Lilac Creative

If you’ve ever posted a photo to your blog and wondered why it doesn’t look as good on your blog as it does in Photoshop, this post is for you! Here are a few tips for making your photos look good online!

Print quality images have a much higher resolution than is needed for viewing on a screen. It’s important to resize your image for web viewing. There are lots of automatic image resizers out there—some blogging platforms will automatically resize images as you upload them—but by doing it yourself in Photoshop, you can control the quality of the image as you resize it, so your photos look as good sized for web as they do at full resolution.

Resizing the Image

The first step is to convert the image from print resolution to web resolution, and then make sure that the dimensions will fit your blog.

Open your image in Photoshop, and then go to Image > Image Resize. You’ll see a dialogue box like the one above. If you’ve optimized your images for print, your image should be around 300 pixels per inch, which puts the dimensions around 3888 pixels wide and 2592 pixels tall.

Making sure the “Resample Image” option is checked, change the resolution to 72 pixels/inch. You’ll see the pixel dimensions automatically decrease to around 900 pixels by 600 pixels. Next change the pixel width to fit within the content area of your blog (if you’re not sure how wide your content area is, check with your blog designer and they should be able to tell you). Here I’m setting the width to 500 pixels, which will fit well within my blog posting area.

If your photo is vertically-oriented, you don’t necessarily want the width to be as wide as your posting area or the viewer may be forced to scroll down in order to see the entire photo. For vertically-oriented photos a good rule of thumb is to make the height of the photo the same as the width of your blog. It will make the width of the photo narrower than your blog post area, but the height will fit on the screen without needing to scroll.

Sharpening the Image

Sometimes resizing an image can soften details that really make the photo. Here are a couple ways to sharpen your photo and bring back those fine details.

Unsharp Mask

Unsharp Mask is a great tool for sharpening images, whether they’re print or web resolution. With your web-sized image open in Photoshop, go to Filters > Sharpen > Unsharp Mask. Set the Amount to around 42% and the Radius to around 1.5 pixels. Play with the Amount and Radius to see how it affects the sharpness of your photo.

High Pass
High Pass is another way to sharpen details in your photo, and it can also give a little bit of color “pop” to a color photo.

With your web-sized image open in Photoshop, create a duplicate of the image on another layer using CTRL/CMND + j or by right clicking on your background layer in the layers palette and selecting “Duplicate Layer”. Then set the top layer’s blend mode to Hard Light.

Next go to Filters > Other > High Pass. Set the Radius to around 1.2 pixels. You’ll notice that the preview window of the High Pass dialogue shows a gray field with embossed-looking lines around the details of your photo. For this reason, it’s important to have the duplicate layer’s blend mode set to Hard Light so you can see the end result of the filter in your image in the background as you’re adjusting the settings.

Saving the Image for Web

Once you’ve sharpened your image, you’re ready to save it for web. Photoshop has a special Save For Web option that allows you to optimize your final image for the web.

With your web-sized image open in Photoshop, go to File > Save for Web, and the following dialogue box will pop up:

In box 1 in the above figure, make sure the image type is set to JPEG. Below that are the image quality selectors. Set the image quality to “Very High,” then look at box 2. This will tell you how large your file size will be at that quality, and how long it will take to load the image at various internet speeds. If the file size is above 200K, I recommend lowering the image quality until it is. Keeping your image file sizes below 200K will ensure that images load quickly for your blog readers, and you should be able to get good image quality within the 200K file size.

A Few Last Notes on Images on the Web

• Not all colors are viewable on a screen. For that reason, web images may appear duller in color when you post them to your blog. To compensate, consider using a Vibrance mask on your image and increasing the vibrance and/or saturation just a touch (but not too much!).
• Computer screens need to be calibrated for correct color display. If you are a photographer, you probably have a color calibration tool that you use on a regular basis to make sure that the colors you see on screen are as close to print colors as you can get. However, your average blog reader may not have his or her screen calibrated for color, and may see your images slightly differently than you do on your calibrated screen.

I've lived many different places in the eight years since I left Michigan, and though I've finally come to think of where we now live in Tennessee as 'home', the seasonal rhythms of Michigan still run deep in my veins. For instance, though I love Tennessee, the summers there are way too hot for me, and the winters are too mild with not enough snow.

So of course, I'm thrilled to be in my hometown in Michigan for a couple weeks in the coldest part of winter. I proclaim how much I love the snow, and even the dreary gray clouds, and my family's response is always: "You wouldn't love it so much if you had to spend ALL winter in it." I know the truth of that. I can still remember desperately wishing for spring to arrive after a long, cold, dark winter. But I don't live here anymore. I feel like some sort of in-betweenling, no longer belonging to Michigan the way I once did, but not entirely accustomed to Tennessee's climate either. So, I plan to soak up the cold and the snow while I'm here, to thoroughly enjoy the things from home that I miss when I'm in Tennessee.

