However, if you think about the images you add to your website, you can understand they could also bring some traffic to your website. But you should research the best way to use them.

With Google Image search, for example, you get the opportunity to get discovered. But, you will have to put some effort into optimizing your images, too. Then you will certainly see the improvement. As it is said- a picture is worth a thousand words.

We advise you to use a good image on the first page of search engine results. Further, this way, you will not have to use a ton of words to explain why your website is worth exploring. But, you will instead be able to rely on your images. In this article, you will find some tips for optimizing your images for SEO with or without an SEO agency. So, let’s start!

1. Use People to Connect With People

When people are looking for professionals and experts, it is vital to show them some faces. Because this will give them a feeling of connection with people.  For instance, the right way to do it is by consulting the Top SEO Consultants. Their specialized knowledge and years of experience will boost your SEO approach. And which is not the same as when they want to buy a product. In such cases, you just put the images of people in your image search results. In that way, you will gain trust from your customers, and this way, you will humanize your business.

2. Use Google as a Window Shop

Of course, some customers will go directly to the eCommerce site they choose. But many people still use Google to find their online shop. They search the keywords and go through the results to find what they are looking for.

Using images to show your products at their best is a great way to catch the buyer’s eye. Put them in proper content, use the best light and angle, and there it is! This way, all the eCommerce websites get the opportunity to reach those people who are looking for a better price, nicer shop, or better quality of a specific product.

3. Local SEO

People always use Google to do some research on local businesses. That is why there is more need to find those web designers who understand local SEO.

Also, the truth is that for boosting local SEO, images are the best thing! They really can help a lot, because people will be able to see what a specific store/cafe/restaurant looks like before entering it.

Furthermore, images help them decide where to go and what to do. Because they will not have to explore the place they found first. They will be able to check everything up online and see the experience. That is why it is essential to show them the best results in the search engines.

Pay Attention to Visual Content

It is always important to pay attention to visual content. Once the visitor enters your website, the main task is to keep the visitor engaged and interested. We must make sure to connect buyers with the brand. Also, this is helpful because it can lead them to buy a particular product way easier.

Use the written content around the image to get your visitors to trust you and your products. However, this still needs some time. Also, there are some things you need to know about optimizing your images for the purposes of SEO.

• When adding images, make sure you don’t put those large image files because they can slow down your web server. Use an image resizing tool, and make sure you cut and adjust them to a reasonable size. That is the first thing on the list of things you should do for good optimization.
• Use those file types that will frame your images the best. Use JPG type for photos and PNG type for illustrations. It is essential to remind you to compress them before use.
• You are probably already aware that colors mean a lot when it comes to design. Therefore, you need to think about the colors before you continue with optimization. Think about the colors you should use to keep your audience. Just don’t rush. Take your time, and pick the best option.
• Pay attention to the content as well. If you want to give the best and impressive results on the search engines, don’t use stock photos. If you do so, people will see the lack of creativity. And you might not get the results you expect to get.

Also, you can get yourself in an awkward situation. Some other designers may use the same photo for another site that covers a topic similar to yours. Remember- be unique. Stand out with your ideas and content. That will surely get you closer to reaching your goals!

If you have outstanding written content on your website, there is no reason not to do your images. Content on the page must match the content of the image, don’t mess that up.

• Mark up your images properly because Google won’t pair your visual content and user’s search without that. Write brief, clear, and accurate labels for the title text, file name, alternative text, and caption if needed. Try aligning the optimized phrasing from your website with the wording used to mark the photo, if that is possible.

Conclusion

To sum up, image SEO has a significant role in giving your visitors all the information needed. But that is not all. It would be best if you also thought about all the other places the image might appear online.  Just think about how to use image SEO to reach more customers.

Also, boost traffic to your website, and improve your business and reputation. Just put some effort into this optimization, and you will see the results in no time. Good luck!

The post How Images Could Be Your Secret SEO Weapon: Learn How to Easily Boost Your SEO appeared first on WP Pluginsify.

The images must be made more presentable. Using raw images in your content piece without making them presentable would make the content underserved. For making your images presentable, they have to go through the process of image editing.

Now, there are various low-key to sophisticated image editing tools out there, each with their pros and cons. However, when you are making use of a blogging tool such as WordPress, you can make use of some dedicated image editing tools. One such tool is the WP Paint plugin for WordPress.

WP Paint is a powerful and free Image Editor plugin. It comes with all the necessary features which give you the freedom to edit your images quickly without any difficulty. You can customize your images with WP Paint to provide a personalized feel to each image.

With WP Paint, you can easily crop, resize, flip, trim, add text, apply blur, apply gradient colors, and do much more with your images. 15+ tools are there to give you the extra edge in editing your images like a pro.

In this article, we will present how to install this plugin. We also guide you through all the tools and features of this plugin to make the best out of your images.

Download & Install the WP Paint Plugin

The first thing you need to do is to go to your Plugin section from the Dashboard of WordPress. There you can see the Add New button. Click on that button to add new plugins.

Once you have clicked on the button, you will be redirected to the Plugins Section.

1. Next, search for ‘wp paint’ as shown in the image. You will get the results.
2. Click Install Now on the WP Paint – WordPress Image Editor plugin to install it on your WordPress website. After the installation process, you will see the Activate button, click on it to activate the plugin.

After completing the activation, you will be redirected to the Plugins section.

Start Using WP Paint

Goto Media >> Library. You will find all the media items there. If you haven’t added any images, You can add new images by clicking on the Add New button.

If you have already uploaded pictures in your Media Library, then select the image you want to edit. After selecting the image, you will see a pop-up with the image details, as shown in the image below.

Next, you have to select on Edit Image using the WP Paint button, which will take you to the dashboard of the WP Paint plugin.

WP Paint comes with a clean and straightforward interface, which makes it very user-friendly. Even if you are a beginner, you will find the plugin very easy to use. The dashboard of the WP Paint looks similar to some of the software you may have seen or used on your PC/Mac.

On the top, you will see the Menu options, on the left you can find the Tool Box and on the right column Panels are there. Let’s take a look at each section of the WP Paint in more detail.

Menu Section

On the Menu bar, you will see Edit, Image, Layers, Tools, Help, and Upgrade options.

