How does that look online?

You may have noticed that I tend to over expose my photos slightly. I notice this too and it is an internal fight I have every single week to keep the photos on the light and bright side. Through the years I have noticed that the thumbnail (aka mugshots) website lineup is better seen when the shots are brighter than not.

This time of year (end of winter and not nearly spring) can be especially difficult for good background color. When potential adopters are looking at the website the dogs can tend to spill from one to the next in drab browns and greys. We will all be glad when spring gets here and the verdant backgrounds return.

To help combat the winter drabs,try to keep editing (this mainly applies to dogs) to the lighter side of the scale. Even in some cases overexposing just a bit. When the thumbnails are 60px x 74px it is hard to grab attention. This is the first step most adopters take when researching available dogs at our shelter. Any little splash of color or lightness can make the difference. The point is driven home by the puppies from this week. They are stealing the show on the Dog’s Animal Gallery page (snippet shown here). The puppies were photographed with a blue backdrop in a xpen indoors. Most all the other dogs were either photographed outside or in the covered play yard, with the exception of Jack the MinPin who has his handler’s colorful shirt helping him a bit. The photos shown were taken by both me as well as my extremely talented counterparts, Tuesday and Saturday photographers.

So take a minute and give your work a second look once it is posted.  If you are like me you will have no problem being critical. By slightly overexposing an otherwise winter drab photo at least the lightness is working to help grab attention.