Why do people overly lighten photos of scrapbook products?

This is why I so much prefer to see products IRL before spending a bunch of money on them.

Were the posts on IG of the papers themselves? Or were they designers' projects with them? I am finding more and more that when I photograph one of my LO's, it looks dark and grungy when I look at it on the computer screen, and I end up lightening and brightening almost every one now before I upload it to Flickr.

That's frustrating. Once I have ordered something, in my mind I am already using it. And having it come and the colours aren't even close to the promised product is really disappointing. You would think they would have decent lighting for their promo photos, so I don't think they could blame that.

Can you call the manufacturer/supplier? Would they give you a refund or a replacement product? Once I ended up paying only a fraction of the price for floor covering that was not the colour I thought I was ordering. (Would have sent it back, but by the time I saw it the flooring was already glued down in our basement.) I still hated the colour, but it was inexpensive LOL.

I had the same problem with one collection. I looked online for images from many sources. I thought the collection was white so I placed an order. When I received it, it was cream. So frustrating!

I was just thinking about this the other day! I was looking at blog posts for inspiration and they are all so pale and washed out looking/bright and I thought why are they like this? Now it makes sense.

I strongly dislike the washed out images. It doesn't seem a true representation of the product. And then to make matters worse, some companies use digital images when they release their products. It's so difficult to judge the exact tone and color of things. Especially because almost everything is online now and I can't physically see it in person.

This is a trend outside of scrapbooking, too. My SIL, just a regular person, lightens her instagram photos so much sometimes, and it's obviously done in lightroom or another app. But if a company does it, that is super annoying because then you can't trust the true colors of their products. I feel your pain!