1. Edit – In the Edit sub-menu, you will find Undo, Delete selection, Copy selection, Paste, Select all options.

Undo: If you don’t like a change you have made, you can use the Undo option to reverse the change. Else, you can use the Ctrl + Z buttons to undo.

Delete selection: You can delete any selected area of the image using this option.

Copy selection: If you have selected an area, then you can copy that region using this option.

Paste: After choosing the above Copy selection option, you can use this Paste option to paste the copied selection.

Select all: You can choose this option to Select all areas of your image.

2. Image: The Image sub-menu offers a list of useful tools. Let’s have a closer look at these options.

Information: You will get the image information like width, height, layers, pixels, unique colors by selecting this option.

Size: Change the size of the image by entering any value in the width and height area or by selecting from the predefined resolution options which are 640×480, 800×600, 1024×768, 1280×720, 1600×1200, 1920×1080, 3840×2160.

Trim: This option is for automating the resize by removing transparent pixels (or pixels of a specific color) from any edge of the canvas.

Zoom: In this option, you can Zoom In or Zoom Out on your image, you can use your mouse wheel to do this as well. You can set the image to its Original size. Also, the Fit window option is there, which fits the image automatically to your window size.

Resize: This enables you to resize the size of your image. You can change the width and height of the image as per your requirement by putting any numbers or percentage values. You get some more options like Mode(Lanczos, Hermite, Basic), Sharpen, Layers.

Rotate: You can rotate your image by sliding the meter or by choosing the predefined values.

Flip: You can flip your image horizontally or vertically.

Translate: It is used for changing the position of your image by choosing the X and Y axis position.

Opacity: Change the opacity of your image using this slider.

3. Layers – Using Layers, you can separate parts of the image and edit them without affecting other parts of the image.

New: Create new layers with this option.

New from Selection: You can create new layers from the selected area of your image.

Duplicate: Use this option to make a copy of the selected layer.

Show / Hide: You can make any selected layer visible or invisible using this option. Also, you can do that by selecting the eye icon from the Layers panel on the bottom right.

Delete: It deletes any selected layer.

Convert to Raster: It converts a vector layer to pixels.

Move: You can move any layer up or down using this sub-menu.

Rename: Naming a layer is essential for identification purposes.

Clear: It clears the selected part of that layer.

Differences Down: This option shows the differences between the selected layer and its previous layer.

Merge Down: It merges the layers, from the selected layer to its previous layer.

Flatten Image: It merges all the layers into one layer.

4. Tools – These tools menu contains Borders, Color/Lighting, and Settings sub-menu. Let’s see into this sub-menus.

Borders: You can apply borders to your image. Apply any color to your border from the color panel. Apply shadow effect to your border, also choose the size of the border.

Color/Lighting: In this sub-menu, you can control the Brightness and Contrast of your image.

Settings: Here, you can toggle on or off the Transparency. Also, you can change the transparency color from square or green or grey.

You can change the plugin theme between Light, Dark, and Green.

Also, you can toggle on and off the save resolution option here.

5. Help – The Help section has the details about the Keyboard Shortcuts. If you face any issues, you can use the Report issues to go to the contact support page of WP Paint. Like us to review the WP Paint plugin on WordPress.

You can also choose from 10+ major languages using the Language option. You will get some details about the WP Paint plugin using this About WP Paint option. With the Upgrade to Pro option, you can purchase the Pro version of this plugin.

6. Upgrade – With this option, you can easily purchase the Pro version. The Pro version contains more features like Clone Tool, Revision options, Image Editing Effects, Filters, Stickers, Search and Insert Image Options, Watermark, and more.

Tool Box

Select Object Tool:

With the Select Object Tool, you can select any Shapes and Texts. You can drag these to any position on the image, change the size of the objects by dragging on the corners.

Selection Tool:

The selection tool is used to select a region of the image for copying, deleting.

Brush Tool:

The brush tool can be used basic painting on your image editing. You can increase or decrease the Brush size. Select the Smart brush option, which automatically increases the size depending upon the speed of your mouse drag. Change the color of the brush using the Colors panel on the right.

Pencil Tool:

You can use the Pencil tool to draw freehand drawings. Select the Antialiasing to add more smoothness in the appearance of the drawings. You can increase or decrease the size of pencil pointer using the + or –  buttons, or also by putting custom values.

Pick Color: Using this option, you can easily find the color Hex code, RGB value, Hue, Saturation, Luminance value of any part of the image.

Eraser: Erase any part of the image using this option. You can increase or decrease the size of the eraser. Also, change the shape style of the eraser between a circle and square options.

Magic Wand Tool: You can quickly select an area of the image using this option. It detects pixels based on the tone and color of the areas.

Fill: With this tool, you can quickly fill colors to Texts, Shapes, or a selected area. You can increase or decrease the power of the fill option. Also, you can choose Antialiasing and Contiguous for smoothing and touching the common area of the image.

Line: Draw lines with this option.

Rectangle: Create rectangular shapes with this tool.

Circle: Create Circular shapes with this tool.

Text:

Add your texts using this tool. You can change the size, font style, toggle bold, italic, align your text, apply stroke effect, can choose the stroke size.

Gradient:

You can apply a color gradient to your images using this option. Choose between two color options; also, apply the alpha channel to control the transparency of the colors. Create radial shape gradients using the Radial option, increase or decrease the radial power for the transparency of the colors.

Crop: Use it to remove unnecessary parts, straighten your image.

Blur:

Apply blur on your image editing and let the users focus on the part where you want them to.

Sharpen: Apply this effect to remove the fuzziness in your image editing. Also, you can adjust the size of the tool using the + or – buttons.

Desaturate: This tool mutes(adds black and white) the color of the selected area. You can increase or decrease the size of this tool as well.

Bulge/Pinch Tool: It distorts the brush area when you hold down the mouse button or drag. You can increase or decrease the brush area of this tool, as well.

Panels

You can find the panels at the right column of the WP Paint. The Panel has the Preview, Colors, Information, Layer details, Layers sections. Let’s learn more about these.

Preview:

From the Preview panel, you will see a small preview of your image; you can Zoom in or Zoom out by clicking on the + or – buttons or the sliding the meter below. You can click on the Fit button to fit the image as per your window size.

