A picture's worth 1,000 words, so make sure the picture's right

We are all familiar with this cliché by now, but it is true nonetheless. A picture conveys a lot of visual information that is open to interpretation by the viewer. The immediate benefit is that images can be used to evoke emotion or set the ambience. However, if too much is left open for interpretation, an image can distract from the point you are trying to make.

For example, let's say I have a picture of myself where for once I didn't turn out that bad. I want to use it in a professional brochure to increase the emotional connection, as well as to have people remember me and be able to identify me at a conference. I can use the picture as is (imagine this is the top of a page from the brochure):

Or I can use this:

I just used a cool feature in Word 2010 called Remove Background. As you can see for yourself, that eliminates the nonprofessional background, which was slightly distracting. It also puts the focus on, well, me.

I also cropped the image a little bit to remove the soft shell I'm wearing, again because it's more sporty and doesn't fit the professional setting. Not only that -- there is a psychological principle at play. The more you show of someone's body, the more you make the audience think of their physical attributes. The more you focus on a subject's face, the more you make the audience think about the subject's intellectual attributes.

The new Picture Editing tools are really fun to experiment with and get creative. For example, I can call attention to my subject without giving up the background, by tweaking it. Below I used the same image twice, once in the background with an artistic effect (blur) and color, and once in the foreground with the background removed. Try it out!