5 mistakes we often see in CGI packshots and how to avoid them

A poorly executed CGI packshot does not necessarily look obviously fake. Often it is subtler than that. A vague feeling that something is off, without being able to put your finger on it. After years of producing visuals for beauty and luxury brands, we have learned to identify the mistakes that come up most often. They are almost never the same ones, yet they all have the same effect: they give away the CGI and damage the brand's image.

Reflections that come from nowhere

This is probably the most frequent and most revealing mistake. In photography, a reflection exists because there is a real light source in the space. In poorly produced CGI, reflections are often placed to "look good" rather than to correspond to a coherent physical logic. The result: a bottle with a bright reflection on the left face when the main light comes from the right. You do not always notice it consciously, but you feel it. The brain detects the inconsistency without naming it.

A good CGI packshot builds its lighting the way you would build a photo studio setup. Every reflection has a source, every shadow has a direction. Nothing is added after the fact to artificially improve the visual result.

Materials that are too perfect

The paradox of CGI is that too much perfection can give away the simulation. A real glass surface has tiny imperfections, thickness variations, areas where light behaves differently. A brushed metal has a grain direction that influences how it reflects light depending on the viewing angle. A matte plastic absorbs and diffuses light in a very particular way.

When these nuances are absent or poorly calibrated, materials look like they belong to a world too clean to be real. Glass looks like transparent plastic, metal looks like toy aluminium, matte looks like flat paint. This is one of the hardest mistakes to correct after the fact because it is embedded in the shader configuration itself, and fixing it requires going back to the technical work from scratch.

Slightly incorrect proportions

A millimetre in reality can become a major problem in CGI. The proportions of a bottle, a tube or a cap are often perceived instinctively by consumers who know the product, even without being aware of it. When the 3D model is not built from the exact technical files of the packaging, discrepancies accumulate. The bottle is slightly too wide, the cap a little too tall, the label positioned a few millimetres too low.

Individually, each discrepancy is invisible. Together, they create a diffuse impression that the product does not quite look like itself. For brands where the packaging is a central part of the identity, this is a serious problem. The solution is simple: always work from the technical files provided by the manufacturer, and always validate the 3D model against the physical product before launching the final render.

Lighting that corresponds to no universe

A CGI packshot exists in a context. That context can be a clean studio, a natural surface, a dark and dramatic environment. What it cannot be is a collection of lighting elements that correspond to no coherent space. Yet this is a very common mistake in productions that try to accumulate effects: a warm light here, a cold reflection there, a cast shadow coming from an impossible direction.

The result is a technically loaded visual that is visually incoherent. Good CGI lighting starts from a simple, clear intention. What time of day? What type of studio? What atmosphere? Once that intention is defined, everything else follows naturally.

Poorly rendered text and logos

This is the mistake that most immediately betrays a generated or poorly produced image. Inscriptions on a bottle, the textures of a label, the lettering of an embossed or relief logo: all of this must be rendered with absolute precision. Slightly blurred text, a logo whose corners are not sharp, a label whose typography is not exactly right: these details catch the eye even of consumers who do not know the product.

The solution is to always integrate high-resolution vector files of the packaging's graphic elements, and to check the final render at actual size before delivery. A 100% zoom on the final render immediately reveals whether texts and logos have been treated with the required level of precision.

These five mistakes share one thing in common: they are all avoidable with rigorous preparation and constant attention to detail throughout the production. A quality CGI packshot does not come down to good software or sufficient computing power. It is above all a discipline, a way of approaching every technical decision with the same level of demand you would bring to a photo shoot.