Colors:

The Colors panel will show you the color information when you have selected a part using the Pick Color tool. You will get the Hex code, RGB value, Hue, Saturation, Luminance, Alpha values.

Information:

The Information panel will show the image size and the mouse position on the image.

Layer Details:

In the Layer details panel, you will get the X, Y-axis position details, and the Width, Height of any images, or objects used. You can rotate, change the opacity value of any image or objects of the selected layer, and also It shows the color used in that layer.

Layers:

The Layers panel shows all the layers used in that image. You can select the eye icon to Show/Hide a layer. Use the ‘+’ button to insert a new layer. The up and down arrow is to move the position of a selected layer. Cross icon closes the selected layer.

After editing your image, Don’t forget to save your work by clicking on the ‘Save Image’ button.

In case you didn’t like the changes that you have made, WP Paint gives you an option to restore the image to start over again. After restoring the image, click on the Save Image button to save the image like it was at first.

Click on the cross icon to exit the plugin.

This concludes the overview of the features and tools of image editing in the WP Paint plugin; I hope this guide will help you using the plugin easily. Please share which tool you liked the most and can be useful for you the most. In case you have any issues or doubts please comment.

If you like this article, please share it with your social media channels.

The post Advanced Image Editing in WordPress appeared first on WP Pluginsify.

But do you know an image needs optimization? Optimizing images can be helpful for your page SEO in many ways. During content creation, most people still think that image optimization is all about using proper alt text and naming them well.

However, optimizing an image is much more than just naming it and using suitable alt text.

In this article, I will describe some useful steps which you can use to fix your site image issue that appeared on GTmetrix and Pingdom.

Breaking down the image added above:

1. Due to the image optimization problem, the page speed score in GTmetrix is very low.
2. You can see the total page size is 6.78 MB which is significantly high; I would keep in under 3 MB so that the site can be loaded in just 1-2 sec.
3. Serve scaled images are the issue that appears in GTmetrix/Pingdom because of unscaled images according to your template settings.
4. Optimize images is the issue which appears because of the lossless version of those images can save extra data which will improve your page speed score.

* Remember page speed score is another essential metric that can help your page to rank high in search engines.

Learn How Fix Image Optimization Issues That Appears in Pingdom and GTmetrix

To fix these issues, apply the following optimization techniques.

#1. Find Unoptimized Images

After adding the images into your post-scan your URL to find image problem. There are tools like GTmetrix and Pingdom, which can help you identify the problem with image optimization issues. GTmetrix shows the issues in detail so I would recommend you test a particular page with GTmetrix.

As soon as the scanning is finished, it will display all the results into two different tabs, “Page Speed” and “Yslow.”

There are seven types of image-related problems that can occur during page scanning. Here’s what to do to fix those problems:

1. Serve Scaled Image: Resize the recommended images into the correct scale that your theme’s HTML & CSS support.
2. Optimize Images: Compress the images losslessly.
3. Specify Image Dimension: Define the width and height of images in HTML or CSS codes.
4. Make Favicon Small and Scalable: The recommended size of a favicon is 16x 16x.
5. Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN): Serve your images from a CDN URL.
6. Minimize Redirect: Serve images with HTTPS.
7. Combine Images Using CSS Sprite: Combine multiple images into one image using CSS sprites.

#2. Serve Scaled Images

If you get this warning to serve scaled images by GTmetrix, it means that the page has some oversized images. GTmetrix will recommend you to resize those images into the correct dimension (will be provided by GTmetrix) that your theme requires.

As soon as you scale the images to the recommended dimension, the serving scaled images warning will disappear. Scaling the images will help you to decrease the page size as well.

Caution: Do not change the image title while scaling the images.

You can either use an online image editor or any offline tool to resize the images as required. I use iLOVEimg, which is a free online editor and allows you to compress, convert, and resize images. Another tool that also works great for compressing both PNG and JPEG images is TinyPNG.

First of all, download the recommended image file from GTmetrix. Open the image editor and upload the image file which was downloaded from the GTmetrix link shown in the warning.

Note down the recommended image size from GTmetrix and set the dimension in the image editor. Resize and download the resized version.

Now upload back the resized image to the same file location using the cPanel file manager or any FTP client. Note that you should see an overwrite confirmation popup while uploading the image then select overwrite and upload option.

Follow this procedure and resize + upload back all the images which appear on GTmetrix recommendation. As soon as you finish the process clear your website cache and rescan the page with GTmetrix and the warnings will disappear.

#3. Optimize Images

The “optimize image” warning usually appears when the page contains some uncompressed images. Losslessly compressing an image will reduce the size of the image and image files will resize themselves instead of via CSS. Most importantly, the page load time will decrease by a little %.

To fix this problem, the open optimized image in a new tab which is recommended by GTmetrix and download it.

Now copy the original filename from GTmetrix (Image URL) and rename the downloaded file by pasting the copied name.

Now with the help of a Cpanel file manager or any FTP plugin and upload back the optimized images into the correct location (wp-content/uploads/date/….).

The location must be the same to solve the problem. While uploading the optimized image, make sure you get a popup to replace the old image file with the new upload. Then select confirm.

Repeat this procedure for all the unoptimized images. Once finished clear cache and re-test the page with GTmetrix/Pingdom and optimize images warning will be solved.

#3. Specify Image Dimension

Mentioning the image width and height (In HTML and CSS codes) enables faster rendering. This mention helps the server by rejecting the need for unnecessary repaints.

“Specify Image Dimension” warning appears when GTmetrix finds any image on your website without width/height mentioned inside the HTML or CSS code. These days some of the themes automatically add the image dimension while some others don’t.

Visual editor plugins for WordPress and live page builders such as Divi and Elementor allows you to mention every image dimension. It is the right approach by the developers so that you won’t face this problem + using these plugin you can fix the issue that appeared in GTmetrix too.

But if you don’t use any visual editor in WordPress then adding width/height in HTML code will help you to solve this warning. An excellent example of using dimensions in code is:

Once you have edited all the images and added their respective dimensions then clear the site cache and recheck the page in GTmetrix whether the issue was fixed or not. If you have done it correctly, then the problem won’t appear again.

