Images for websites. Thoughts from Rays Web Design Studio - Sutton On Sea
Be prepared to budget for good quality images either by purchasing stock images
(from £5.00 to £100.00 and beyond) or hiring a good photographer (we
will always help to source one). Images can be important.
A few image manipulation examples showing - where applicable - the source.
First image manipulation
The original image is from a shoe site based in Australia and is
brilliant as it is - we 'borrowed the image' in order to illustrate image manipulation
here. We altered the image by creating a new background (picking colours from the
original) and adding a reflection.
We then changed the background completely purely because we could.
Second image manipulation
The original image is a stock image from istockphotos.com (img
ref ist2_11724881-glamorous-woman.jpg) which we borrowed to illustrate an idea.
It would cost about £ 25.00.
istockphotos.com
The same image made smaller to fit a page banner, which was the orginal intention
for the 'artwork'.
Third image manipulation
This is made up from 3 image - one of which
is below - we are not totally happy with the end result because we set about this
the wrong way, now we know! - What it illustrates is how images can be combined
- we borrowed the gradient, and to be fair the idea (which we paid for!) from a
jquery widget which was meant to produce this effect automatically, but which failed
miserably!
Our aim is for this type of display to become interactive with the centre image
being twice as large as the flanking images and to project forward and for the images
to rotate through a cycle automatically. Early days yet!
Forth image manipulation
We wanted to make a banner which reflected a theme. We grabbed
2 of our clients images and combined them. You may notice differences between the
clients image of the child and the banner version, these adjustments were deliberate.
Fifth image manipulation
This was done for the sheer hell of it as well as to illustrate
an idea. The original image is from istockphotos.com and is a 'composite'.
We have left part of the watermark intact because it was not a paid for image. Something
like this would cost around £ 20 to £ 50.00 dependant upon the size required.
Rays Web Design Studio do not confess to being experts in image manipulation and
effects but we are always willing to take on a challenge.
Use of Photoshop and other image creation programmes are a lifes time study and
it requires constant use to maintain the skills aquired and needed.
We can undertaken many of the manipulations needed to produce good web images but
we are not ashamed to say and to accept that there are those who dedicate their
life to mastering complicated effects and they are brilliant at them.
If we are not able to create an effect to your satisfaction and you are willing
to pay for top notch expert attention then we are only too willing to help source
one for you - it is cheaper if you can illustrate the effect you are after and we
are happy to provide our efforts as an example to save you some cost.
Exibitions etc:- Only Good Quality images can be enlarged (within reason) without
to great a loss of quality.