Using your own job photos well on your website

Start with the question a customer is likely to ask. Can they see the quality of the finish, the size of the space or how the finished work solves a problem? A close-up of a neat joint and a wider view of the completed room do different jobs. Take the views you need, rather than uploading everything in your camera roll.

Ask your web person where the photo will appear. A wide banner needs a different composition from a portrait card. Leave room around the subject for cropping, and avoid placing an important detail right against an edge. If text will sit beside or over the image, plan space for it rather than covering the finished work.

Before taking photographs at a customer's property, ask about photography and possible website use. Photographing work for your own records and publishing it for promotion are different purposes. Agree the boundaries before you start.

Clean the camera lens gently with a soft, clean cloth. Check that a case or accessory is not blocking it. A smudged lens can make a good job look hazy, while poor light can make it harder to capture a clear result.

Use even light where possible. If a bright window makes the work look dark, change your position or try another time. Check the result on screen instead of assuming the room's lighting will look the same in the photograph. Avoid filters that change the colour of materials or hide the finish.

• Hold the phone steadily and let the camera focus before taking the shot. Open the result and enlarge the important detail to check that it is sharp.
• Keep walls, shelves and worktops straight in the frame. If your camera has a grid or level guide, use it to help line them up.
• Try a wider view and a detail view. Move to a suitable position where it is safe, rather than relying on a heavily enlarged crop afterwards.
• Check reflections, shadows and the edges of the picture. Remove private paperwork from view and ask people to move out of the shot if they have not agreed to appear.
• Keep safety and the customer's work ahead of the photograph. Do not remove protective equipment or enter an unsafe position to get an angle.

Take the before photo while you can still return to the same viewpoint. Note where you stood and roughly how high you held the camera. For the after photo, use a similar angle, framing and lighting where practical. That lets the work itself explain the difference.

Label the two pictures clearly. A short caption can explain what changed and why, without naming the customer or revealing an address. If the comparison spans different stages of a job, make that clear rather than presenting an unfinished stage as the final result.

Do not use a filter, extreme angle or selective edit to exaggerate the improvement. Crop out irrelevant clutter where appropriate, but do not remove defects digitally or imply that work you did not do belongs to you.

For a patio project, use matching views from the doorway. The caption can explain that the uneven paving was replaced and the layout changed. A close-up can then show the new finish without pretending it is a like-for-like comparison.

Pick the clearest photos that each add useful information. Several nearly identical pictures make customers scroll without learning anything new. Check that the images show your actual work and that an old photo still represents what you offer.

Keep the full-quality original in your own organised storage, with a backup. Create a separate website copy for cropping and compression. That leaves you able to make a different crop later without repeatedly editing an already reduced file.

Use descriptive filenames without customer names or addresses, such as timber-decking-finished.jpg. Keep your private job reference and permission record separately, not in a public filename or caption. Send originals to your web person through an agreed file-sharing route, rather than relying on a screenshot or a messaging preview that may reduce quality.

An image has dimensions, measured in pixels, and a file size, usually shown in kilobytes or megabytes. Dimensions describe the amount of image detail. File size describes how much data must download. Making a huge photo appear small in a page editor does not necessarily reduce the file visitors receive.

There is no single maximum file size that suits every photo. A small gallery thumbnail and a detailed full-width image have different needs. Ask your web person what sizes the layout needs and whether the website creates different versions for different screens. Then compare the exported file size with its visible quality at the size customers will see.

• Crop the website copy to the useful composition, then resize it for its intended use. Keep enough detail for the layout and sharper screens, without uploading an unnecessarily huge original.
• Export in a supported photographic format. JPEG, WebP and AVIF are options; use the formats your website handles correctly. Simply renaming the file extension does not convert it.
• Adjust compression and inspect the result. Look for blurred edges, blotchy colours or lost detail in the finish, rather than choosing the smallest file at any cost.
• Ask the website to reserve space for each image before it loads. This helps stop text and buttons jumping around.
• Delay loading gallery photos further down the page where appropriate, but not the main image visible at the top. Test the finished page on a phone with mobile data.

Alt text is an image's text alternative. A screen reader can use it to convey information to someone who cannot see the photograph. Describe what the image contributes in that page, not every object you can spot. Do not fill it with town names, service keywords or a customer address.

A visible caption can explain the work, while alt text gives the information someone needs in place of the picture. Consider the surrounding text so you do not repeat a long description unnecessarily. For before-and-after pictures, make the difference understandable in text too.

A purely decorative image should have an empty alternative so assistive technology can skip it. An image used as a link needs an accessible description of its destination or action. Ask your web person to check these cases instead of adding the same generic description everywhere.

For a finished job photo, New timber decking with a level step from the patio door describes the visible result. A filename or the words great work do not give the same information.

Our practical recommendation is to get written permission before using a customer's property in promotional photos, even where the image does not identify a person. Explain which photos you want to use and where they will appear. Website publication does not automatically mean agreement to social posts, adverts or sharing with another business.

Customer permission and data protection are separate questions. If a photo relates to a living person who can be identified, directly or from other available information, it may be personal information. An empty room is not automatically outside the rules, and every building photo is not automatically personal information. Consider the image, its caption and what else it reveals together.

For personal information, identify and document a lawful basis before using it and give the required privacy information. Consent is one possible basis, not the only one. If you rely on consent, it must be specific and informed, and you must stop the consent-based use if it is withdrawn. Check your approach with a privacy adviser if the situation is unclear.

• Keep house numbers, vehicle number plates, letters, family photos and identifying reflections out of view unless their inclusion has been properly considered and agreed.
• Avoid identifiable children and sensitive personal details. If people will appear, deal with their permission and privacy separately from the property owner's agreement.
• Remove location metadata, the hidden coordinates some phones add to photos, from the copy you publish. Do not assume a website upload strips it automatically.
• Keep a record of what the customer agreed to and how they can contact you about the photos. Review reuse rather than treating one agreement as unlimited permission.
• Check the rights to the photograph itself. The customer's agreement about their property does not give you copyright permission for a picture taken by someone else. Confirm that any supplier or photographer's licence covers website use.

Preview the page on a phone and a computer. A crop that works in a wide banner may cut off the important detail on a narrow screen. Check that captions stay with the right photos and that before-and-after labels are unambiguous.

Confirm that the page loads usefully, the photos remain sharp enough and the contact button does not move as they arrive. If it feels slow, run the page through Google's free PageSpeed Insights tool and ask your web person which image files visitors actually download.

Before publishing, check the permission record, public filenames, captions and location information. Afterwards, keep the originals and private records so you can replace an image, change its crop or respond to a customer's request without reconstructing the job history.