I’m not a photographer. I took an extracurricular class in middle school, and that’s about it. However, I’ve learned a lot about good photography thanks to my studies in graphic design. Turns out the two share a lot of similarities when it comes to concepting and execution.
Why do I feel the need to bring this up? Because we take pictures everyday. Of friends, events, food, you name it. And when it comes to social media and blogging, it’s all about the picture. What draws people in? What intrigues their eye? While not an exact science, knowing the basics of a well “designed” photo can help you tell the story of your brand.
Photography Basics
We all have a camera in our back pocket. This is my weapon of choice as it’s usually what I have on me when I spontaneously desire a photo. Regardless of the device, the same rules apply: keep it straight, and stay in focus. I consider the rule of thirds when lining up a shot, which suggests that your focal point isn’t dead center.
And… yeah, those are my basic rules. Told you I’m not a photographer. ‘:D
If you want inspiration or more details, I highly suggest following photographers on social media. I’m friends with a few photographers that prioritize portraits, but there are people who shoot landscapes, animals, and so much more. I gain photo design inspiration from these and stock image sites like Pexels and iStock so I can improve my horrendous picture taking.
And that’s sort of the point, because not every picture has been taken. Once upon forever ago, I wanted to showcase my website on social media, so I took a picture of my computer and created a mockup. Sometimes the best photo for your story is something you have to create. And thankfully for designers, the hard part resides more in its usage than the actual photo.
“Improving” Your Image
On the topic of usage, we’ll jump into editing. I persoanlly use Adobe Photoshop, but I think Affinity Photo has very similar traits. Adobe Lightroom would be top of the line, the Chic-fil-a of photo editing, because of all its controls and customizations. Canva would be the McDonald’s of these; in all my trial edits, I find it’s easier to revise with precision and tweak filters with anything but Canva.
Anyway, onward. I’ll be using two photos I personally took. Whether it’s your imagery or a purchased stock image, you need to consider the sizing and purpose. We’ll focus on purpose momentarily, but what you need when using the entire image is the Crop Tool and Adjustment Layers.
Once you’ve selected the crop tool, it’s a simple matter of deciding whether to crop by a ratio or custom crop for the proper focal. If your concern is the actual image size, you’ll need to select Image>Image Size and make the adjustment there. Selecting “Resample” unlinks the image size from the image resolution.
While you might think that means you can create 300 res with this same sizing, you’d be wrong. Resolution has to do with how many pixels have been captured, which means doing the above suggestion would create a grainy picture. Best to leave Resample off and focus on what width/height you require. If you need more pixels, there are websites that increase the resolution of small photos. Remember, 300 res for print, 72 res for digital.
Adjustment layers like Levels, Curves, Vibrance, Brightness/Contrast, and Black and White allow you to enhance your photography. Levels and Curves tweak all the individual aspects at once (saturation, contrast, brightness, etc.). If I’m wanting something “abstract,” I can overexaggerate the vibrance to make certain colors pop, reduce the brightness to create an eery feel, or shift to black and white for intrigue. Depending on what you want to create, color can enhance the idea artificially.
Photo as Background
Time to get specific. I discussed background design last week, which is sort of where this post spawned. Fact is, photos are great for backgrounds if handled correctly.
Let’s take this beautiful water scene and say we’re making a hero image for a blog post on Florida vacations (hey, I’m a Florida girl. Don’t hate). I do 700px by 300px now for posts, so we’ll crop appropriately. If I’m putting text on here, I have two options: put it directly on the picture or use a block. I’ll prioritize the water because any time you don’t use a shape of some sort is a good day.
When designing something like this, I’ll bring in the text I want so I can place everything. Do some hierarchy here, adjust the colors, add a little shadow.
Actually, that doesn’t look bad.
Focus, Samantha. Okay, the photo looks washed out, so I’m going to use a Levels layer to improve the quality. You can also use Curves, but my clumsiness tends to make that worse. At this point, I might try other tweaks to boost the appeal of the water, keeping in mind that my text needs to be legible. I’ll tweak the text a little more too.
Hopefully through my rambling you get the idea. Photo as a background prioritizes the content on top rather than the actual image. If it worked for my theme, I could make the bushes blue and the clouds pink. As long as the text is the hero, I’m solid.
Photo as Design
“Photo as design” is the reverse. While text needs to be incorporated, the picture is the hero. More time will be taken taking pictures rather than editing. That’s mainly what happened when I redesigned my crochet magazine, Unraveled. While this was the end of my studies at SCAD, I wanted to refresh the pictures.
After spending a couple hours thinking through the composition, figuring out my backdrop and lighting, and combing through dozens of photos, I ended with around 15. I then selected one of those to be a full page. I cropped with the rule of thirds in mind, trying to get a nice image that dragged people in without chopping too much.
Next would be editing, though this was literally a couple days before the final date and I um… hated editing. Current me would bring in Levels and Brightness to up the colors naturally and make it brighter. For something like this, I might even select the background and try something gray or light cream to add more contrast.
Here, the photo is the content, and therefore needs special attention (slap on the wrist for past me). Portraits and objects will usually fall into this category, though landscapes like before can be too with some tweaks. How you edit depends on the purpose, and that should be your takeaway.
Final Thoughts: Design with Intention
I suspect you don’t take a picture without good reason. Capturing a moment, remembering some inspiration. There’s always a good reason to take a photo, but there must also be a good reason to use a photo.
My mini marketing update featured a two-hour “shoot,” with me running around and placing items while trying to remember what materials represented what on my site (I drew a whole map and everything). High and low camera angles, different focus points. In the end, I used a small fraction of those pictures as heroes and feature images.
Photography in design comes down to what pushes the message. What purpose does it serve? If none, then rethink the design. I thought I could avoid photography as a graphic designer, but it’s one of our greatest tools. Take and use photos with intention because it can say all the things you can’t put into words.
