Specifically your images. What do you do?
Recently, I was working on a website when a client was frustrated by how blurry their photos appeared on the site. They didn’t seem to be blurred when they were sent through email, on their phone screen, or through a text message. But blurry nonetheless. What was wrong? Why did they not look the same on the website? Well, the short answer is the quality was poor.
But there was so much more than that.
- We were taking a portrait-style photo and trying to stretch it across a horizontal space. The photo was cropped, but it was also stretching beyond its limits.
- The photo was most likely taken with an older-style phone. If you’re not too hard on your phone, it can last for a long time, which is a great thing! But it’s not great when it comes to taking or sending photos. An older phone cannot take the same quality photo as the latest model or a digital camera. Unfortunately, no amount of touch-up, adjustment, or resizing will create a higher-quality photo.
- Many times when sending a photo through text messages, the servicer will adjust the quality of the photo to lower quality for the sender to view. This is often why I suggest to my clients to utilize services like Google Drive or Dropbox to send photos or larger-sized items like Powerpoint presentations or videos. Then the quality of the file is preserved and able to be utilized in the way we intend it to be used.
Does this mean a lower-quality photo can’t be used? Of course not! We just have to select the spots where it’s used. Places like social media, highlight images in a smaller capacity on your website, or keep them as samples to share with your clients of your work. The photo can always be used, but it won’t be able to function like a high-quality photo in a large size on your website, brochure, flyer, etc.