This article will guide you through your slider building process with useful tips and tricks on background color and images. What’s more, we’ll address your burning questions, including how to apply background images, change background colors, and even consider the best background color options for your images. So prepare to unleash your imagination and bring out the best in your sliders!

📚 Table of contents

✏️ Changing Background Color
🎓 Working with Background Images
⚡ Choosing the Right Background Color for Images
💻 Setting Custom Background Images
💡 Conclusion

Changing Background Color

Are you prepared to add a splash of color to your sliders? You can easily modify the background color in Smart Slider 3 by following the instructions in this section. In addition, you can create the ideal settings for your slides thanks to its simple user-friendly interface.

How to Change Background Color

Let’s go through each step of changing the background color in Smart Slider 3:

• Log in to your dashboard and find the Smart Slider 3 plugin. Then, open an existing slider or make a new one to edit.
• Now there are two ways to accomplish it. You can either set the background color of your whole slider. Or simply change the color of each slide separately to your preferred one.

First, let’s look at how to set it for all of your slides in one setting:

1. Find the “General” settings of your slide.
2. Scroll to the bottom of it and there look through the “Slider Design” section.
3. The “Background Color” option allows you to set a background color for the slider, which will be behind all slides. However, note that this option is only visible if there’s a background image set.

Now let’s move on to how to set a background color for individual slides:

1. Select the slide you would like to edit, once you are in the slide editor. Then, on the right side, look for the slide settings panel.
2. In the Style tab find the “Background” section. There are 3 options to choose from, but as we want to set the background color of the slide, we’ll choose the color option, which is shown as the brush icon.
3. There are several ways to choose a color in Smart Slider 3. To get the ideal shade you can use the color picker tool, enter your HEX code, or select a color from the color palette.
4. And finally, you just need to click on your selected color and voilá! Your slide’s background color will be instantly updated.
5. In addition, you can add a gradient to your slider background, and choose its direction to make the color pop.

Applying Background Color

Now that you got the basics of changing the background color covered, let’s take a closer look at how you can use it effectively to make your sliders stand out:

• Maintain consistency: Stick to the same color throughout your slides to ensure that your visitors have a consistent and visually appealing experience.
• Contrast between your background color and your content: Make sure that the text on your slides and other layers can be easily read against the background color.

  
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• Experiment with different background colors: Don’t be afraid to try different background colors on your slides to get the look and feel you are looking for. With Smart Slider 3, you can preview your changes in real time. Remember that your background color defines the tone and mood of your slider, it’s important to take your time and experiment with them.

In the next part, we’ll explore background images and how they can take your sliders to the next level.

Working with Background Images

Not only do you have background colors, but background images also have the power to turn your sliders into amazing visual experiences. Let’s take a closer look at how you can set up custom background images, make them transparent, and take advantage of Smart Slider 3’s unique features.

Setting a Custom Background Image

Here’s how you can set up your own custom background images with Smart Slider 3:

1. Just like it was mentioned above, there are also two ways to add a background image to your slider.
2. First, let’s look at how to set the whole slider’s background. You just need to navigate to the General Settings tab, and right next to the Background Color, there’s a section for the Slider Background Image. Here you can upload your chosen image.
3. The second option is to set different images for each slide. To accomplish it you need to select the slide you would like to modify. Then, just like you did it before, find the Background section in the Style settings tab. After, clicking on the image icon you can upload your image file. Play around with the additional image settings to see what works for you best.
4. Finally, when you are done with setting up your background image, don’t forget to preview the changes, then if you are satisfied with the result, save them.

Using Images as Backgrounds

If you want to make your sliders look amazing, you can use background images to add depth and interest. Here are some tips to help you get the most out of them:

• Relevant images: Select images that match your content and message. Think about the color scheme, subject matter, and mood.

  
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• Stick to the same style throughout your slider. This will help create a consistent visual experience.

  
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• Text readability: Make sure that the text (and other slide elements) are easy to read against the background image.