#4. Make Favicon Small and Scalable

Favicon is the icon connected with a web page. This little image that remains in the “favicon.ico” file is stored in the server’s root. During a page load, the browser requests this .ico file, and hence it needs to be present with the page.

Every single time a browser asks for this favicon file, the cookies along the server’s root is sent. So making the favicon small in size will help to reduce the cookie size for the server, and it will improve the website performance score in testing tools.

You need to make sure that the favicon size is 16x16px, and the file is in favicon.ico format, and is cached using a caching plugin. Making favicon cacheable avoids frequent requests for it.

#5. Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN)

CDN (content delivery network) is a set of web servers distributed over multiple locations all around the globe which delivers your content more efficiently to the users. The advantage of using a CDN is that it can provide an equally fast website performance to all your users from different locations around the world.

When you are using a CDN, you need to serve the images from a different URL, which is called your CDN URL.

For example:

• Image URL without CDN: https://yourdomain.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/an-image.png
• Image URL with CDN: https://static-ea7a.kxcdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/an-image.png

The CDN URL can be different for different CDN providers. There are many CDN providers available; I prefer to use KeyCDN and Cloudflare. But this can be your personal choice. Most of the CDN providers are good, make sure that you have picked the right one.

Cloudflare – Cloudflare serves the website contents with 150+ data centers while KeyCDN has in total of 34 data centers. Cloudflare is much easier to combine with other CDN providers, which will increase the data centers resulting in faster content delivery.

But Cloudflare doesn’t set separate CDN URLs for the images. Instead, it serves the same image with caching+compression. So to get a different CDN URL you can serve images from KeyCDN.

KeyCDN – Setting up KeyCDN with your WordPress site is easy.

Create an account, verify your email address and you will be ready to serve your site + it contents with CDN. Create a new custom zone URL where you want to pull content from during the browser request.

Go to “zone” from the KeyCDN dashboard and fill-up the form.

Save the zone, and it will lead to a new window where you will see the newly created Zone’s status + your CDN URL and SSL status. You can add more zones if you want and manage your available zones efficiently.

Now on your WordPress install CDN enabler plugin (lightweight) and use the CDN URL from KeyCDN that you have created earlier.

Now clear your website cache and Cloudflare cache (if you use Cloudflare) and re-test your website address in GTmetrix. This time the “Serve Images From CDN” warning should disappear.

#6. Combine Images Using CSS Sprite

Nowadays, themes developers use small icons to create and design a beautiful website.

Moreover, we use icons in our pages, mostly on the homepage. On my website, there are four icons on the home page. But they are one image which has combined using CSS sprite.

It is a good practice because combining four images into one decrease the total number of browser requests to the server and speed up page loading time as well as decrease server load.

Creating CSS sprites can be a little bit technical, or you can use a CSS sprite generator.

Quick note: Don’t apply CSS sprite for your great images on your page such as featured images, images that describe your writings. Because combining these images will lead to loss of individual alt tags. Alt tags are an influential SEO factor for images.

#7. Some Bonus Tips To Optimize WordPress Images

Above mentioned techniques will help you to fix image optimization issues in GTmetrix + optimize WordPress images. However, there are more factors when it comes to image optimization. You can use these tricks to optimize website images, even higher standards. I will mention a few ways which you can apply to the image.

#7.1 Apply Lazy Load

You can halt the image loading while the other parts of a website such as layouts, fonts, CSS are loading. It may or may not affect the visitor’s experience, depending on how fast your web server is! Because as soon as the site starts loading the images will be waiting for other components to be fully downloaded.

Now if your site can load the non-image part real quick then applying lazy load is beneficial.

I use Autoptimize caching plugin for my site, and there is an option to enable lazy load for images. On applying lazy load, the site score has improved from 90 to 93 on GTmetrix along with a slight improvement in loading time. If you consider using a different plugin, then use the lazy load plugin.

(You can see my GTmetrix site report here) [lazy load enabled]

For more Lazy Loading plugins alternatives read our post – 10+ Best Free Lazy Loading Plugins To Speed Up Your WordPress Website.

#7.2 Remove EXIF data

EXIF data contains information such as image shutter speed, image ISO, focal length, the model of the camera, image data, and much more. These pieces of information don’t need to include while using that image on your website. So try to remove them.

Popular WordPress image optimization plugins like Imagify, ShortPixel, and Smush have an option to keep or remove EXIF data. So while configuring these plugins, make sure you have unchecked it.

#7.3 Use Correct Image Format

I prefer to use JPEG, PNG, and WebP format on my website.

PNG is an uncompressed version of an image. So you should use PNG with small images with fewer color effects because a high-resolution image with more color effects can increase the size of a PNG file.

JPEG is concentrated so that it can be used for colorful images. JPEG is lower in size, and hence, they lose their quality. You can see the difference between JPG and PNG from this popular demonstration by Labnol.

WebP is a new web-optimized image format which is a combination of both lossless and lossy compression. Developed by Google and useful for the website as it provides better image quality with less image size.

Final Words

As long as images remain one of the crucial parts of an article and webpage, image optimization is necessary. I tried to mention some key points using which you can optimize WordPress images. However, as I said earlier, there are more tricks that you can apply to speed up the page performance.

Some of them which I have not added in this article (Because it is a performance-related article) are Hotlink Protection, Name + Alt Tag, Image URL Redirect minimization, and leverage browser caching especially for images, etc.

Anyway, make sure to optimize your full website performance since this is a crucial factor in SEO these days. If you have any thoughts or doubts regarding this article mentioned below, I’m always happy to hear from you + help you.

The post How to Fix Image Optimization Issues That Appears in Pingdom and GTmetrix appeared first on WP Pluginsify.

It’s such a powerful brand that it even has become a verb, “to Photoshop.” It merely means editing an image. Being one of the most considerable and leading products, Photoshop demands a humongous fee in return to the feature that it provides. Even if you wish to access this software, you’ll have to take out a certain amount from your pocket every month.

So, what’s left for businesses who’ve just started or individuals who wish to edit pictures and create exceptional designs? Fortunately, the internet has something for everyone always.

