If I could offer one bit of advice that would make your photographs come out much better and potentially save you a lot of money, it would be to hire a makeup artist to work on the people in the pictures.

Whenever it comes down to choosing between a model and a makeup artist, I advise to choose the artist. They are schooled in making people look absolutely fabulous in their pictures (even those of us who have no business being in front of a camera).

Makeup artists do a great job of softening our skin, hiding our blemishes, reducing the shine off our faces (and heads), and are valuable resources to make sure that we are using the right colors on someone’s face.

A lot of photographers’ time is spent touching up our photos, doing all of those things on every single shot. It can be very hard for even the best graphic artist to give a consistent look across each picture.

However, the makeup artist does the work once and then does touchup work throughout the shoot to keep it consistent.

Want great head shots for your executive staff? Makeup artists do amazing things to help hide flaws and bring out the best in each person.

Here’s a case study:

I recently took a set of pregnancy photographs. The lady had gone through a lot of outfits and other preparation, including a facial, hairdo and getting makeup applied to her face by a cosmetologist.

She didn’t do anything to cover the stretch marks on her belly. I recommended that she have the make up artist cover her marks for her. She didn’t want to pay them any more than she already had.

It would have taken no longer than fifteen minutes to cover her marks.

It took several hours to remove those marks from the pictures and make them look right. She could have saved a lot of money if she had just gotten the makeup artist to cover marks up that one time. Instead, she would up paying for every hour I spent in processing removing those marks.

I can show you four chiropractors in the Atlanta area who all use the same picture of a blue man in their advertising.

There is a latina lady whose picture has been used to advertise bus stop advertising, a singles/dating service, an employment agency and a couple other businesses here in Atlanta.

This is a symptom of people going online and looking for stock photography.

Now while sites like iStockPhoto have their advantages (like very inexpensive photography), they also have some distinct disadvantages, like other people using the same artwork in their advertising that you chose to use in yours – and also, the pictures that they have are the pictures that they have. There’s not a whole lot of flexibility.

Hiring a model for your website’s pictures (and for the rest of your marketing) just makes sense. Models have a wide price range, but you would be surprised at how inexpensive it can be. For example, I have hired models from Model Mayhem for prices so low that I won’t post them here, and gotten outstanding results.

You will also want to get a good photographer involved. There are literally hundreds of photographers here in the Atlanta area with a wide variety of skills. My website clients get my photography services included in their website builds. You can also ask the model if there are photographers that they recommend and have worked with before. When the model is more comfortable with the photographer, it can result in better pictures.

Websites work with a combination of billboard and brochure mentalities.

The first page uses the billboard mentality. A visitor will give a website an average of five seconds to decide whether or not they want to stay there or not, so it is important to grab their attention and keep it at the start.

If someone is looking at a restaurant’s website, they are probably either hungry right then, or they are planning something for the future. A good shot of food gets their eyes and presses their hunger button.

A picture of a really nice fresh submarine sandwich stacked with meat and veggies appeals to a lot of people, and when someone sees it, the restaurant has their attention. At that moment, it doesn’t matter what kind of meat they have, how many locations, where the owner is from or what the price is… That time will come soon.

All that matters right then is “You’re hungry – look at this really yummy sandwich.”

It works for sandwiches, and it works for all kinds of products and services.

There are two important secrets to making this work:

First – the picture must be great. This is not the place to skimp. Make sure that the photographer can take a good picture of your subject. Different photographers have different specialties, so be sure to ask them for samples where they have taken pictures of your type of product or something similar.

Take the time to present the product well. Food shots, for example, should have plenty of food and/or a very artistic presentation to make it look really good. If it’s a steak, there’s a certain way to cook it so it photographs well.

Product shots benefit by being taken in the environment where they will be used (there will be a whole series about photography coming soon). If that’s not possible, consider using what photographers call a “white box,” where the only thing in the picture is the product. Black backgrounds can also work, depending on the product.

The second secret is to make that one picture big enough to be easily seen on the website. A small picture will not get the point across nearly as well as a big photo. I usually recommend using one third to one half of the page to show the product.

Now the visitor has a clear picture of what is being offered… their attention is on the product. If they want more information, they will look for it (make it easy to find, of course)… and that’s where the brochure mentality will come into play.

I recently visited a website for a residential cleaning company. They had a picture of their baby boy in a bunny outfit tiled (repeated) all over the background, and then they built the we site’s content in front of that. Now the picture was cute, but it had nothing to do with the company… worse, it kept taking my attention away from the company and their message.

If someone is going to use a photograph as a background, there needs to be a reason for it being there. A photo for the sake of having a photo is counterproductive, but if it is needed to set a vibe or put a descriptive picture into someone’s head, then use it wisely.

A good example of this can be seen at the Sandy Weaver Country website. The photograph used in the background adds to the message, rather than detract from it.

With proper planning and a little bit of imagination, a photograph can be a good background for a website. Just try not to overdo it. File size, contrast and “busy-ness” of the background are just a few of the the things to think about when choosng a photo to use.

Any time a background graphic is used, it needs to be subtle and not interfere with the text or other content that goes on top of it. Here are the two tricks that I most commonly use when a picture is going to be used…

1 – Fade
When I fade a picture for a background, I fa-a-ade the picture for the background. My goal is for visitors to feel the picture, not look at it. That’s all I want then to do. It’s about the website’s content, not the pretty picture on the background.

Fade the photo as far as needed so that the text on top of it is very easy to read. This could mean that the photo is displayed at a 10% opacity in some cases. If there are high-contrast areas in the image, take that into consideration when deciding how transparent the image should be in the background.

2 – Color
Making the whole image different shades of the same color (light and dark blue, for example) can work wonders in the feel of a website. The key to making this work is being subtle. Avoid stark contrasts and go for smooth transitions. This will help maintain the text’s legibility.

If the whole photo can be kept to about 30% of a color’s light to dark range, then it should be fairly simple to place text on top of it that as very easy to read.

Effective website design starts with a strong billboard mentality. The average visitor gives a website less than five seconds to keep their attention, and strong visual communication goes a long way in establishing this.

There are two rules of visuals that I like to use. First, it must catch the eye, and then second, it has to communicate the idea of the page very quickly.

A great place to find examples of this kind of visual use is looking at billboards on out-of-town highways.

Billboards in metro areas don’t count for this illustration… they’re increasingly being designed for people stuck in traffic jams. You need to drive away from the city where the average speed all day long (including rush hour) is above 70 miles per hour and look at the billboards along the side of the road.

Just like websites, these billboards get less than five seconds to get someone’s attention – especially at those speeds!

Effective billboards use one large visual which typically covers about a third of the space. The visual is either a picture, a logo or a short word in very large and bold type. The offering is communicated very quickly and the driver knows exactly what’s there.

The trick is to grab eyes quickly with strong contrast. It’s not the time to be artistic or cute or subtle. In less than five seconds, the person driving toward the billboard will know if they are interested in the service, whether it’s a hamburger, gas, hotel or any other service offered along the highway.

If they are interested, then they will look for more information. If not, they drive on.

The first page of a website works in a similar fashion, although the visitor is hopefully not surfing the web while driving!

A website visitor is almost always at least interested in what’s on the website, otherwise they wouldn’t be there in the first place. So instead of trying to grab attention, the visual is to keep their attention, confirm they are in the right place and set a vibe or convey a feeling.