide

Outshinery Lite: one high-resolution PNG of the flat label, cropped to its shape and transparent outside the edges, plus your picks from the library. Only have a PDF or JPG? Lite's free label prep converts it.

In Outshinery Studio, a trained 3D artist starts from your label file and container specs and builds a model of your packaging: the glass, the closure, the label with its paper and finishes. That model is lit and rendered into the image. Because the label is placed on the model rather than redrawn, the text and the finishes are exactly what is in your file. You review a proof before anything is final.

The artist is rarely starting from zero. The Studio container library holds more than 1,100 bottle models plus hundreds of closures, and it grows every week as new shapes and closures reach the market, so most of the time your container already exists and the work is building your label onto a model that is already correct.

Outshinery Lite does the same in automated form: your flat label is placed on a bottle from a library of models the Studio team built, with one fixed camera and lighting, and rendered in about an hour.

Your bottle is never photographed. There is no physical camera, no studio day, and no sample to ship, and neither product uses generative AI to invent it. The one place a real camera is involved is Studio's Pre-Designed scene library, which is photographed by real photographers before your rendered bottle is composited in.

• Images before the bottle exists. Both products work from the label file, so listing submissions, pre-orders, and sell sheets can be ready before bottling.
• No sample shipped, no shoot scheduled. Nothing leaves your warehouse.
• Updates instead of reshoots. In Studio, vintage, ABV, and liquid color changes are free on every image, forever. A change that touches the artwork itself, a new appellation, a closure swap, a glass color change, or a small label edit, is 0.5 Shine Credit. Either way you are editing a model that already exists rather than paying to build one again.
• Consistency. Every SKU shares the same angle, light, and scale. In Studio the artist matches your line; in Lite the camera never moves.
• Speed. Studio delivers a first proof in 3 to 5 business days. Lite delivers in about an hour.
• One model, every use. A Studio Product Shot becomes the base for scenes, video, and point of sale without rebuilding.

Estimate what imagery you need.

Outshinery Studio: work starts within 3 business days of a complete brief, and the first proof arrives in 3 to 5 business days. Revisions take 1 to 2 business days each. Larger batches take a little longer, and we hold the rest of a batch until the first SKU is approved so that any change is applied to the whole set.

Rush puts your request at the front of the queue, with a first proof typically under 2 business days. Revisions are prioritized the same way. It costs 50% on top of the service being rushed.

Outshinery Lite: about an hour from upload to PNG.

Anywhere, forever. Both products come with a worldwide, perpetual license and no per-use fees.

Product pages and online stores. Marketplaces and retailer portals. Distributor decks, sell sheets, and tech sheets. Social and paid ads. Email campaigns. Print: catalogs, brochures, shelf talkers, posters. Trade shows and presentations.

One rule for Studio Lifestyle and Portfolio scenes: three months of regional exclusivity is included, with national and worldwide upgrades available.

Because the Product Shot is the digital twin everything else is built from. When Outshinery Studio builds it, the artist creates your packaging in 3D from your real dimensions and your real print file: container, closure, label, finishes. A Pre-Designed scene places that model into a photograph; a video moves it; a point of sale display stacks it. Without the model there is nothing to place.

It also means the model is built once and then stays yours. Every later image reuses it, and every vintage update on it is free.

Every Outshinery Studio image goes through a proof round before it is final. You review the proof inside Studio, we make the revisions you ask for, and nothing is finalized until you approve it. Small revisions inside that round are included: liquid color, finish adjustments, positioning. Bigger changes, a different bottle shape or a different closure, mean rebuilding the image, so those are a new request.

Once you approve, the image is final. If you want to reopen it after that, we can, and additional Shine Credits may apply. If the error was ours, we fix it free at any point, approved or not.

If a subscription renews and you did not want it, tell us within the first month and we refund it. Full detail in our return and refund policy.

Outshinery Lite images are generated from the settings you choose, so there is no proof round. If a render has an error on our side, we re-run it free.

Outshinery Studio is priced in Shine Credits. One Shine Credit is $129 bought one at a time, or about $95 to $119 on a plan (monthly from $238, annual from $2,856). A Product Shot is 1 Shine Credit per view; vintage updates are free. Each Shine Credit buys a finished image, delivered as JPG, PNG, and layered TIF in your Content Library. Full plans on the Pricing page.