Out there, free Photoshop alternatives to this pricey software do exist, and they provide fantastic quality as well. With a perfect option in your hand, you can create exceptionally great designs within a few clicks. And the best thing about them is that they aren’t even difficult to grasp or learn. Everything can be done within a few clicks.

Best Free Photoshop Alternatives You Should Use

Here are the top 9 free Photoshop alternatives that you can use instead of trying to work out with Photoshop.

1. GIMP

Back in 1995, GIMP was announced as software for public use. And, today, it’s one of the leading image alteration platforms available on the internet. Not just that, but this one is also integrated with a variety of powerful features and functionalities for graphic designing.

It provides an extensive toolset, quite similar to Photoshop, in several ways. Hence, it’s a tremendous no-cost image editor alternative. Although the interface is different from Photoshop; however, there’s a version available that mimics the feel and look of Adobe, enabling you to ditch Photoshop and migrate over to this one.

Everything that you’d be accustomed to is within the reach while using GIMP, such as color correction, painting tools, selection, enhancement, cloning, and more. GIMP works adequately on several platforms, such as Mac, Windows, and Linux.

2. Inkscape

Inkspace is an open-source, free vector graphics editor that you can use for both professional as well as personal work. Despite coming without any price tag, this software feels and looks hugely prestigious. Moreover, it’s one of the few such platforms that are precisely compatible with Linux apart from iOS, Android, and Windows.

With the interface, it’s quite similar to Corel Draw, Adobe Illustrator, Freehand, and Xara X. One of the aspects that sets it apart is it’s Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) use. And then, it uses an open XML-based W3C standard as its native format.

Some of the best features that you can find in Inkspace include an option to import and export several file types, intelligent drawing tools, multilingual support, a variety of add-ons, and much more.

3. Pixlr

Pixlr is a browser-based application that can act as a perfect alternative to pricey Photoshop. Robust in nature, this one comes with a myriad of features, focused on providing progressive enhancing and editing options. As long as you’ve got Flas 10 or above installed to your system, this application will run effortlessly on almost every modern browser.

With Pixlr, you can work on a variety of graphical formats, such as PNG, JPEG, and GIF. It may also help you with PSD files. However, the ones that are complex or large might not open on this platform. The web-based Pixlr is integrated with a webcam feature, built inside the dashboard that allows you to manipulate and capture pictures on-the-fly.

It boasts of 600+ overlays, effects, and borders. Additionally, from cropping to re-sizing, whitening teed, removing red-eye, and a lot more can be done on this platform. Along with the browser version, this option also has free apps for iOS and Android devices that you can install and edit right through your tablet or smartphone.

Although a pro version is available of Pixlr, however, you can be sure of satisfactory in the free version that you wouldn’t have to spend money from your pocket for any add-on.

4. Canva

Another browser-based app, Canva, is a platform that doesn’t leave any stone unturned in keeping a designer’s requirements fulfilled. Whether you’re just starting up or are already a professional, Canva’s easy-to-use interface makes the process of image designing and editing thrilling for everyone.

Used by more than 10 million people across the globe, this app serves millions of stock images, an extensive range of filters, shapes, and icons, along with hundreds of fonts. With the resources reachable within a few clicks, all you’d have to do is drag and drop into the fitting position and begin the editing process.

To say the least, it completely stands by its slogan, “Amazingly simple graphic design.” If you’re a seasoned graphic designer, you’re sure to find Canva, a lightweight platform with tons of compelling features. Right from Facebook covers to wedding invitations, blog images, business cards, portfolios, and much more can be designed on this platform. Furthermore, the available templates and tutorials will make your work even stress-free.

5. The Canvas Photo Editor

The Canvas Photo Editor is a fantastic free online image editing enhancement tool for beginners. Within a few minutes, you can edit images and make them shine.

Although it comes with no price tag, this editor provides you all the essential tools to edit your photos. You can use it both personally and professionally. If you are a beginner or you have never edited any photos, even then, you can do it smartly with this tool.

With a wide range of tools like crop, rotate, filters, frames, resize, shapes, text, backgrounds, and much more, you can give an artistic feel to your photos. One of my favorites is the “merge tool.” It allows merging two different images to help you create a unique, customized image.

Each tool in Canvas Photo Editor comprises many options. Like the filters, have ten different options for you to choose from. What I like best is the stickers feature, where you can choose from hundreds of unique stickers for your images.

It is smarter and easier to use as compared to many similar tools out there.

6. Fotor

Fotor is a one-click enhancement tool that can help you make the pictures shine within a few seconds. With advanced features like batch image processing, premium-level filters, and more, this free picture editor is perfect for boosting the quality quickly.

Although it doesn’t work for advanced requirements, such as clone brushing, healing, and retouching, however, for simple, high-end filtering, you can undoubtedly rely upon Fotor.

You can have your hands on a foolproof tilt-shift tool, a myriad of vibrant and vintage color tweaks, everything effortlessly accessed through the menu system. One of the brilliant features of this tool is batch processing. You can feed this platform a pile of pictures, and it’ll filter all of them in a go.

7. Photos Pos Pro

Photos Pos Pro – If all you want is an advanced photo editing tool with a simple interface, look no further. There’s a possibility of this tool not being well-acclaimed as others in the list; however, in terms of quality, it inevitably leaves the rest of them behind. After all, if you’re getting unconventional image-enhancing tools free of cost, what else can you wish for, right?

This editor’s tool is more accessible and smart in comparison with others. All of the features and functionalities are arranged consistently and logically. Moreover, if that organized menu structure intimidates you, there’s also a Novice layout option that you can choose to have an easy-going process.

The expert layout of Photos Pos Pro comes with both layer and layer masks for stylish editing. And then, you also get a variety of tools to adjust levels and curves manually. Despite the focus being on excellent editing. This platform makes it easy to have one-click access to filters through the main menu section.

8. PiZap

When it comes to preparing pictures for social media, PiZap offers a fun-filled ride. The free online editor that it is, PiZap, is available in both Flash and HTML5 editions, making it adequate for almost every device.

This platform gives you an option to select a picture from different sources, such as hard drive, Google Photos, Facebook, Google Search, Stock Images, or Google Drive. Now that’s an impressive feature. However, you’d have to look out for copyright issues if you’re taking images straight from Google. And, some of the stock images are only restricted for premium use.

