How-To: Make a Photo Album People Will Look At
In this age of digital cameras and social networking, the Internet has been bombarded with pictures and pictures of cats in boxes, toddlers sleeping, and drunken college kids passed out with things on their heads.
But not you. No, you are above all that. You have an eye for picture taking; it’s your passion and what you live for.
So how do you make your album stick out from all of this mess?
- Be selective
- Less is more
- Pretend your audience consists entirely of toddlers
- Once is enough
- Choose the right service
- Choose the right format
- Find a theme
- Be courteous
Be selective: You can fit loads and loads of pictures on a single memory stick, but not all of them are internet worthy. You want people to notice your pictures–not skim them, right? So why have 10 different angles of the same thing? Pick one. Just one. Be done with it! Unless you are putting out an album of a single photo shoot, there is no need for multiple pictures of the same scene.
Less is more: Treat your online photo album as a fashion designer might treat their outfit: by taking out something before you publish it. Be overly critical of what people see in your photo albums, even if it’s just a Facebook photo album documenting a night out with the gang. Pretend that you are getting the photos developed at a place where they charge per photo instead of per roll. You wouldn’t want to pay for every picture on your memory stick, right?
Pretend your audience consists entirely of toddlers: Not to say your audience lacks the mental capacity for understanding what your trip to China town was all about, but rather being on the Internet makes for fussy users who want to click and go. Choose the essential pictures that captivate rather than bore, with each picture telling a different store.
Once is enough: To restate, we don’t need to see various interpretations of the same thing. The reason why you should take multiple photos of one subject is so that on the computer, you can select the best one out of the bunch. One. And please don’t kid yourself: not all of them are going to be “the best.”
Choose the right service: There are many, many great ways to upload photo albums online. Make sure you select the best one for your audience. If you upload private photos to Flickr, are you going to make all of your friends and family sign up for an account so they can access it too?  Facebook is a little bit better at this since you can customize the privacy of your photos, but again, probably won’t be suitable for your family. For family photos, I recommend Google Photos because it’s very easy for anyone to use and is fantastic at creating slideshows.
Choose the right format: If you’re making your own photo album online, then you won’t have the luxury of automatically resized/thumbnailed photos as with Flickr, Facebook, or Google Photos. Even though it’s a pain, make sure you resize your photos to an appropriate format for public viewing. Unless it is intended for wallpaper use, no one has the patience for an extremely large picture to load, only to have to side scroll to get the jist of it.
Find a theme: I see many people with online albums that are simply entitled “RaNdoMNesS!” and throw all of their photos in there. Don’t do this. Creating multiple albums allows you to play with themes, and make it easier for people to look at what they want. For example, on Facebook I have an album entirely of animals, another of people, and another of touristy places, each of which has their own album and date.
Be courteous: Having access to a digital camera is tricky because you will often find yourself with pictures that may constitute as black mail material. If you see that your best friend has one eye closed in what looks like a drunken haze, be courteous and do not upload it for her all of her friends (plus her omg crush) to see. I highly recommend following the golden rule on this one. You wouldn’t want your friend to upload a picture of you in your worst moment, would you?
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