Photographs often have stories hidden within them. Sometimes, photographs add to the written story too. In web designing, photographs enhance the beauty of a website. Photographs do say a thousand words and it would be foolhardy to ignore their importance. Unfortunately you might not always have the liberty to work with numerous photos, especially while working on a website. Does that mean you compromise with the design because of the scarcity of photographs? Of course not! You edit the photos by using a few design ‘tricks’ and make the most of what you have. Let’s take a look at some techniques that can add to the website design.

#1 Crop

Cropping is one of the simplest tools yet it can help create an appealing visual impact. If you do not have too many photographs at your disposal, you can change the focus, aspect ratio or try quite a few other tricks with an image. By cropping, you can literally change the look of the website.


Helbak Ceramics has cropped multiple images to create a stunning effect.

#2 Blur

When you have limited images with you and that too not in the very best of conditions, you should rely on the blurring effect. It is currently one of the coolest tricks used to ‘clean-up’ an image. However, going overboard with the effect can completely mess things up. You need to be careful not to over-do the effect.


Exelsia uses a blurred background image top create a nice effect.

#3 Package

Packaging a photo is another cool trick you can use. If you have just a handful of image, you can creatively package by breaking them into multiple panels. You can even break a single, symmetrical photo and package it differently. Try off-center pairing and see how it makes a difference to your design.

#4 Color Effects

Color can and should be used to surprise the viewer and make a strong visual impact. Adding color to an ordinary image can completely change the image and increase its appeal. You can either over-saturate an image or add a mosaic-style effect. Another way to play with colors is creating a panel of the same image but adding different colors to each panel. Remember that you are adding color to draw the attention of your viewers.


Future Terminal 1: Lyon Airports uses a large background image and instead of using the image as it is, it has added low opacity red color on its to give it a refreshing look.

#5 Using Shapes

Instead of keeping images in the usual square or rectangle frames, you can also make use of different shapes to give images a different edge. Circles are becoming quite popular nowadays. They are being used as headshots. Using shapes works best with simple images. However, you shouldn’t use a shape on an elaborate image as it can spoil the impact.


Herolocity uses different geometric shapes on its home page and other landing pages to grab the attention of the targeted audience.

#6 Layer Elements

Most designers using layering to cover-up a flawed image. If you do not have any other option than to use the flawed image, you can set it on the background and layer other elements over it. Especially try to cover the flawed areas.

#7 Keep it Simple

If you are unsure about how you should use an image, don’t stress yourself much and just keep things simple. You can extract a piece of the image, place it over a white background, remove the clutter and have something incredibly attractive! A word of advice – don’t try too many things on a single frame.


Cheero Power Plus website has done a great job by placing a simple image of its product on a white background and the impact is quite palpable.

#8 Create Something

When you realize that all the images you have doesn’t work with the design, dump them. Instead create something else. Take a photo with your smartphone and make something that goes well with the design. You can take help of professional photographers but don’t do something unbelievable and over the top.


Pato Fu shows how a high quality image can change the look and feel of a web page.

Designing is a creative job and ideally there cannot be any restrictions on creativity. You can use the above tips to enhance the design but that depends on your design and your requirement.