Taking pics for your website
General Website Pictures
1. Take Low Resolution Pictures
That’s right, low resolution. Taking pictures for websites is different from taking pictures used to make prints. Website pictures are generally taken at 72dpi (dots per inch). This means that even a 640 x 480 picture is fairly large.
You can probably set your camera for as low as 1280 x 960 pixels or equivalent. If you do not, the result will be a larger file size that will slow down how fast your web page displays. As a guide, the pictures on this page are only 248 x 164.
Regardless of the resolution you choose, edit your pictures so they are the exact size needed on your web page, then upload them. Consider compressing them if they are JPEG (.jpg) images. You do this by setting the image quality when the image is saved. If you need a free and very capable photo editor, try http://www.getpaint.net/
2. Lighting
Make sure the pictures you provide are well-lit. Generally, avoid the use of flash unless it is used as fill-in flash. The main source of lighting should not be behind the subject (e.g. a bright window behind the subject). You do not want dark pictures with low contrast.
3. Focus and Composition
All digital cameras take pictures that are in focus, but is the focus on what you want? If you are taking a photo of a person, you may want the background to be out of focus so that it is not distracting. Avoid taking long-distance shots of groups of people. Nobody is going to look at their feet. Take close-ups.
Likewise, if you have a shop, a picture of the shopfront or an interior isle might be nice, but also take close-ups of individual counters, wall displays, and racks so that visitors can clearly see the kinds of merchandise you offer.
4. Perspective
If you are taking pictures of people, lower your camera (bend down) so that your camera is at chest height, not at the height you would be at if you were standing up. This is the trick that wedding photographers use to take such attractive pictures.
5. Camera Colour Temperature Setting
Regardless of what kind of pictures you take, the camera should be set to match the light source.
Do not depend on your camera selecting this setting automatically.
You should manually set your camera to the colour temperature of the light source so that colours are accurate. i.e. Sunlight, Cloudy, Incandescent, Fluorescent, etc. All cameras have such settings.