Outshinery Lite is $29 per image, $23 after 10 orders, paid at checkout, for one transparent PNG.

New Studio accounts start with 1 welcome Shine Credit, no card required.

For Outshinery Studio:

• One at a time: $129 per Shine Credit.
• Monthly plans: 2, 4, or 8 Shine Credits a month at $238, $436, or $792, about $119, $109, or $99 each.
• Annual plans: 25, 50, or 100 Shine Credits at $2,856, $5,232, or $9,504, about $114, $105, or $95 each, with free Shine Credits included.
• Enterprise: custom volume and pricing for large portfolios, agencies, and distributors.

Every subscription includes rollover of unused Shine Credits, top-ups at your plan rate, and cancel anytime.

Outshinery Lite has no plans: $29 per image, dropping to $23 after your 10th order. The lower rate applies automatically, with nothing to claim or sign up for.

Outshinery Studio is the human-led half of Outshinery. A trained 3D artist builds a model of your packaging from your production files and renders it: Product Shots, Pre-Designed scenes, gift boxes, POS displays, video, and custom content, for any container and any finish. You submit requests, review proofs, and keep every approved image in your Content Library at studio.outshinery.com. Paid in Shine Credits.

Its counterpart, Outshinery Lite, is self-serve bottle shots for standard bottles with flat labels. Lite vs Studio

In Outshinery Studio, click your Shine Credit total on the left side of your dashboard. On a plan, choose Top up Shine Credits; top-ups are charged at your plan rate. With no plan, the button reads Buy Shine Credits, at $129 each. The Shine Credits are added as soon as payment goes through.

Outshinery Studio: all major credit and debit cards (Visa, Mastercard, American Express). Enterprise plans can also pay by ACH bank transfer. No checks.

Outshinery Lite: card at checkout, through Stripe.

All prices are in US dollars. Canadian customers may see applicable Canadian taxes added at checkout.

In Outshinery Studio, click your organization name at the top of the left sidebar, then Settings and billing, and cancel your plan there. The Shine Credits you hold stay valid for one year after the subscription ends.

To change plans instead (upgrade or downgrade), click your Shine Credit total on the left of your dashboard, then Change plan. That is not a cancellation; your Shine Credits stay where they are.

If a subscription renewed and you did not want it, tell us within the first month and we refund it.

The lowest rate per Shine Credit in Outshinery Studio comes from plan size: $129 one at a time, down to about $95 on the largest annual plan, with Enterprise pricing beyond that. New accounts also start with 1 welcome Shine Credit free.

In Outshinery Lite the price drops from $29 to $23 per image after your 10th order, and every Lite customer has a referral code that gives a colleague 50% off their first order and the referrer $15 off each time a referral converts.

We run occasional promotions; the newsletter is where they are announced.

Occasionally, during promotions, announced in the newsletter. The standing ways to pay less are a Studio subscription or Enterprise plan, which lower the price per Shine Credit, and in Outshinery Lite the $23 rate that starts automatically after your 10th order.

Lite also gives every customer a referral code. Share it with a colleague and their first order is 50% off. Every time someone orders using your code, you get $15 off your own next order, applied as a discount at checkout. There is no limit and it is not a one-time thing: if ten people use your code, that is $15 ten times.

Shine Credits are not refundable once bought, with one exception: if your subscription renews and you tell us within the first month that you did not want it, we refund that renewal, no questions asked.

Shine Credits on a plan never expire while the plan is active, so unused ones roll over rather than being lost. See the next question.

Yes, on any Outshinery Studio subscription. Unused Shine Credits roll over month to month and year to year for as long as the plan is active. If you cancel, what you hold stays valid for one year after the subscription ends. Shine Credits bought one at a time are valid for one year from purchase.

No. Outshinery is a Canadian company and bills every customer in US dollars, for both Studio and Lite. Your card issuer handles the conversion. Canadian customers may see applicable Canadian taxes added.

Yes, within your organization. Shine Credits belong to your Outshinery Studio organization, and you can spend them on any brand or project inside it. That is the reason to buy one company-wide subscription and allocate it across a portfolio.

