I am often asked questions like:
- What size should I supply photos for my website?
- How should I send the photos
- Some even ask how to use Dropbox
I am quickly creating this blog article to answer these questions and provide a guide explaining what to do. If you’re reading this and working with another Website Designer, they may request you supply images in a slightly different way. However, if you are working with us, then please just read this blog article and follow all instructions.
Instructions for Sending Photos:
- All photos need to be no smaller than 2000 pixels wide. If you are not sure how to check the pixel size of an image let me know.
- If you were supplied some of the photos from a Photographer, tell me the name of the Photographer
- Send me ONLY your best photos. Your website design is only as good as the photos in it.
- Initially send about 12 of your best photos within the first week of the website project. We can use them when designing the Home page. THEN send the rest of the images for your website as soon as you possibly can.
- Please supply awesome images for the Home page that make your business look absolutely awesome.
- Please be sure to supply quality photos that best represent each of your services and products. More than 1 image per service type is ideal because we tend to include more than 1 photo per service page on your website to make sure each webpage is interesting and has a variety of imagery. Nothing worse than a boring webpage that has not images (take this blog article for example; there are no images – how boring is that! )
- Send photos that show the size of your business. For example, if you have a fleet of vehicles be sure to send me awesome photos of these. Don’t hold back with showing off the gear, equipment, talented staff, awesome workshop or office space you work from, or any other thing. These types of photos make your business look good. Many businesses don’t put enough thought into what photos they include on their website. This means if you do, you will have a competitive edge.
- Make sure all photos for your website a professionally shot or taken on a DSLR Camera. Don’t send me photos taken on a phone. The only exception to this rule is photos for blog articles within your site. SOMETIMES photos taken on your phone can be ok for SOME blog articles – eg. if you are publishing a case-study type blog article that depicts the progress stages of car restoration project; in that instance progress photos taken on your phone showing the pull-down of the engine is ok.
- All photos need to be landscape not portrait.
- Send the photos to me via Dropbox. Don’t email me your photos as attachments. Given the size of the photos we’re asking you to send, Dropbox is the perfect solution.
- Also label each photo correctly. As in, rename (label) each image file before sending it to me so I know exactly what each image is. If you go one step further and rename each image file with a short description I will be very, very impressed.
- Please also supply written instructions so I know where each photo is to go within the website. If it is to go within a certain page, tell me. Send all instructions in 1x MS Word doc, 1x Excel file or 1x email. Don’t send me instructions in a whole bunch of emails. Think about how you’d like this type of information to be sent to you if you were doing the job. Make it as easy for me and my team to understand as possible.
Aside from supplying your own photos and friends photos, please also supply professionally shot photos (from professional photographers) and also photos from DepositPhoto. When choosing photos from DepositPhoto just send me their ID numbers and I will buy the images using our special license (where we buy them much cheaper than you’ll be able to). We need a good mix of AWESOME images. Some need to be very ‘glossy and stereotypical’ because glossy photos look great on a website. Just DON’T choose overly ‘stockfootagey’ images. You know the type I am talking about; the ones that look generic and staged. You can also supply photos from other websites like iStockPhoto.com. I also happily accept photos from Tourism and Events Queensland Image Gallery permitting you have an account and their approval to use their images on your website. You will also need to credit them somewhere within your website like we had to on this site http://www.1770beachaccommodation.com.au/about-us/.
If you don’t have a Dropbox account, please create one.
If you have any questions please send me an email via our contact us enquiry form.