  
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Experiment with Smart Slider 3’s editing features, like opacity and blur effect, to get the best results. By applying these tips, you can make your background images look amazing and captivating.

Choosing the Right Background Color for Images

The color of the background of your sliders can have a big impact on how people perceive your images. Let’s take a look at some things you need to know and some tips on how to choose the background color for your sliders.

Exploring Color Psychology

What is color psychology? Color psychology is the study of how emotions and perceptions are influenced by the color of the environment.

Here are some things to keep in mind when choosing the background color for your images:

• Warm Colors: Warm colors, such as red, orange, and yellow, evoke feelings of excitement, energy, and passion. These colors work well for images that are dynamic and vibrant, such as adventures and celebrations.
• Cool Colors: Cool colors, such as blue, green, and purple, evoke feelings of calm and serenity. These colors are great for images that show serenity, and nature.

  
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• Neutral Colors: Neutral colors, such as white, gray, and beige, provide a clean, minimalist background. These colors can be used for a variety of images. They are timeless and versatile.

  
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It’s important to note that everyone’s perception of color is different, so take into account the context and your target audience when selecting background colors for your images.

White or Black Background: Which is Better?

What’s the difference between a white background and a black background? It’s a never-ending discussion. Both have their advantages and disadvantages, but ultimately, it comes down to your content and what you want it to look like.

Here’s what you need to know about them:

• White Background: A white background looks clean and classic. It adds brightness and contrast to your images, making them look lively and interesting. It’s often used for product photography to highlight details.

  
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• Black Background: A black background adds depth and a dramatic effect to your images, especially for high-contrast or moody photos. They are commonly used in artistic and fashion photography.

  
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At the end of the day, it all comes down to the style and intent of your sliders and the images you want to emphasize.

Setting Custom Background Images

Smart Slider 3 has one of the most amazing features: the ability to customize your slider’s background images. This means that you can add your own unique style and branding to the sliders!

How to Set a Custom Background Image

Let’s look at how you can make it happen in Smart Slider 3:

1. Upload an image in either of the two ways we mentioned above (you can set the background for the whole slide, or individually). You can choose the image from your media library or upload a new one.
2. Once you upload the image, you have several options to adjust the display of the image. You can change the size, position, etc.
3. Always make sure to preview your changes, then if needed, make necessary adjustments. If you are done, save your design.

Making the Background Image Transparent

Sometimes you might want to make your background images transparent, allowing the content and other elements to seamlessly blend with the webpage. Smart Slider 3 makes this possible with a few simple steps:

1. Open the slide you want to edit, then in the Style tab find the “Background” section.
2. If you’ve already uploaded an image then you will easily find the Opacity option. On the other hand, if you haven’t yet, then that should be your next step.
3. You can either toggle the Opacity bar or write the value you would like to receive. This will make the background image transparent. To add an overlay, use a color with the opacity setting.
4. The same happens if you turn on “Overlay” and select a partially transparent background color.
5. Experiment with it and adjust it to your preferences, to find the perfect balance between readability and engaging visual effect.
6. Then finally, take a moment to preview your slide to make sure the transparent background looks exactly how you want it. Once you are happy with the effect, save your changes.

To create a one-of-a-kind experience for your viewers, customize your background images and experiment with the different effects Smart Slider 3 offers its users.

Conclusion

It’s time to take your sliders to the next level! And Smart Slider 3 is here to give you all the flexibility and creativity you need to make your background color and images stand out from the crowd.

Whether you are looking for a vibrant and colorful display, a clean and minimalistic look, or anything in between. You will find everything you need to take your vision to the next level. What’s more, it’s a powerful tool that can help you turn your ordinary sliders into extraordinary ones.

Why not download or try it out and see what it’s all about?

The post How to Use Background Color and Images in Smart Slider 3 appeared first on Smart Slider 3 — WordPress Plugin.

Making a difference between background images that are only aesthetic and those that have a purpose, we also discussed if alt tags are necessary for background images. Now we can conclude that while decorative background images don’t need alt tags, informative background images should have one. Besides, we went through methods for balancing accessibility and design.

