Recommendations For Photo Retouching In Web Images

High-quality photographs are a necessary element in any web development project, particularly on web pages. As a web developer, the client will usually leave these tasks to you. When designing a web page, you should think about what type of photographs or images are most suitable for the brand. But it's not just about choosing the images, which can be a complicated task if the budget is much more limited than you imagine. Choosing the photographs is only part of the task, there comes a point where you must edit these photographs and make them suitable for the web format.

In this article, we give you some recommendations for photo retouching on websites. A series of ideas that you could put into practice in your next projects so that the photographs you have selected look as if they had been taken especially for your website.

Includes photographs with people

Landscape photographs can convey calm, peace and even transport us to those places that we cannot visit physically. Depending on the landscape, you may be able to unleash some kind of emotion in your audience and in fact, there are successful cases of sites that use photos of beautiful landscapes. Actually, everything depends on the concept of the brand. However, including photographs of people is an effective technique to connect with the target audience. If those photographs show the face and expressions of people, it may have a greater impact on your visitors. After all, your visitors will like to see how other people use the application, the service and you can even start telling a story from the point of view of your user, which is ultimately what interests him.

So consider including some photographs where faces are included and where there are people interacting. It may be exactly what your website needs.

Use the rule of thirds to find the perfect framing

Using a grid to cut the images can be an excellent idea to help you achieve some balance and find the points of interest in your photography. As you should fit, the rule of thirds is perfect for both tasks and it may be what you need to achieve the photographic design you were looking for your site.

The rule of thirds refers to a very particular grid that divides your photograph into 9 equal parts. With the use of the rule of thirds, you can create symmetric and even asymmetric designs. The intersections of lines are the points that usually attract the attention of the users, so you can manipulate and crop your photo until the points of interest are in the place you want.

Don't be afraid to exaggerate the colors of the photographs

You may have already cut the picture and found the best design. If you feel that something is still missing, maybe the key is in the contrast of the photograph. You can make various types of modifications in photo editor programs such as Photoshop. Do not be afraid to saturate the entire photograph or some specific colors, use a color filter, improve white balance, modify lighting, etc.

All photographs that must be included on a website must go through an editing program to ensure that the quality is adequate in digital media. Otherwise, the photographs end up weighing too much which causes the site to take time to load. Not in all cases, you will need to make modifications and if you already have a great photograph to start with, then you probably only need a couple of minimal modifications. So don't be afraid to saturate your photographs, use sepia tones and even place them in black and white. It all depends on the brand for which you are designing.

Try to blur the background

To make an element the focus of attention, it is not enough just to find the right frame. Sometimes, the frame may not be a problem and may even distract the attention of your visitors. In this case, the ideal solution may be to blur the background.

You can accentuate the blur in Photoshop. There are several ways to make the blurring work on a photograph, it all depends on the type of design you are making. In general, the blur is usually subtler, but in some cases, the blur is exaggerated so that the background functions as a kind of pattern or texture. Much depends on the graphic line of the brand and the message to be transmitted, so be sure to take them into account when deciding what type of blur, you apply in the photographs.

Add an "unusual" item

Once you have found the right frame, it is time to study photography and see what other types of modifications you need to make. When defining the frame, you should already have a clear idea of where the title will be placed, as well as the supporting text for the photograph. You can even do tests in photo editing programs to verify what the final design will look like.

It may be that adding an item that is “out of place” is a suitable option for the brand. For example, including simple illustrations or geometric figures on the photograph adds something extra and makes the photograph feel more original, particularly if any of these elements are part of the graphic line of the brand. It can be perfect for brands that are associated with spontaneity and creativity.

In conclusion

Currently, there are several photo banks where you can get quality images for your site. Usually, these images are taken by people who have management of the concepts of photography, as well as experience, so you are likely to find photographs that are ideal for any website. However, part of your job as a web developer from top software companies is to modify those images that you have selected for the site.

You already have a great photograph to start, but now that image needs to be integrated into the website and you will often need to make slight modifications to the photography, from improving the framing and the light to more specific photo retouching tasks, depending on the brand design of the website.