The editing interface of PiZap has a modern, classy design and uses sliders for prompt adjustments. It’s one such system that works way efficiently than drop-down menus and tricky icons.

Once you’re done, you get an option to share the design on almost every prevalent social media platform along with Dropbox, Google Drive, and PiZap’s servers. Alternatively, you can also send your creation through email, save it in a hard drive, and embed the code.

In the end, the exporting of qualitative work is only for those who’ve opened their wallets for the premium plan. But, for social media sharing, a free option is better than anything else.

9. Instasize

Instasize is a photo and video editing app perfect for those who are always on-the-go. The mobile-based application is by far easier to use than Photoshop but is still a heavyweight in terms of features and tools offered. With Instasize, both iOS and Android users can achieve beautiful, professional-grade photos without the need for an expensive camera.

New users can play around with the app’s wide selection of filters until they find one that matches their brand’s aesthetic. They can also get creative by choosing a striking border, collage layout, or adding text overlays with their font of choice. Those who want to get into the little details will enjoy the app’s beauty tool, which is designed to work on faces and even background elements.

With the app’s complete suite of editing tools, users no longer need to hop around from app to app to get to their desired result. Instasize is free for download; however, for a small add-on of $4.99 a month, you can unlock exclusive content and more advanced features.

Which One Do You Choose?

Photoshop is a powerhouse ace, ready to help you run the horses of your professional mind. However, apart from all the pros that it has, it’s true that Photoshop is a pricey choice and isn’t compatible with everybody’s skills.

If you’re starting up or don’t want to spend a hefty amount for an image editing and graphic creation tool, you’re probably well-off with these free Photoshop alternatives.

If you look closely, these top 9 free Photoshop alternatives have almost everything you wanted for your images, or maybe even more. So, stop trying to run in the race, and consider these options.

Before anything else. Write down your requirements, conduct a thorough research over these options, and then take the plunge with the best available software.

If all these Adobe Photoshop alternatives are not suitable for you, use Online Photoshop Editor that is free and will help you do basic photo editing, designing, and color correction.

In case a marvelous option is missed, do let us know in the comments section below.

The post 9 Best Free Photoshop Alternatives 2020 appeared first on WP Pluginsify.

Different bloggers employ different styles to meet this demand. However, one thing remains certain: A post won’t go very far without a blog image.

Let’s go back in time. For bloggers who started in the early 00s, blogging meant writing an update on your life or crafting a tutorial and voila! You would have a blog with a huge following up and running.

Photos in a blog post were not typical, and in the rare events when images were used, you were careful to include something like: ‘warning: image heavy.’

Fast forward to today. It is a blogging crime to publish a blog without an image. If you do, there are high chances that it will be snubbed by Facebook, Twitter, and even Google.

The Yoast SEO plugin encourages you to use images on your post more often!  But…. where do you get awesome images from? Why should you use images in the first place?

You see, the use of images in your blog does not necessarily guarantee success.  Just because they are essential doesn’t mean words aren’t too. Images are merely supporting tools. Let’s see why you need them in the first place.

The Importance of Images in a Blog Post

A picture is worth a thousand words. And in a niche that’s saturated with content right left and center, this cliché still holds very true for bloggers today. If a web visitor has a choice to choose which site to visit on Facebook or Pinterest, they will settle for one with an image that appeals to them.

Yes, your call to action indeed needs to persuade them too, but if you don’t use images, they will skip your blog post without thinking twice about it.

Are you not convinced yet? Here is another reason why you need proper images for your blog. High-quality images that are optimized could ranks first on the search engine when web users perform a Google image search. So apart from using images to make sharing your blogs on social media effective, consider Google images too.

Resources Available Online to Download in Loyalty Free Images

Truth be told unless you are a seasoned graphic designer or you are Picasso, creating stunning images from scratch can be a daunting affair. And the exciting bit is you don’t have to. You can build a decent image library for your blogs without spending a dime.

However, the challenge with these free images is that they are very generic. They are created for everyone. With a few design principles, you can make them uniquely yours. There are quite many websites out there that allow you to use stock images for your blog. Please check licenses every time as described in the site before embedding that image into your blog.

Here are a few websites that’ll come in handy when you need a stock image for your blog. This list is not in any way comprehensive.

• Unsplash.com
• Pixabay.com
• Foter.com
• Pexels.com
• Stocksnap.io

How to Customize Images to Give Them a More Personal Feel

So what should you do if you can’t find the image you want from any of the websites? What if you are blogging about shower caps and you don’t want to use an image with someone naked enjoying their shampoo a tad too much?

Be creative! Bloggers are creative with words; you can be creative with images too can’t’ you?

Here are a few tips to help you design awesome images that’ll personalize your blog and represent your ideas precisely.

1. Have a Concept

Let me tell you a little secret.

99% of the time I spend choosing an image is dedicated to visualizing the concept behind the image. I spend the other 1% pulling the image together.

It is fine to mine for all the free stock images on the web. However, don’t make finding awesome images for your blog a scavenger hunt!

Whenever your blog is shared on the web, it will be presented to your audience in the form of the headline with a featured image and perhaps a short description. This primarily the reason why to you need a concept that can be tied to the image altogether.

Having spent a lot of time writing your original blog post, slapping a generic image in it won’t just cut it! When you have your copy complete, spend a little more time to create visual elements that you can tie it together.

2. Use Color and Type with a Purpose

There is no other way about it: Typography and color speak louder than words. Font and color make the difference between a boring stock photo that’s lame, and a memorable visual element that speaks volumes gets pinned, shared, and retweeted!

3. Don’t Be Afraid Of White Space

It is okay to have plenty of white space in your design. Fact is your message will be more precise if your visual elements have a little white space.  So avoid too much clutter and non-essential design elements.

4. Size and Contrast Matter

It is not a secret anymore; bigger is not always better. This is true, especially when everything is big. Yikes!

Every graphic designer should know that if everything in the design is significant, then nothing is big at all!

Make use of font size variation to emphasize essential points! And not by adding a few points, ensure the difference looks like it was done on purpose. You can add more visual attractiveness and interest using contrast.

In Conclusion

When you have spent hours weaving together a killer post, the last thing you want to do is to spend more hours mining the perfect image. Forget the hunting and start creating. Having a visual image that blends well with your post will make it exciting, stronger, and memorable.

