Describing Scale in an Image
Super ultra white backgrounds serve a really important purpose in our world – they’re great for applications to exhibitions, great for showing color and texture without distraction, and they are a standard for a lot of galleries and museums. They aren’t, however, the most descriptive type of image all the time.
Sometimes scale is really difficult to convey when there is no other context in an image.
We are always working with our artists to give viewers a sense of scale without being super obvious. Reddit loves a banana for scale, but we’re trying for something a little more refined.
Place Clues
A horizon line or a table top can be the necessary clue to give someone a sense of size when all they’re going by is an image on a screen.
Props and Spaces
Props are really useful to describe scale. Props and still life images are doing double duty – they’re accenting the work’s color, texture, or form at the same time as providing lifestyle and scale information.
We often bring in a human for scale. A hand or a whole person is the most direct way to show scale, and help your viewers imagine your work in their own lives.
Have other ideas for how to communicate scale? We’d love to hear them.