How do E-Commerce sites get their images so perfect?

A reader asked this question and when I read it, I chuckled because this plagued me for the longest time. I asked a graphic designer friend and he showed me the way.  The secret to perfect images is Adobe Photoshop's Clipping tool.  Obviously, you need a good photo to work with.  Any of today's digital cameras will get you that.  Just make sure you have the proper lighting...that is the key to a good photo.  If you have a Digital SLR, even better.  I have basic knowledge of Photoshop to create/manipulate images.  When I learned how to use the clipping tool, it was a magic.  The tool makes it really easy to outline the product so that you can cut out everything else.  Simply add a clean background layer and voila!...a perfect image for your store.

Professional photographers will charge ~$30 per image for this service.  If you don't have Photoshop (or don't want to learn), I bet you could take the photos and hand them off to an off-shore contractor and have them do all the clipping for you for much, much less.

Here are 2 great resources that I found to guide you through the process in Photoshop:
http://www.photoshop911.com/clipping/index.html
http://www.graphic-design-employment.com/photoshop-clipping-paths.html

If you don't have Photoshop, a free alternative is GIMP. And here is a source for how to do clipping with GIMP.  Apparently, it's not as easy, but it can be done.
http://cheltzey.blogspot.com/2007/04/gimp-tutorial-creating-clipping-masks.html