Moreover, we looked into the step-by-step guide for precisely adding alt tags to background images in Smart Slider 3. By following the instructions, you can now make sure that background images also contribute to an inclusive user experience.

All things considered, you can make websites that are accessible to all users by implementing Smart Slider’s alt tags efficiently and following the best practices for writing alt text. It’s important to ensure that everyone has access to knowledge and experiences, keep in mind that web design accessibility is not an afterthought but a crucial element of the design process.

It’s time to put your newfound knowledge and useful insights from this post to use. Start including alt tags in all your web design projects, including those using Smart Slider 3. Let’s work together to build websites that embrace diversity and celebrate it, enabling everyone to navigate our digital world.

The post Alt Backgrounds: Why Alt Text Matters appeared first on Smart Slider 3 — WordPress Plugin.

Smart Slider templates

Of course one of the first places to go before starting your next project is our template page. We’ve got more than 100 sliders to browse for ideas. Additionally, you can import any of them and edit it to match your project.

Visit Smart Slider templates

Dribbble

Dibble is one of the best places to find and showcase creative work. You can find all kinds of content there from website layouts to product designs. So, you can be sure to find inspiration for your project.

Visit Dribbble

One Page Love

One Page Love is a website design gallery showcasing the best Single Page websites, templates and resources. What’s great about One Page Love is that you can only find website designs there that were actually developed by someone. So the inspiration you can find here is an actual website, not only an image file.

Visit One Page Love

Behance

Behance is a social media platform to showcase and discover creative work. Like on Dribbble, you can find much more than just website templates here. In fact, you can find illustrations, logo designs and digital drawings as well.

Visit Behance

2. Choose your color palette

After you get inspired for your project, it’s time to find a color palette. Choosing the right color can be easier if you’re a designer, but if you’re not, don’t worry. There are plenty of super cool sites which offer ready to use color palettes. All you need to do is choose the one you like the most.

Also, don’t forget to make sure it fits your project as well. Here are some of the best sites to choose a color palette for your slider.

Coolors

Coolors is a fast color palette generator. You can generate a new palette by pressing the space key on your keyboard. If you get a color you like, clicking on the lock icon on it will make it “stick”. So when you press space the selected color will not change, but you’ll get colors that match your selection.

Visit Coolors

Colormind

Colormind is a color scheme generator that uses AI to generate the perfect colors for you. It can learn color styles from photographs, movies, and popular art, which is really cool. You can lock colors you want and generate new colors instead of those you don’t.

Visit Colormind

Colorhunt

You can find hand-picked color palettes on Colorhunt. You can filter the palettes by category. For example, if you’re looking for something modern, you can look in the Pastel category. However, if you need attention-grabbing colors, you can have a look at the Neon color section.

Visit Colorhunt

3. Decide which font(s) you’ll use

Creating a slider is often a lot more than just putting images together. Although pictures say more than a thousand words, it’s always a good idea to add text to clarify your message. Obviously, you need captivating text for your visitors to enjoy. But it also matters how the texts look, so which font family or families to use.

These are our favorite resources to find font design ideas for the sliders we create.

Typewolf

Typewolf helps you choose a great looking Google Font for your website. Additionally, it shows fonts that look great with your selected font. In fact, it includes visual examples of why these fonts harmonize so nicely.

Visit Typewolf

100 days of fonts

100 days of fonts is a special project to design and code a creative showcase of a Google Font pairings for 100 days. It’s a great way to find great looking Google fonts and inspiration about how to use them in your project.

Visit 100 days of fonts

4. Select images and videos

Now that you know what you want to create, what colors and fonts to use, it’s time to pick images for your slider. Of course, it’s always best to use your own images on your website. But if that’s not possible, there’s nothing wrong with using stock photos. Here are our favorite design resources to find stock images and videos for your slider.

When you download a stock image, it usually has high quality and resolution. As a result, the image has a large file size. For this reason we recommend resizing the image before you upload it to your website. As a result, they won’t slow your site’s loading time down. You can also use Smart Slider’s built in optimization options to optimize the image size.

