How to render a background image in 2.8? I'm trying to "add" an 3D object onto a photo. I have added the photo to the scene in three ways so far, but none of them render (eevee):


Camera > Background Images
Empty
a. Add > Empty > Image (Empty gets added to current Collection)
b. Add > Image > Backround (Empty gets added to Scene Collection)


These all show up in the 3D View and I was able to align the camera and the object so its perspective matches the scene in the photograph. But when I Render the scene, I only see the object, not the background image.

For the latter, it's simple: Empties are not rendered at all.
There are few questions about this, since 2.8 has changed how it handles background images. The most popular seems this one (it includes references to others):


How do I set a background image while I am editing?


But I seem not to be able to find a method to have the background image render.

Another method might be to use the Compositor (Nodes) to Mix or Alpha Over an Image with the Render Layers. But this does not give the same alignment as achieved with the background image (also this requires that the World background does not get rendered (Alpha channel); for Eevee, this can be achieved by checking Film>Transparent).

What other options are there?

Docs:


https://wiki.blender.org/wiki/Reference/Release_Notes/2.80/More_Features#Image_Objects
https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/modeling/empties.html
https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/render/cameras.html#background-images
To do this without making it the background of your whole scene like handle does, I reccomend the images as planes addon.

This makes your image displayed on a mesh plane, meaning it will show up as desired in the render.

First enable it in the preferences:


Then just add an image as a plane from the add menu:


And then it should show up in your scene as you want.