How to make images for an online store (size and composition)?

Question

Design

Hello!

An online store is being made. The question arose about the layout of the catalog, namely the choice of image form factor.
Initially, I planned to make square blocks, into which a square picture with a product, pre-assembled in Photoshop, with small indents along the edges, etc., is substituted, i.e. by composition (the goods are all different, there are square ones, there are narrow vertical / horizontal ones).
And then I thought that when changing the block form factor, I would have to change all the images. Well, in general, this "air" around the edges will interfere, because. they can only be manipulated in Photoshop.
Having peeped in different online stores, I saw such a move - the image is cropped according to the object, i.e. butt. And the site is inserted into a block with indents. Then you can easily make the block a little more vertical or a little more horizontal than a square, and the most important image is used alone. The padding will be adjusted by CSS and everything looks fine in the end.

But. On the site, everything will look good, but the clean image will not be very good, because. no "air" around the edges.
And then the question about indexing. Will the search go to an image without "air" around the edges, like the jpg itself is made, or is there some way to display it in the search as it looks on the site, with CSS indents? In picture, if it should be wrapped or something else...

But this is not even the main question.
The main question is what strategy to choose initially, so that later it would not be excruciatingly painful, because. there are a lot of goods.

How do you make images for a catalog? There is some practice standard, convenient / optimal.
When there are 10-20-30 goods, they can be changed if necessary, make more / less "air" around the edges, etc. and redesign as you wish. And when there are 10,000 pictures... it's easier to manage the composition through CSS.

I have not come across this yet, so all the reasoning is from scratch.

Answer 1

Well, in general, this "air" around the edges will interfere

Will not. The 1:1 ratio is the most universal for list/table previews.
Moreover, this is a photograph of the subject.