Keep the Message Clear

You’ve most likely had the experience of viewing a picture on the Web or on TV and saying, “What the heck?” because it doesn’t make sense or doesn’t fit the context of the story. Ideally, your readers will be so involved in the story that they won’t think about the images at all. But if the image is confusing, it’s guaranteed to slow down readers or lose them.

Don’t Clutter Your Images

Just as you don’t want extra verbiage to clutter your sentences and paragraphs, you don’t want extra details to clutter your images. In fact, because imagery grabs your readers’ attention more than words, it’s even more important to keep your images streamlined and clutter free. When you’re revising, make one pass just to make sure every image fits with the paragraph or chunk that refers to it. Then make another pass to see if any images can be cleaned up or simplified.