How to Get Better Image Quality for Your WordPress Website
Do you ever wake up in the morning and go to open your laptop only to find out that it won’t turn on? Or, does the screen just look dull and gray even though you adjusted the brightness and contrast? If so, then you’re in need of an upgrade!
There are certain things that you can do to get a much better display on your WordPress site. Below, you’ll discover a few tricks that will make your images pop out of the screen and into your readers’ eyes.
Brightness, Contrast, And The Like
Brightness and contrast are the two aspects of the display that you can change with the goal of making your images look better. Brightness controls the overall luminance of the screen while contrast controls the difference in brightness between the brightest and darkest hues. As the name suggests, increasing brightness makes things brighter while decreasing it makes things darker.
If you increase the brightness of your screen too much, you’ll end up with an uncomfortable viewing experience because the screen will be overly bright even when you’re looking into it. On the other hand, if you decrease it too much then it can hurt your eyesight due to the dark picture that you’ll be seeing all the time. It’s a tricky balance that you need to keep in mind when experimenting with the two settings.
Gamma Settings
Gamma controls the overall ‘glow’ or ‘shine’ of an image, which can be affected by the two settings above. You can think of gamma as a measurement of how ‘colorful’ or ‘vivid’ an image will appear, with 0.0 being a totally black-and-white image and 1.0 being a completely bright image with maximum ‘glow’. (The opposite of gamma is called ‘inverse gamma’ which will make things darker and more dull).
When you have a good understanding of what each of these options do, it’s easier to select the right settings for the image that you’re working on. Below, we will discuss a few WordPress tips and tricks for getting the best image quality when posting on your site.
Use E-mail Signatures
Have you ever received an e-mail and immediately gotten distracted by something else once you started reading it? If so, then you know how important good writing is in getting your point across quickly and professionally. An e-mail signature is like a personalized digital note that you can add at the end of each one of your e-mails.
An e-mail signature can be a short Bio about you or a list of your most significant accomplishments. It is always a good idea to include your contact information as well – phones, physical mailing addresses, etc. – but there is no set rule about how much information you should include in your signature. Sometimes, a simple ‘Hi!’ followed by your blog URL is sufficient. Other times, you might want to include your Twitter handle, GitHub username, or other social media accounts.
Whatever you do, make sure that your e-mail signature is no longer than six lines of text.
Blur The Background
The background of a web page is often times the first thing your visitors encounter when they visit a site. Whether it’s a photo-filled gallery, a brightly colored button, or a pattern-drenched background, backgrounds can often times be one of the deciding factors in how a visitor engages with a page.
There are ways that you can make your website’s background as fascinating as possible by experimenting with different designs and colors. However, sometimes less can be more when it comes to backgrounds. Sometimes, a simple black background will speak volumes about your site’s design when compared to a pattern-filled or colored background.
Sharpen The Photo
When you post a new image to your website, it instantly becomes available for download. This is a great way for your readers to get an eyeful of your work but oftentimes, the quality of the image that you post is a little on the dull side. To bring some life back into your images, you can use photo editing software to sharpen them a bit.
There are a couple of free online tools like PhotoShop that you can use to experiment with image cropping and sharpening. One nifty feature that these tools offer is the ability to quickly and easily compare different versions of an image. This way, you can find the exact tone of brightness and contrast that you’re looking for without having to experiment with different settings.
Brighten Up
When you are uploading images to your WordPress site, there is an option that you can click to ‘brighten’ the image. As the name suggests, this will automatically adjust the lighting of the image to give it a slightly better quality. For instance, if you are posting an image taken under gloomy lighting conditions, then you can use this tool to ‘bring out’ the details in the image.
While this feature can be nice, be careful not to overdo it because then the image can start looking like it was taken under artificial lighting conditions which can actually harm the final product. If you’re not sure how to use this tool properly, then just leave it alone until you can get a better understanding of what each of the brightness settings do.
Downgrade
Have you ever bought an expensive gadget or piece of equipment only to find out that it doesn’t quite live up to your expectations? If so, then you know how tricky it can be to find good quality when you’re looking for a specific brand or model. To avoid disappointment, it’s a good idea to download and install a firmware update for the device that you’re using. This way, you can ensure that it’s going to live up to your standards despite the cost difference.
The same concept applies when it comes to cameras. Even though they may be high-quality devices, they still have their limitations and the pictures that you take with them may not have the same quality as the ones taken by professional photographers.
Sometimes, the most expensive camera in the world won’t do justice to the picture that you’re planning on taking. For example, if you’re using a 35mm film camera then you’ll want to invest in a good lens to pull in as much light as possible. The same concept applies to a DSLR camera with a fast lens.
Adjust The Aspect Ratio
Many modern LCD screens come with aspect ratios built into the display, which can be affected by the screen orientation that you use. For example, if you’re using an Android device then you’ll want to make sure that your screen is in the landscape orientation so that the pixels are aligned in a grid-like fashion. This makes it easier for the eye to discern individual pixels and therefore improves image quality when viewing at a smaller size.
If you have a 4K TV or a projector then you may want to consider adjusting the aspect ratio of your screen so that the image fills up more of the space. This will help improve the overall image quality of your presentations or blog articles when viewed on a large screen.
Check Spelling And Grammar
Many people write bad grammatically incorrect sentences and use incorrect spellings all the time. While none of these things necessarily mean that your work will have a negative impact on your readers, it certainly doesn’t do any favors. Just because you wrote something quickly doesn’t mean that you can get away with poor English.
Even though spelling and grammar are often overlooked while writing, they can still make a difference in making your article more readable and interesting. Have you ever been annoyed by spending half your time correcting obvious errors in others’ work? If so, then you know how frustrating it can be to spend your time doing something that isn’t even related to writing or publishing your work.
If you want to eliminate spelling and grammatical errors, then there are a few tools like Hemingway App or Misspell That which you can use to check your article for you. Just be sure to correct any errors that are found because, again, this doesn’t necessarily mean that your work will be perfect. But it will mean that it will be a step closer to being perfect.
Use An Adjustment Layer
Have you ever watched an instructional YouTube video on photo editing and wondered what that person was doing during the filming process? If so, then you know the value of using an adjustment layer when editing your pictures. An adjustment layer is essentially a ‘fading’ light filter that you can apply over an image to modify how light or dark it looks based on the image’s content.