Read on for all the details on keeping your site optimal with superior images.
If you’re running a website, be it for the sake of a business, or a personal pastime, you’ll know the trouble of images. We’re not all photographers, and yet no website is complete without images. The unwritten rule of a quality website is to avoid stock photos and create your own images. If you want to look like you know what you’re doing, you’ll need some expertise in image manipulation like using a CSS image resizer tool to keep your photos at high quality, and maybe even consider taking your own stock photos.
Shoddy photos instantly tell your users that you are a professional and your site is worth their time. But, unless you’re a massive influencer or brand, it seems silly to hire a photographer to take a photo of a pile of books for your literary blog. Couldn’t you just do that yourself? We’d argue you can. And if you think you can’t, there are still other options.
In this guide, we’re running through the things that can make your website look better than any other. Read on for all the details on keeping your site optimal with superior images.
Optimise your images
If you have photos that haven’t been exported well, there are a number of little things you can do to up the quality of them.
Keep an eye on the colour space you are saving your images in. The RGB (red, green blue) and CMYK (the yellow, cyan, pink, and black that printers use). The standard on computers is RGB so a photoshop program is likely to convert them to RGB to keep the colours vibrant, but occasionally you’ll have to do it yourself. This will make them look their best for digital use, like on a website.
Compress the size of your files to under 2MB so that your page loads fast with all the pics you’re adding but be aware that that will lower the quality of the photo. This is where a judgement on priorities occurs. If you’re more concerned about the quality of your image, a compression of around 80-70% will make your file smaller without incurring too much pixelation.
The perk here is that a CSS image resizer tool will greatly help with this. It will compress your image as much as you want and occur minimal pixelation on your web images so that they will always look good on your site whether the user is looking on a laptop or phone screen.
Hone your photography skills
The sign of a great website is original content. Unfortunately, the average user can spot a stock photo a mile away. They have their own look that just screams “inauthentic”.
Which means you have to engage your photography skills. Luckily, a lot of us have become amateur photographers over the past few years with the rise of social media, but it doesn’t hurt to go over the basics.
First, learn your rule of thirds. Your camera is likely to have a grid to help with this. Your subject’s eyes should align with the top line of the grid, so that the rest of their head and body fits nicely into the frame. Too many people put their head in the centre of the frame entirely, which is weirdly off-putting and makes your hairline the focal point.
With the rise of ring lights showing up in even Home Bargains, it doesn’t need to be said too much that light is a massive factor in getting a good photo. Natural light is best. Your bare living room bulb will only result in a pixelated image if you’re taking a picture in the winter months after 5pm. Plus, a bright enough light likes to eliminate a lot of texture and blemishes from the face.
Play around with perspective too. A trick used often is to put your camera on the floor next to a puddle to pretend a street is flooded. A subject captured from a low angle is dominating and a subject captured from a high angle is small and weak.
Think about your subject matter
The thing about making a website is that rarely will any of your subject matters require a selfie. If your escapades are the point, like if you’re writing a travel blog or showing up to events, that makes sense, but more often than not you’ll find yourself needing a photo of an object instead. Before you know it, you’re looking for tips on still life photos.
This is where a mind map could come in handy. Think of the niche of your website and write down any offshoot subject matters, like a food blog could be surrounded by “meals”, “home”, “plants”, “restaurants”, “farm animals”, etc. From there you can make a list of subjects to hit with your photography.
And this is where you get to be creative. Play with colour, perspective, mood and most importantly, think about the mood or message you are trying to evoke with your photography.
To make things easier, male a list of ideas and tick them off, ready to be used when the subject arises.
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