Yesterday, it snowed almost all day (so much that when I drove home from my brother's house in the evening, the roads were a snowy, slushy mess and traffic was moving at a snail's pace to compensate), and this morning when I woke up, the sun was out for a brief time, sending sparkles across the pristine layer of new snow. Mia was particularly impressed by the sparkles and commented that "the snow sparkles because it has tiny jewelries in it!"

I pulled on my mom's heavy-duty snow boots, grabbed my camera and headed out. Here are a couple of my favorite shots:

We have an old red barn out back that my dad keeps miscellaneous equipment in (lawn mower, camping gear, etc.), and it's not much to look at, but in the winter when it has snow piled on top of it and ice caught between the ridges of the corrugated steel walls, it somehow looks almost charming, in a rusty-vintage-grunge sort of way. Here's a shot I took of some kind of lattice leaned up against one side of the barn. I just like the textures of the wild vines climbing over the lattice and everything covered in snow.

Since we've been married, I can't really say that B and I have any set traditions as far as where we spend Christmas or with whose family we spend it. We've moved around so much (seven moves in four states in less than eight years of marriage), that sometimes what we do for Christmas depends on how much money we have left after moving and which family lives closest.

This year was a little different. Early on in the year, someone in B's family said, "Hey, why don't we rent a cabin in the Smokies for Christmas this year and all meet up there?" It's an ideal location, with some of B's family coming from Michigan, some coming from Texas and B's dad coming all the way from Mexico (where his job transferred him last year). So, that's exactly what we did. The cabin we rented was huge (5 bedrooms, 5 baths), and perfect for the number of people we had. B and I did most of the food shopping since we were coming the shortest distance, and we stocked up on lunch meats and cheese, and crock pot-type meals that we could make ahead of time and reheat later (chili, mastaccioli, beef stew, etc.) There was a pool table in the basement, which ended up being a big hit and we had our own week-long tournament. Smokey Mountains National park was just a short drive, so there we did a couple hikes. Otherwise, we all just relaxed around the cabin and enjoyed hanging out.

On a personal level, it was a very satisfying vacation. There was no wi-fi in the cabin, so I could let go of my tendency to compulsively check my email every five minutes. B gave me a Kindle for Christmas and I gave it a good breaking in and read two and a half books while we were there (I love days where there is nothing I need to be doing, and I can just sit and read the entire day). Very relaxing.

The weather was unseasonably warm (mid-50s to low 70s!), and absolutely beautiful most days so we got out of the cabin to hike or (if we were feeling particularly brave) hit the Tanger Outlets. Here are a couple shots of our hike to Laurel Falls in Smokey Mountains National Park. It was about 2.5mi round-trip. We took M on this one and she hiked the entire thing without needing to be carried! What a little trooper!

Merry Christmas! 

All week the forecasters were saying we would see snow, possibly even accumulation, today. But I must not have really believed them because I was actually surprised when I woke up and looked out the window to see everything covered in white. It was a beautiful sight! Of course, it had all melted away by noon, but I ran out and got a couple shots before that happened. Last year, the first snowfall didn't happen until January, so hopefully the fact that it snowed so early will mean we'll get to see more of it before the winter is out! 

Every once in a while I get asked by a friend or family member to do event photography. On even rarer occasions I volunteer for the office, and such was the case for my cousin Cathy's wedding (because I love her to bits and pieces). She called up three weeks ago and announced she was getting married the Saturday after Thanksgiving (three weeks, Cathy? Sheesh! Give a girl more time to plan! ). With everything going on in our lives lately, I didn't think we'd be able to make it to Michigan for Thanksgiving and the wedding, but my very sweet hubby was extremely patient and good-natured when I rearranged all our plans to head to Michigan last week so I could shoot the wedding. It was a beautiful ceremony, and my cousin was a stunning bride! I cannot even express how excited and happy I am for her—she married a wonderful man and I wish them every good thing! Here are a couple of my favorite shots from the wedding.

I love shooting weddings (and other events), but what made this even more fun was that I got to team up with our best friend, Scott, my photography sensei. He made plans to visit us over Thanksgiving before the 3-week warning my cousin gave us for her wedding, so we dragged him along to Michigan. It's pretty much his fault I got into photography in the first place, and he taught me everything I know, so I twisted his arm and made him shoot the wedding with me. So, here we are, shooting the wedding (my hair actually looks good in this shot--proof of Scott's mad skillz)!

And here are some of my favorite shots from Scott:

So, now I'm home again (after a 13 hour drive yesterday!), and getting back to my regularly scheduled designing/coding. Hope everyone had a fab Thanksgiving!