Publishing Pictures and Web Platform Particularities
Key Vocabulary to Remember
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Introduction
Publishing pictures is the last step in the photography workflow process. It is advisable to take pictures and process them as little as possible, leaving the final processing to take place in the web platforms that are most likely used. This leaves the highest flexibility and picture quality until the very last step. There are few situations, such as older platforms, where processing must be done in external programs and this step should be kept in mind.
Facebook, Flickr, Instagram, Pinterest
All web platforms have requirements for the picture formats they allow. Luckily, popular sharing websites such as Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, Flickr, Google Photos and others have integrated editing tools. As the final processing takes place in the platform, it is essential to have pictures with high, preferably unedited, in JPEG format. This will allow very good results. It is recommended to only crop and select which part of the picture shall be maintained in the final post you want to create. Saving zoomed pictures should be always avoided, as it severely impact quality. Applying effects is not advisable as it may give an artificial look for the final image. Note that effects are specific to a platform and it is generally better to have a consistent look of your photo creations and using effects goes against such goals.
Websites
Most websites still lack image processing settings while others offer only minimal capabilities. For instance, sites using the Wordpress platform generally have better image handling abilities than ones based on Drupal. Most of the time, however, you should avoid editing photos directly on the platform for a couple of reasons. Using unedited, original JPEGs, the image format most likely for your images, ends up with huge websites that waste space, load slowly and are not optimized.
Websites thrive only when content is tightly regulated. Having the same consistent image resolution based on the size of common elements in the website's graphical layout or theme is mandatory. This means that the final pictures are specifically resized, cropped to better fit the aspect ratio required and have a reasonable size, meaning that specific image compression ratios must be experimented with and targeted. Most of these details are known by the administrator of your website. If you manage a website, you already know what kind of results you should aim for. Generally, editing any picture to have a size on one axis below 1000 pixels is not advisable, and ones with more than 2000 pixels is not necessarily advisable. The above values are only rough guidelines, to be replaced with specific requirements.
Presentations or Slide Shows
Presentations and slide shows have demanding requirements for photographs. Consistent results require pictures with very good contrast and very few artifacts. This may require prior editing in dedicated software to reach adequate results. Editing may include contrast and brightness enhancements, layering, recolouring, background removal, applying other effects. Pictures may have to be tailored to each presentation and the resulting photos may be used only for a specific purpose. Most desktop publishing programs for presentations or slide shows have much more limited editing capability than image editors and this should be known in advance. Final editing in presentation software takes additional time if more than cropping is required. All presentation software allows at least cropping and resizing on the fly, such tasks should not be carried out in other programs to allow maximum flexibility.
Keep in mind that specific editing is required to make a standard photograph, as it may be received in JPEG format, to a picture containing transparency. Special processing is carried out in image editors to convert a standard image into one that has a transparency or ALPHA channel, as is usually called. Editing requires that the resulting format and your presentation application support transparency in PNG, TARGA and other formats, for a successful use in your presentation software.
Video production
Photographs can be used to create various inserts or as part of complex layouts for video production. It is advisable to have pictures that have at least the full resolution of the video frame that your video clip will use. In this way, no matter how the picture is scaled or cropped it has enough resolution to maintain proper details for any purpose. Specific effects such as transparency may be useful, meaning that original photographs should have very good quality and must be edited accordingly. Almost all video editing software offer at least layering capabilities. Full transparency or edge background cutouts, as may required in creating appealing video effects, require specific processing and export from a dedicated image editor prior to importing a picture in a video editor for final composition.
Keep in mind that specific editing is required to make a standard photograph, as it may be received in JPEG format, to a picture containing transparency. Special processing is carried out in image editors to convert a standard image into one that has a transparency or ALPHA channel, as is usually called. Editing requires that the resulting format and your presentation application support transparency in PNG, TARGA and other formats, for a successful use in your presentation software.