How to choose the best pictures for your post, with science

It pays off to enrich your content with great imagery. But what makes for a good image? We consulted scientific research to find out.

We all certainly have a goal or a reason before starting to write an article. Why wouldn’t we do the same with our visual content? It pays off greatly to find a valuable image that sticks. It makes your items more appealing, comprehensible, and memorable.

Stating that effective images can communicate messages powerfully isn’t exactly cutting-edge. So then why is it that so many bloggers love to use pictures of pretty latte art or workspaces strategically organised with Apple laptops and craft paper? Not only are they boring, but they also don’t say anything about the written content. As it turns out, finding a good image is hard.

According to Haje Jan Kamps, “the best images are something people can relate to in one way or another, which usually means that the images need to tell part of the story.”

That’s a good start, but it doesn’t offer much practical information. Luckily, we can always rely on science.

The appeal factor: Back to our survival instincts

We all have it once in a while: we get struck by a stunning image that induces little inner sparks of enjoyment or horror. Our eyes get wider, we move our heads a little closer to the screen, and we contemplate while suppressing the urge of immediately sharing our findings.

These encounters with our emotions are hard to explain, but let’s try regardless.

Appeal is our natural attraction towards an image. We might not be able to explain why we love a picture because our conscious thoughts haven’t yet caught up with our subconscious ones.

Immediate, emotional reactions are some of the strongest connections we can make to visual content. They occur from the part of the brain that is also related to our survival instincts, which means that the reaction will likely be more direct and intense if it appeals to our emotions.

Banksy’s caveman by Lord Jim, (CC BY 2.0). Also, give yourself a treat and see some more work from Banksy.

Visual content should indicate the emotion for which it aims. Which can, for example, be accomplished abstractly with colour, metaphors, or irony. Or it could be achieved concretely with associations which elicit the “right” feeling (safety, food, positivity, love, etcetera).

The comprehension element: Faster than your shadow

For our high-speed brains, instantaneously triggering emotions is a common activity. So how quickly are we able to grasp the concept of an image? Images are understandable much faster than words.

This is because comprehension is linked to the way our brains translate data in order to simplify it. It has been observed that 90% of the information sent to our brains is visual, with our brains responding to it 60,000 faster than they do for text.

Thus, our brains need a picture to process information more quickly and create a connection between the visual representation and its concept. It’s impressive how the visual perception in our brains simplifies such a complex task. This could also be a scientific explanation for why “an image is worth a thousand words.”

The retention capacity: Go weird and crazy

Retention is related to the memorable experience that visual content tends to create. There are algorithms created by MIT researchers that predict photos’ memorability at near-human levels. According to the algorithm, weird and counterintuitive images do well, as do conflict and suspense.

A beautiful view with low memorability: Lauterbrunnen, Noel Reynolds

A very memorable image: Mule wearing gas masks in WWI, 1916.

On a scale from 0–1, the landscape picture to the left, though beautiful, gets a low score of 0.421, while the striking gas mask picture beneath it gets a high score of 0.703.

Upload your own picture to measure the memorability score on the MIT research website.

If you get a high score on memorability (retention), it likely means the image has gotten our attention. The retention score is significantly affected by the familiarity with which we experience an image (researchers at Pennsylvania State University measured Familiarity in this study: Studying Aesthetics in Photographic Images Using a Computational Approach).

When we see something unusual or rare, we perceive it differently from what is familiar to us because it awakens our curiosity. Therefore, things that are not familiar increase the chance of retention.

The technical part: Improve your beauty judgement

So far, we’ve found some answers to worthy questions that arise when looking for an image that will strengthen your content:

• Why is it so hard to express we find a picture beautiful? Because the why relates to our emotions. The reason behind an image being beautiful is often described as instinctive, but scientists wouldn’t be scientists if they didn’t try to objectify the subjective.
• Why should we pay more attention when choosing an image for our content? Because we humans have a very talented high-speed brain for conceptualising the visual.
• And why do pictures get attention if they’re out of the ordinary, weird and original? Because we are naturally curious beings who have a thirst for understanding.

Understanding the technical features of composition and photography can work to our advantage when looking for an image. Researchers at Pennsylvania State University described particular technology tactics in this earlier mentioned paper by “treat[ing] the challenge of automatically inferring the aesthetic quality of pictures using their visual content as a machine learning problem, with a peer-rated online photo sharing website as the data source.”

In other words, they recognise that subjectivity is inevitable when judging the quality of a picture but try to tackle it anyway with a computational approach.

Among others, the following tactics were described as appealing to people when executed well:

Light and colour exposure

Too much exposure to light (leading to brighter or washed out shots) often yields lower quality pictures. Those that are too dark are often also not appealing. Thus, light exposure can often be a good discriminant between high and low-quality photographs.

The proposed colour measure. The two pictures on the left are perceived as high quality while the two on the right are perceived as low quality.

Saturation

Pure colours in a photo tend to be more appealing than dull or impure ones. Saturation indicates chromatic purity. Professionals enhance the saturation to result in a deeper blue sky, greener grass, more vivid flowers, etcetera.

The Rule of Thirds

Most professional photographs that follow this rule are composed with the subject at one of the intersections of imaginary lines drawn to separate the picture plane into thirds, or stretching across a horizontal or vertical axis at one third of the image from an edge.

The rule of thirds in action. Photograph by Krysten Koehn

Low Depth of Field Indicators

Professional photographers often adjust the depth of field for shooting specific images. This refers to what is in focus in the image and what is not. A portrait could have a shallow depth of field in which only the subject is in focus, whereas a landscape could have a large depth of field so that distant details are still recognisable.

In this picture with a shallow depth of field, the photographer focused on the subject in the front to draw the viewers’ attention to that part of the picture:

Photograph by Kenny Holston

More knowledge about the technology behind photography and photographic composition will improve your judgement of what is beautiful and what is considered less attractive.

We scienced the $#!† out of images, so now what?

Keeping all of this science and psychology in mind while looking for a picture feels overwhelming. To make it easier on ourselves, we set some relevant guidelines:

• Images should trigger curiosity. Don’t go for the obvious.
• Images should create a context. Establish an atmosphere into which you would like your readers to enter.
• Images need to tell part of the story. They should be relatable.
• A header image should work on its own, even outside its context. The header image is often the first and only thing people see. You want to grab their attention with appeal and retention quality.

Especially if you’re collaborating on content, it’s important to be able to rationalise your images. With all the brainpower we can muster (and that of people much smarter than us), we are trying to create contexts for our writing that people actually want to enter. Saying: “the image is beautiful and nice” just won’t cut it. Maybe just ask yourself: Are pictures of cappuccinos and laptops on desks worth a thousand words?

Want to know more about what makes an image interesting? Another great read is Ten Tips for Making Interesting Images by Caitlin Winner.