Transforming UB’s digital communications.
Skillful use of photography and video will lift your content to an entirely new and engaging level, beyond mere words. And they reinforce our brand. Even if you're not a photographer, there are many sources of good images for every budget. Just remember to check usage policies.
Last reviewed: October 24, 2022
Captions = Content. If possible, caption photos. It’s an opportunity to add content to your site. People read captions after the photos and headlines, and sometimes even before they read the text.
Crop out blank space. If you took a photo and most of it’s of the wall behind the person, crop it out. Cropping an image is a powerful way to draw attention to what’s important in the photo. Take the time to really evaluate the content of the image and what it’s saying before adding it to your site.
When photographing an event for a slideshow, take pictures of people hugging, smiling and laughing, rather than people just holding drinks staring at the camera, which can get tedious after you see three in a row like that. Consider taking some shots from unusual angles or of interesting details, like feet dancing on the floor, a detail of class rings or a view from the second floor shooting down on a crowd. You are looking to capture emotions in images, so visitors can see the personality of the event. Taking a variety of subject matter also will help if you decide to create a slideshow of the event, so it’s not 10 photos of people in the same pose.
Less is more. The smaller the image, the less complex the visual information should be, and vice versa. An image of 10 people doesn’t translate well to a small size and should only be run at a larger size. If you don’t have that kind of space, it’s better to leave the image out.
All heads should be the same size. When cropping photos for faculty headshots, be sure all the heads take up roughly the same amount of space in the frame.
The wonders of Photoshop. If you have access to photo-editing software, take the time to improve the photos if you shoot them yourself. Lighten dark areas, increase color saturation, crop to eliminate extraneous content. Even professionals “tweak” their photos so they look the best they can be.
Typically, professional photography/videography is the most expensive, but you get what you pay for. Photographers/videographers bill at hourly and day rates, but if you plan well you can get quite a few locations or settings photographed in a half day.
Photography from Faculty
Professional Portraits
For professional portraits, University Communications recommends using a freelance photographer. Quality is important in headshots and a bad one won't go unnoticed. Contact UB University Communications for more information - or visit any commercial photography studio and get a well-lit, quality portrait.
UB Resources
University Communications provides extensive collections of compelling, high quality photographs and video. You are welcome to use these in your UBCMS website.
Everyone has a camera these days. If budgets don’t permit hiring a professional, you can use amateur photographers, especially for social events, meetings, lectures and situations that have a limited shelf-life. Use the tips and tools on this page to create compelling images (see sidebar tips).
Written consent is REQUIRED if the subject matter contains minors or if it contains patients in any health care situation.
Otherwise, permission is NOT NEEDED to use images of UB students or employees, or the public on UB's campuses, unless the subject specifically requests their image not be used.
If you are producing videos, please be sensitive to copyright regulations, including any music that is used.
YouTube is aggressively policing its videos and suspect videos will be blocked. Be sure to follow YouTube's copyright guidelines when uploading new content (more details).
Federal law requires all significant elements of a website to be fully accessible, including images and videos. Images just require 'alt tags', but videos require captioning and audio descriptions, as well as an accessible player. > Read more about accessible videos
Photography from the Web
A photo found on the internet is not necessarily free to use. Most photography found anywhere has some type of copyright restriction. If you use a photo without the required permission, you will be guilty of copyright infringement.
While there are hundreds of photo sites on the web that offer "free" photos, it's important to check each photo you find to understand its copyright requirement. Even if it's from a "rights-free" website.
Often, free photography requires attribution or a link back to the photo source. Additionally, most free photography is not usable on items you'll be selling. Please check carefully.
Nevertheless, there are many sources of royalty-free and rights-free photography including Public Domain photos.
What is public domain?
Works in the public domain are those whose copyrights have expired, have been forfeited, or were intentionally made available for general use.
Read more about Usage Rights:
Below are listed the actual display sizes and aspect ratios for the main image components. Larger images are generally encouraged to allow for future cropping or to overcome lower quality--the UBCMS will scale them down as needed.
| Component | Displayed Size | Aspect Ratio | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Photo | 800px x 536px for landscape 536px x 800px for portraits | 3:2 | Larger images are encouraged up to a maximum of 2500px. |
| Teasers (e.g. Lists) | 90px x 90px | square | |
| Flex Modules Carousels | 209px x 131px | Suggest doubling to 418x262. | |
| Slide Deck Horizontal | 960px x 400px 720px x 400px when used with Key Tasks | 12:5 9:5 |
Assets is a handy place to centrally manage your images and other files, such as multimedia files, Word documents, spreadsheets or PDFs whether they are embedded in components or provided as downloads. Assets are readily available for use by everyone on your team, and can also be used on multiple pages (or sites) as needed to support your business needs. They also only need to be published once to be visible in every placement, whereas content embedded into a specific page must be republished every time that page is modified.
This is especially the case for large files. Hosting them in Assets instead of embedding them in your page reduces the load on our publishers. Referenced files are pulled from Assets when needed, instead of being loaded directly with your page. They also do not need to be published when your page is created or modified, which reduces the load on our servers.
If you must have a very large volume of content on a page (say over 200 MB), please let us know in advance before you publish it.