How to Have Great Photos On Your Blog

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We live in an age of visual stimulation.  Therefore, no matter how good the writing is on a blog, a poor or unrelated image creates an obstacle for the reader to overcome–and prevents the reader from having a positive experience. On the other hand, great image work immediately puts the reader in a positive frame of mind, open and ready to love your great post.

While there is certainly an element of natural talent which elevates gifted designers to a higher level, there are enough basic principles and stock photography to help any blogger achieve a professional level of imagery.

Let’s first look at some principles, and then some actual techniques:

Does the Image Fit the Content?

The first basic principle is to make sure that your photo or artwork fits the message of your blog post. The content of the image should spark the reader’s interest and evoke emotion. For example, if your blog post is about living a quieter life, your photos should bring a sense of calmness and peace to the reader. If your blog is about professional business, then photos should be highly professional both in quality and subject matter. In other words, don’t try to post something on professional management and provide a blurry snapshot of someone sitting at a messy desk. If your blog is about healthy living, images should evoke feelings of fitness, cleanliness and wholesome appeal.

Rule number one is: If YOU are not sure if the image fits the content, then you can be certain your reader won’t be sure either. Number two:  Until you have complete confidence in your own judgment about the appropriateness of images, ask two or three people for an opinion before posting any images.

Does the Quality Match the Quality?

What I mean is this: does the quality of the image match the quality of the content? If you are simply writing on a family blog and discussing what your children did this morning, then it’s no big deal to have an amateur photograph uploaded with no particular size or position in mind. No one is going to think it is unprofessional.  Of course, a fantastic photo, properly cropped, and enhanced with great image-editing skills, will help even a casual family blog to stand out.

However, if you are writing about a professional subject, or presenting yourself as an expert on a topic, you will quickly do damage to your credibility with amateur or inappropriate visuals. If you are not a good photographer, do not have good equipment or the proper subject matter is unavailable to you, there are plenty of inexpensive stock photography services. There are even good-quality photos available on free services like Flicker, which you can use if properly credited.

Are You Consistently Consistent?

If there is no rhyme or reason to the size, placement and style of your images, then you are not sending a consistent message to your readers. People like knowing what to expect. They like knowing you are not going to haphazardly change the visual cues they have become accustomed to. Whether you have a casual mom blog or a highly-structured professional blog, you need to put some thought into standards to keep your images consistent.

Ask yourself:  What size or sizes will I typically use? Choose two or three sizes, and stick with that. What orientation? Portrait or landscape? You can use both orientations, but do so in a predictable manner. Are my images going to be centered, or have text flow left or right around them? How many photos will I typically have per blog post? If you are a subject matter expert or professional, one or two photos is usually adequate unless you are demonstrating something that requires varying numbers of photos. The key is consistency. If you have a personal or family blog and will often display many photos of varying amounts, even the randomness of the number becomes a consistent aspect. Even with randomness, you can have consistency if you are consistently random.

Do the Colors Evoke the Right Response?

It’s not just the content of the image, but also the color and depth of color. Reds and yellows are warm and speak of energy. Blues and violets are cold and still. Hard red evokes tension and anger. Bright yellow creates a feeling of excitability. Muted and pastel colors give a sense of tranquility, and sometimes can even create boredom if not used properly.

It’s important to understand the psychology of color and how it affects people. By using the right colors, you are properly preparing the reader to be open and accepting to what you are going to communicate.

You Reap What You Sow with Images

If you are lazy and careless about the images you post, you are sending a message to your readers that you must be lazy and careless about the content as well. If you post amateur, boring, or the wrong photos, then you can expect an unenthusiastic response from visitors.

You don’t have to be a professional photographer. Basic cameras today take excellent pictures. If you educate yourself on a few basic image-editing techniques, you’ll be able to produce images for your blog ranging from good to excellent. Like most things, it really depends on how much effort you want to put into learning a few tips and applying a little TLC to your photos. Let’s look at a few techniques which can instantly improve anyone’s photos.

Note: For this blog post, I will talk about Photoshop, but I will only use tools available in any common image-editing software. If you do not have image-editing software, here are some inexpensive or free examples for you to check out: Picasa, Windows Live Photo Gallery, Apple iPhoto, Roxio Photo Suite, GIMP, uLead Photo Impact, Adobe Photoshop Elements and Paint.net. All are capable of these basic image-editing tasks.

Basic Photo Improvement

Cropping

Cropping is cutting out a portion of a photo, rather than using the entire photo. By cropping, you create a much more interesting visual by correctly positioning the subject and trimming off elements which do not add to the main visual appeal. Cropping can increase the intimacy of a subject and steer your readers in a planned direction. Here I’ve cropped close to draw attention to the interesting part of the image which is the interaction between my son and the kitty.

Correcting Lighting

Adjusting lighting can bring out detail in dark areas and increase contrast. You can create some interesting effects with extreme lighting adjustments but in general, you want to use it make the photo appear more natural and crisp. Adjust lighting here makes the fur more detailed and contrasts the colorful toy car with the natural grass and wood.

Changing Hues

Adjusting the hues (over all color scheme) can be used to create a mood (cold colors to warm or vice versa), correct a color cast (a red tint in the picture to a more natural yellow), and in particular make flesh tones look more natural.  Here I’ve adjusted the over all hue towards “yellow” to give a more vibrant skin color and a warmer feel to the photo taken on a sunny summer day.

Adjusting Saturation

Saturation can liven up a photo, or calm down unnatural tones, especially in flesh tones and reds. Here I’ve increased the overall saturation just a bit to make the grass, wood and sunlight more vibrant, but pulled down the saturation of the red shirt and face to keep it more natural looking.

Sharpening

Sharpening a photo makes it more crisp and brings out detail. Over-sharpening makes a photo look grainy and unnatural. Also, sharpening will not make an unfocused photo focused. It can make a soft photo crisper, and in general, makes most photos look more detailed if used correctly. You have to experiment to find the right balance and in general, sharpening makes a SUBTLE difference, not an extreme one. Here I’ve sharpened enough that you can see detail in the fur and hair, and overall the photo looks more crisp (less “soft”).

Overlays

This is not an official image editing term the way I am using it, so don’t search your help file for it. What I mean by overlay is putting something on the image that is not part of the original photo. This might be some lighting effect, a lens flare or some filter that creates an artistic effect. I like to use an inner glow or shadow alot draws the attention to the subject and/or enhances the colors of the image.  There are no rules for this, you just have to experiment and see what works. It’s a matter of style and creativity. Here I’ve applied an inner glow that funnels you towards the central theme of the photo.

These six simple techniques will instantly improve your photos. For the average blogger, they will dramatically improve your images. Visuals are a vital part of creating interest and mood, which in turn catch the attention of new readers and cultivate loyalty in existing readers. Here’s the original and then the image with a combination of all those techniques:

What do you think? Any improvement? It’s all basic image editing tools ANYONE can apply.

What are your questions about improving blog photos?

I would be very grateful if you would share this with someone, or put it on one of the social sites:

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