They cannot be moved between organizations. Agencies and designers ordering for clients should decide up front whether the Shine Credits live in their own organization or in each client's.

Email billing@outshinery.com, or ask in the chat on outshinery.com or inside Outshinery Studio during Eastern Time business hours. Phone: +1 (844) 774-4637.

Outshinery Lite is a self-serve bottle shot generator. Pick a bottle and closure from the library, upload your label, and a photorealistic PNG arrives by email in about an hour. It is built on the same 3D foundations as Outshinery Studio, automated and scoped to what automation does reliably: standard bottles with flat-printed labels.

No account, no brief, no proof round. lite.outshinery.com

$29 per image, paid by card at checkout. After your 10th order the price drops to $23 automatically. No subscription and no Shine Credits.

Wine and cider bottles (Bordeaux, Burgundy, Hock, Sparkling, and specialty shapes including Port and ice wine) in 375 ml, 750 ml, and magnum, plus 10 beer shapes from 330 ml to 750 ml. Twelve glass colors, 25-plus liquid colors, and closures from cork and capsule to screwcap, wax dip, crown cap, and sparkling hood, in more than 15,000,000 configurations. Browse the library

Any bottled drink in one of those bottles works: kombucha, hard tea, mixers, botanical drinks. No cans.

One high-resolution PNG of the flat label, cropped to its shape and transparent outside the edges, with no shadows or lighting baked in.
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What has to be transparent depends on the label: for a paper label, only the area outside the label edges; for a clear film label, the film areas too; for a silkscreen printed straight onto the glass, everything except the ink. The ideal label files guide walks through each, plus die-cut shape and the finishes Lite cannot reproduce.

If you only have a PDF or JPG, free label prep converts it at no cost.

One PNG per order with a transparent background, 2,160 px on the longest side, by email in about an hour. Front, back, and side views are each their own order at the same price, using the same bottle configuration so they match.

Foil, embossing, debossing, textured labels, neck labels, custom capsule colors, custom glass, cans, lifestyle scenes, video, and revisions. Spirits, sake, and cannabis go to Studio whatever the bottle. Every new image, including a new vintage, is a new order.

A glass bottle from the Lite library, a flat-printed label, no dimensional finishes, and a clean bottle shot is all you need: Lite. Anything else, or anything that needs an artist's eye and revisions: Studio. Many brands use both, Studio to set the standard on the complex SKUs and Lite to fill out the rest. Lite vs Studio

High-resolution, print-ready Adobe Illustrator (.ai), EPS, or PDF files with all layers intact, the same files you send your printer. A JPG or PNG cannot carry the finishes. Label file guide

Outshinery Lite is the opposite and needs a single flat PNG. See the Outshinery Lite section above.

Because they are flat. Every layer is merged, so the spot colors that mark embossing, varnish, and foil are gone, and there is nothing for the artist to read the finishes from. Vector files keep that information. Label file guide

For Outshinery Lite the opposite is true: a transparent PNG is exactly what it needs, because Lite renders flat labels only.

Yes. If your Adobe Illustrator or EPS file has linked images, send the packaged folder with every link and font, so nothing is missing or pixelated. Label file guide

We cannot open the layers, dielines, or finish markings, so we ask you for an unlocked version before starting. If the file is password protected rather than flattened, sending us the password works just as well.

Everything the printer gets: final text, logos, barcodes, dielines, and the spot colors marking embossing, varnish, and foil, at full print resolution. If any element looks soft or pixelated to you at 100%, it will look the same way on the finished bottle. Label file guide

You almost certainly already have. Your designer marks finishes for the printer, usually one named spot color per finish (cyan or magenta overlays are common) on its own layer, or as callouts on the dieline file. Send that file exactly as it is and the 3D artist reads those markings the same way a print shop would. There is nothing extra to prepare for us.

Yes, if they carry branding, embossing, or foil. Send the same files you sent the capsule, cork, or closure supplier, in the same form: vector Adobe Illustrator, EPS, or PDF with the finishes marked.

Finalize barcodes, QR codes, and legal text before sending. If a file arrives with FPO elements, we remove the "FPO" tag but the placeholder content stays in the render.

