You have a web site and you want to promote a product, service or opinion. Photographs are a way to “show” what you have rather than having to “tell.” It’s obvious that pictures provide a way to communicate visually that is more efficient than blocks of text. So it’s essential to create a web site that utilizes photographs in the best way possible.
OPTIMIZING IMAGES
Before you start deciding on what images and types of images to use, it would be good to know the technical side of preparing and inserting images into a web site. Even if you’re only using social media such as Facebook or an online store such as Etsy, you will want to have the images meet proper specifications.
There are two ways to look at the size of an image. One is how many pixels the picture takes up and the other is the actual number of bytes the image uses on a storage device. When a web page is loaded, the more bytes an image has, the longer it will take to load the web page. In today’s era of the internet, the speed is pretty good but there still are people with slower internet connections and limited data plans.
You can reduce the bytes an image uses by setting it to 72 dots per inch (DPI). This is a lower quality setting but the eye doesn’t notice when looking on a screen or monitor. By reducing the pixel size, which is really the width and height of the image in pixels, that will also help in lowering the size of the image in bytes. If you are using a web site such as Etsy there should be information available as to what the pixel size should be depending on where the image is to be placed.
Cropping an image will also help to reduce the size. Cropping an image will also put more emphasis on what you want to present.
USE YOUR OWN IMAGES
Whatever images you use, they should be your images. Whether you took them yourself, hired a photographer, or purchased stock images from an online agency such as Dreamstime.com, you should not “find” images on the internet. Lifting images off the internet is a copyright violation. No one goes to jail for doing something like this, but if you get caught, your web site could get shut down until you make the corrections. You could lose your online store if working through a third party. Purchasing images from an agency like Dreamstime will help ensure you have the proper license to use the images.
ADVANTAGES OF USING PEOPLE
It can be helpful if you can incorporate people in your images. People can relate to your product or services if they see images of people utilizing what you have to offer. If your online presence is more about a cause or political, it puts a human element into your opinion.
People can also be used as a graphic design trick. The person in your image doesn’t has to be looking at the camera. You could have the subject looking to the side and focused on a block or text or another graphic. This helps to put focus on what you want to present to your potential customers.
CONCEPTS SELL
Let’s say you have a small business renting out port-a-potties. Not exactly a glamorous profession but someone has to do it, right? Pictures of your units set out at the county fair show your business in action. A simple snapshot can sell your business much more than a couple lines of text.
If you have an online store, then you will be wanting to have images of your products. If the items are small, you can purchase a light tent. A light tent is essentially a box with white material where you place an item inside and shine lights onto the box from the outside. The product inside the box will be illuminated and have a completely white background.
Larger items may need to be set on a kitchen table. You can place a white sheet on the table and then lift one end up and secure it in some fashion to a wall. This will give you a seamless white background and give your image a more professional look.
As you can see, concepts can be simple if you’re doing something on the side or working in a small business. Larger companies will have the staff or resources to create and manage their online presence. For the entrepreneur just starting out or looking to expand, it can be daunting to find a way to promote themselves on the internet. Photographs are a great way to get yourself going online and communicate what you have to offer. Some of the tops offered here will hopefully assist in going in the right direction.
