Turn a product photo into an ad you would actually run

Step one composes your product into the scene as a still image. This is the cheap step, and it is where things go wrong if they are going to, so it is also where you get to look.

Step two animates only the stills you approved. That order is the whole design: the expensive part never runs on a frame you did not want.

The camera moves and the product holds still, which is what keeps a logo or a label from warping. It is also how real product films are shot.

A watch, a plate of food, a bottle of serum and a pair of headphones do not belong in the same set. Scenes are grouped by what the product is: signature shots, category settings for food, beauty, electronics, home and jewellery, and building blocks for a full ad such as a detail macro or a closing pack shot.

Festival and sale packs cover the weeks when it matters: Diwali, Black Friday, Christmas, New Year and Valentine.

A large item is understood as a large item. An appliance is not shown miniature in someone hands, because the scene knows the difference between something you hold and something that stands on a floor.

The clips come back silent, which is a fine place to stop if you want footage for a story.

For an ad that runs on its own you want a voice, captions and a closing line, because most people watch with the sound off and decide in the first two seconds.

That step assembles your approved clips into one video with narration, burned captions, music and your call to action, and never charges again for the clips you already made.

Uploading the photo, reading the description it writes for you, choosing scenes and approving the stills are all free. You only spend on the two steps that generate something.

A composed still is 10 credits. Animating one into five seconds of video is 40. Cutting the approved clips into a montage is 10 whatever shapes you export, so a vertical, a square and a feed cut cost the same as one.

A three-shot advert is therefore 160 credits: thirty for the stills, a hundred and twenty for the motion, ten for the cut. On the Starter plan that is two to three finished adverts a month, and a top-up pack starts small if you need one more.

Making the same advert in a second language costs the cut again, not the shots. Once a shot is composed and animated it is yours, so a second montage with the hook and end card typed in another language is ten credits.

The photo decides the advert. Sharp, well lit, plain background, the whole product in frame. A dark phone snap on a patterned bedsheet composes into a dark scene on a patterned set.

Say the shape out loud in the description. Low-top, slim, five hundred millilitres. Left vague, the scene draws the most common version of that thing rather than yours.

Match the scene to what you sell. A setting written for something you wear or carry will treat a salad bowl as if it were carried, and the size comes out wrong. Scenes that suit your product are marked for you.

Three to five shots is an advert. Seven is a catalogue. Watch it before you post it, because a shot where the colour or the size drifted is the one thing a buyer notices, and recomposing that shot costs ten credits rather than the whole thing.