That is fine, as long as the file is properly prepared. Send the layered working file exactly as you would send it to a printer for a proof: each finish on its own layer, an embossing layer if there is embossing, a dieline, and real text rather than placeholders.

We render what is in the file; we do not pre-press it. If a working file is too loose for us to read, we will come back and tell you what is missing rather than guess at it, which costs you a round trip.

Once the design is final, a small edit to the same label is a 0.5 Shine Credit update. And if you are choosing between two directions, each is its own Product Shot, so two directions on the same bottle are 2 Shine Credits.

No. A printer's proof is made for production sign-off, not rendering: too low in resolution and missing the layers. Send the layered source file instead. Label file guide

Because the picture inside your label file may not actually be in the file. When a designer places a photo or texture into an Adobe Illustrator file, the file often stores a link pointing at that image somewhere on their computer instead of carrying the image itself, and what you see on screen is a low-resolution stand-in. Send that file on its own and the stand-in is all we receive, so that one element renders soft while everything else is sharp.

The fix takes your designer about a minute: ask them for the packaged folder, the version that bundles the artwork together with every linked image and font. Everything then arrives at full resolution.

Because online, the image is the product. A shopper cannot pick up the bottle, so the picture carries the whole first impression: is this real, is it premium, is it what I will receive. A clear, consistent image builds that trust, reduces returns, and lifts conversion; an inconsistent one does the opposite across every SKU it touches.

It also travels. The same image appears on your store, in a distributor's catalog, on a marketplace, in a retailer's app, and increasingly in the AI shopping tools that read product images to describe and recommend products. Every one of those places is judging your bottle before the tasting notes load.

Our articles go deeper.

• Order the Product Shot first, then build on it. Scenes, video, and POS all reuse the model, so the second image is faster and cheaper than the first.
• Send printer files, not exports. A packaged Adobe Illustrator file gets the finishes right the first time.
• Set a bottom offset in Lite and reuse it. Every SKU lines up.
• Use the free updates. A new vintage on a Studio image costs nothing; do not leave last year's date on the shelf.
• Match your line. In Studio, reference an existing SKU in the request and the artist keeps the angle and light identical.
• Buy at plan rate. Top-ups on a subscription cost your plan rate, not the one-at-a-time rate.

Laurie Millotte founded Outshinery in 2016 after a career as a wine label designer and creative director. Her label work won international awards, and twenty of her designs were shown at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in "How Wine Became Modern: Design + Wine 1976 to Now."

The idea came from a movie. Walking home from Jurassic World, she thought: if computers can make a dinosaur look that real, they can make a wine bottle look real too. The labels she designed were winning awards and then being photographed badly; Outshinery fixes the second half.

Find her on LinkedIn.

A team of 15: 3D artists who build and render every Studio image, a creative director who checks each one, a Studio production lead, plus customer success, design, integrations, and marketing.

We hire for craft rather than postcode, so the team sits in Canada, the United States, France, Spain, Israel, North Macedonia, South Africa, and Vietnam. That spread does real work: production runs across more of the clock than a single-office studio can cover, and the day does not stop when one office closes. Meet them on the About page.

Occasionally. When a role is open it is posted on the About page and on LinkedIn. If you are a 3D artist with beverage packaging in your portfolio, or a photographer or stylist interested in the Pre-Designed library, send your work to info@outshinery.com.

Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, with a remote team across North America, Europe, and Asia. Nothing is shipped in either direction, so location does not affect the work.

Eastern Time business hours, Monday to Friday. Live chat on outshinery.com and inside Outshinery Studio is staffed during those hours, and so is the phone, +1 (844) 774-4637; outside them, leave a message and we answer first thing. Outshinery closes for about a week each summer and about a week and a half over the holidays, announced in Studio ahead of time.

Outshinery gives 2% of its profits to WaterAid Canada, every year, since the company started. WaterAid works on clean water, sanitation, and hygiene in communities that lack them. More on the Mission page.

To give every beverage brand, whatever its size, product imagery that is accurate, consistent, and ready before the bottle exists, so the picture never holds the product back. Outshinery Studio does it with a trained artist on every image; Outshinery Lite does it in an hour for standard bottles.

And to give something back along the way: 2% of profits go to WaterAid Canada. Mission page