As I was visiting a WordPress blog today, I saw that the copy was interesting enough but I was struck by the untouched photos.
The photos, of an island paradise, could have and should have taken my breath away but instead the experience led me to fire off this unplanned tip.
tip:
Do use photos and other media BUT invest the few minutes necessary to deliver your best.
What does this mean? Simply put, edit your content before sharing it. It’s not hard to learn how to make your photos look their best. While cropping is mostly in your hands (and, again, not difficult to learn), lots of software is available that will do most of the other stuff for you automatically.
I took one photo from the site that prompted the writing of this tip and plugged it into Picasa, the free photo application from Google. I let Picasa do it’s automatic editing routine and added some sharpening. After ten seconds of “work”, there was a dramatic difference.
How dramatic a difference? Check out the following photos to get an idea of what I’m talking about. Please understand that, even using a free application like Picasa can do wonders for your site’s visuals with very little effort:
Unedited - Cherry Blossoms in DC, 2010
Edited - Cherry Blossoms in DC, 2010
Unedited - Washington Monument
Edited - Washington Monument
Unedited - Jefferson statue
Edited - Jefferson statue
While the edited versions may fall short of perfection (I’d reduce the digital noise, for example), I think we can agree that they pack a much stronger punch.
As far as cropping, the simplest advice I can give is to do your best to eliminate anything from the photo that isn’t relevant to your subject so that viewers won’t be distracted from what you want them to see.
‘Til next time, Press On!