Now go ahead and grab a free image, develop a color scheme, and be the graphic designer that you are to create an image that’s unique to your needs.

Author Bio

Hemant is a Digital Marketer from InkyDeals. He has a keen interest in SEO, Content Marketing, and Web Design. He has a passion for getting new insights into the startup world and online businesses.

The post How to Create Awesome Images for Your Blog Posts appeared first on WP Pluginsify.

While images are important, it’s often the main cause for slow loading websites. Optimizing images aren’t an easy feat.

Sure you could install a plugin to optimize your WordPress images. Yes, you could upgrade your server for more bandwidth and faster performance. But what if you could manage your images on the cloud for even better performance?

What’s Image CDN?

Image CDN is a cloud-based service that provides end-to-end image management and delivery. It’s smart enough to know the best version of an image and serve that automatically. Think of it as CDN built specifically for images. Hence, the name — Image CDN.

Before we dive deeper into image CDN, you need to know why your most important assets could bring the biggest performance drawbacks. It eventually hurts your SEO.

There are few reasons images are slowing down your website:

• Incorrect image size and format.
• Too many HTTP requests.
• Lack of server bandwidth.
• Lack of server storage.

While some of the issues above are related to the image file directly, others might be caused by cheap and slow shared hosting providers.

With image CDN, you’re not only leveraging on the CDN’s distribution networks for faster and more efficient images delivery. But also their technology to optimize image quality, file size and most importantly image format for your audience.

In this post, I’m going to show you how to manage your WordPress images with Cloudinary.

Why Cloudinary?

It’s the only image CDN that provides a free plan and you could grow your usage when you shared it on social media.

With the free plan, you’re entitled to 25 monthly credits.

1 credit allows 1,000 image transformation or 1GB managed storage space or 1GB bandwidth. Plenty to get you started.

What’re Cloudinary’s Key Features?

URL based image transformation: Like other image CDNs, Cloudinary supports URL based. To see it in action, we’re going to the demo image from Cloudinary.

Original image URL: https://res.cloudinary.com/idemo/image/upload/sofa_cat.jpg

Transform image URL: https://res.cloudinary.com/idemo/image/upload/c_fill,e_sharpen:200,g_faces,h_247,w_355/sofa_cat.jpg

You’ll get a smaller image with sharpening effect.:

Take note on the added parameters on the URL “c_fill,e_sharpen:200,g_faces,h_247,w_355”, this basically inform Cloudinary to do the following tasks:

• c_fill: Crop the image
• w_355 and h_247: Resize it to 355px * 247px
• g_faces: Focus on the detected face (don’t ask me how but Cloudinary is smart enough to detect faces
• e_sharpen:200: Sharpen the image by 200

Automatically adjust compression quality: Compressing images quality and encoding settings could reduce file size significantly without causing degradation in quality. Cloudinary takes care of that for you. Its algorithm would find the optimal balance and produce the best image while minimizing the file size. You could enable this by adding “q_auto” on the image URL.

Automatically select the best format: Google introduces Webp — a modern image format that provides superior compression resulting in smaller file size. Unfortunately, it’s only supported by Chrome. Simply append “f_auto” on the image URL and let Cloudinary do the hard work. Cloudinary will detect user browsers and deliver the most efficient image format for each image automatically.

As you see, the image is manipulated and delivered on-the-fly.

Setting Up Cloudinary

Head over to Cloudinary and sign up for a new account. Cloudinary will pre-assign you with a cloud name. Edit it and use your website or domain name for easy reference.

On your dashboard, you should be able to view your Cloudinary URL in the Environment Variable. Click “Reveal” and “Copy to clipboard”.

This is all you need to connect your WordPress site to Cloudinary.

Setting up WordPress with Cloudinary

Install Cloudinary Plugin

Login to your WordPress site. Go to Plugins > Add New. Find the official Cloudinary plugin.

Once installed and activated, simply enter your Cloudinary URL on the plugin’s setting. That’s all you have to do.

Uploading Image to Cloudinary

There are two ways you could upload images to Cloudinary. First, you could go to Cloudinary > Media Library.

Simply drop the files to upload images to your Cloudinary library. You could also specify a folder before you uploaded the image.

Second, if you’ve previously uploaded your images to your WordPress’ media library, go to Media > Library, and click “Upload to Cloudinary” to Cloudinary. Make sure you’re on the “List” mode.

The image will be uploaded to your Cloudinary’s media library.

What’s good about this plugin is when you uploaded an existing image to Cloudinary, the plugin will update the URL of the image in a post to use the Cloudinary version automatically. The switch is seamless.

If for some reason, you want to load the image from your site directly, you could migrate away from Cloudinary and the image’s URL will be updated to use the local version.

Inserting Cloudinary Images

To insert images from Cloudinary library in a post, click the “Cloudinary Upload/Insert” button above the WordPress editor.

Once you select an image, you could select auto format and auto quality to fully harness the power of Cloudinary technology. You could further apply any image transformation by choosing the right options. You could resize, crop, add effect or watermark, and many more.

Choose “Auto” for both format and quality and let Cloudinary delivers the most efficient image to your audience.

Final Thoughts

Images are important assets to your content. With the trends now moving towards high-resolution images, these images account for a big chunk of your website load time. While optimizing images help to improve the performance, that’s only solving the problem at the tip of the iceberg.

Image CDN makes it easy for you to manage all your WordPress images on the cloud while optimizing the delivery of the images to your audience. With its WordPress plugin, integrating Cloudinary to your WordPress site is seamless — an easy performance optimization boost.

The post How to Manage Your WordPress Images on the Cloud for Better Performance appeared first on WP Pluginsify.

However, that means that you need to be able to take reasonably good photos for your blog or website – which can be challenging if you don’t have a background in photography. More than anything however it helps to know how to start:

Always Make Sure There’s a Lot of Light

The lighting will have a profound impact on the photos that you snap and can affect it in numerous ways. When you first start out, however, your focus should be on making sure there’s lots of light – and that it is preferably soft and diffused so that there aren’t any harsh shadows.

Try snapping photos with natural light streaming in through a large opening such as a window or door – but don’t let the light source itself be in the frame.

Keep the Camera Steady

When you’re snapping a photo your camera should be completely still – which is why you need to learn how to keep it steady. A good start is to get into the habit of always holding it with both hands, and keeping your elbows close to your side so you have additional support.

Position the Subject Off-Center Using the Rule of Thirds

Capturing photos where the subject is off-center can make it look more aesthetically pleasing – and one of the easiest techniques to use is the rule of thirds. All you need to do is turn on the ‘grid’ feature on your camera, then position the subject and other elements based on the grid (i.e. its lines and intersections).

Overall your photos should be a lot more balanced if you use this composition technique as well.

Fill the Frame With the Subject

Another great way to snap impressive photos is to get up close and completely fill the frame with the subject. As you can imagine this will reveal details that may not be visible otherwise, and make the subject the sole focus of attention.

It is important to note that if you do use this technique you should always try to get physically closer rather than using the ‘zoom’ – as it could affect the image quality.

Try Snapping Vertical Shots

While horizontal photos are great for feature images that span the width of your content – vertical photos tend to be far better when placed inside it, as they can accompany the text while being displayed at a larger size. If nothing else you should experiment with vertical shots from time to time and see if you can work them into your posts.

Wrapping Up

While starting to take better photos for your blog or websites is great – you should also try to get into the habit of editing them to make small alterations and improvements where necessary. Initially you could focus on cropping, fixing the white balance or just applying filters – and for example, could use Movavi Photo Editor for Mac.

As you can see you don’t need to be an expert photographer to use any of the tips and methods listed above – and most are very straightforward. More importantly, they will allow you to start snapping better photos for your blog or website almost immediately, and you should be able to (literally) see the difference that it makes.

With a bit of practice, you’ll start to be able to capture much more impressive photos using these tips.

The post How to Start Taking Better Photos for a Website or Blog appeared first on WP Pluginsify.

But here’s the problem with most WordPress gallery plugins:

While you’ll find plenty of plugins with good functionality, most of them are built for developers rather than casual users.

That means you’re in for an uphill battle if you want to make your gallery look like the beautiful demo you saw on the plugin page.

Modula breaks that mold.

It’s a freemium WordPress image gallery plugin that spits out some beautifully designed grid galleries right from day one.

Better yet, it manages to combine the best of both worlds on the usability front. It has:

• A quick setup wizard that lets you get up and running with a beautiful gallery in just a couple of minutes.
• Plenty of more advanced (but optional) settings for developers and power users who like to get their hands dirty.

So whether you’re a casual user looking to spiff up your website or a developer looking for a great WordPress gallery solution for your client websites, check out how Modula can help you create stylish grid galleries on your WordPress site.

The Types of Galleries You Can Create with Modula

Before I show you how Modula works on the inside, let me give you a quick peek at the types of galleries that you can create with Modula.

Here’s an example of a masonry gallery that displays each image’s title:

And here’s a look at a gallery with an image hover effect:

And finally, here’s a look at a wedding photo album with a larger gap between images and some shadows:

So how can you create awesome grid galleries like those for your own website? Read on!

How to Create a New Gallery with Modula in Just 2 Minutes

Here’s how easy it is to spin up a new gallery with Modula:

First, you give your gallery a name, set its percentage width, and specify a height in pixels:

Then, you choose which fields to use for:

• Image titles
• Image captions

Or, you can always choose not to use titles and/or captions:

Next, you specify a minimum width or height for images and then upload your images using the + ADD IMAGES button:

And that’s it! Your gallery is created just like that.

Here’s what it looks like by default:

You can start using it right away by adding the shortcode anywhere on your site. Or, if you want to dig into some of the more advanced settings, you can click the link to get your hands dirty.

Exploring Modula’s More Advanced Features

In Modula’s optional advanced settings, you can dig into a whole heap of more detailed customizations, with even more options available in the Pro version:

For example, if you want to add a hover effect to the images in your gallery, all you do is click on the Hover effect accordion tab and you can choose from premade hover effects, complete with a live preview so that you can see exactly how things work:

Similarly, you can add various social sharing buttons to your gallery images by hopping over to the Social area:

While the free version of Modula gives you a good number of settings already, the Pro version unlocks even more functionality.

With it, you get:

• Gallery filters so that visitors can click a button to only see images that match a specific tag
• 12 different hover effects
• 6 different lightboxes
• Unlimited images for each gallery
• Rotation and slide effects for loading images

Try Modula for Yourself

Want to try Modula yourself? There’s a free version listed at WordPress.org that will let you get started creating galleries with up to 20 images.

If you like what you see, you can consider upgrading to the Pro version for the more advanced features starting at just $19 for a single site license.

The post How to Create Beautiful WordPress Grid Galleries with Modula appeared first on WP Pluginsify.

This WordPress plugin can help you to optimize your images so that the excess file size added to your website is practically nonexistent and your webpages continue to load fast for your visitors.

Why Optimize Images?

It is essential to optimize images for the performance of your website. Here is a list of positive effects optimizing your images will have on your website by using a plugin such as ShortPixel Image Optimizer.

• Faster Page Load Times
• Better User Experience
• Decreased Bandwidth Use
• Better SERPs

ShortPixel Image Optimizer is an easy-to-use WordPress plugin. It installs directly into your WordPress Dashboard where you can easily manage the image reduction process. All images will be automatically processed. You can easily configure the ShortPixel plugin to compress past photos and even optimize your website history.

ShortPixel Image Optimizer is an excellent solution for optimizing images either already on your WordPress website or those you will upload soon. There is also a free version for you to try how it works and if you use no more than 150 images per month, you do great with the free Short Pixel Image Optimizer plugin.

For those of you who upload more pictures. You can upgrade to the different plans such as Short – 7,500 photos per month to XXL – 82,500 photos at really affordable monthly or annual payments.

This is a WordPress plugin we can recommend. Either you chose the free version or any of the various premium plans available. ShortPixel Image Optimizer can help you lowering bounce rates, increasing conversions, boosting your Google rank status, driving traffic to your website, etc.

Have you used the ShortPixel Image Optimizer for optimizing your WordPress website images? I would love to hear all about it in the comments below!

Details & Download 

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