Pexel

Pexels is a free stock photo and video website that helps everyone who is looking for visuals. Their huge library includes both photos and videos you can download and use in your slider. So, it doesn’t matter what you’re trying to create, you can find great materials on Pexel.

Visit Pexel

Pixabay

Pixabay has over 2.5 million high quality stock images, videos and music. You can also find illustrations and vectors as well. So, it’s a great way to find slider design resources for your project.

Visit Pixabay

Unsplash

Unsplash helps you find beautiful, free images that you can download and use for any project. What’s cool about Unsplash is that they list the most popular image categories. As a result, you can browse pictures fast.

Visit Unsplash

Freepik

What makes Freepik stand out from the other resources is they don’t only offer images. In fact, they offer both hiqh-quality photos, vector images, illustrations and PSD files. So, Freepik is a great place to find slider design resources for everyone. Additionally, it has a huge library so you can surely find great images for your slider.

Visit Freepik

Mazwai

Mazwai is a resource for free stock videos. So, if you’d like to present a background video on your slider you’re in the best place. Although all videos you can find on Mazwai are free to use for any project, you must credit the author.

Visit Mazwai

5. Browse icons

Icons are easy to understand and can grab the attention of the visitor. Additionally, they help to sum up what your text is about. For this reason it’s worth using icons on your website. We love using icons in the slider templates when possible. These are the best resources to get great icons for your slider.

Flaticon

Flaticon has more than 6.5 million vector icons and stickers for your projects. Additionally, all icons are available in PNG, SVG, EPS, PSD and BASE 64 formats. So, you’ll surely find the icon that fits your project the most.

Visit Flaticon

Iconfinder

Iconfinder is an icon marketplace. In other words, there are some icons you can only access after payment. Of course, there are still tons of free icons to choose from. In fact, you can browse 216,774 icons for free! However, if you want to access all 6 million icons, you have two options. First, you can pay for only those icons you need. Alternatively you can buy a subscription and use any paid icons as part of your subscription.

Visit Iconfinder

Font Awesome

Font Awesome is one of the most popular font libraries. Additionally, it’s one of the font icons you can find in Smart Slider’s icon layer as well. So, integrating Font Awesome icons to your slider is super simple.

Visit Font Awesome

Conclusion

There are many awesome places where you can get inspiration or stock photos and videos for your slider. So, before you rush into the slider creation, take a step back. Look for inspiration, find great colors, font families and images for your slider. To help you work faster, we’ve listed our favorite design resources to create sliders. Feel free to go through the checklist when you start your next project!

The post Where to Find the Best Design Resources for Creating a Slider? appeared first on Smart Slider 3 — WordPress Plugin.

How to add images to your slider?

Smart Slider 3 fits perfectly to your WordPress powered site. As a result, you can add images to your slider from the WordPress Media Library. Each slide you create has its own background image. This lets you create amazing transition effects when the slide switches. By picking a different image for each slide, the slides can tell different stories.

With Smart Slider 3, you can not only set a background for each slide, but to the slider as well. A slider background image is behind all slides in the slider, which means it won’t change when the slide does. As a result, the image stays static in the background, while the other slides move on top of it. You can find the option at Slider settings → General tab, below Simple slider type – Settings. That’s how the result will look:

How does the slider decide on the way it displays the images?

When you set a background image on your computer, you can choose how it fits to the screen. Smart Slider 3 does the same with the slide background fill modes. The background fill mode of the image tells the slider how it should display the picture. For example, the slider might crop the image to make it cover the whole slider.

To avoid cropping problems, make sure that your slider and image sizes match. Of course, if you create a full screen slider, the images will be cropped on certain resolutions.

Slider image fill modes explained

Smart Slider 3 has 6 available fill modes, which you can set for each slide in the slider. Of course, you can change it for each particular slide as well. Let’s see how each mode works!

• Fill: This is the default mode for the slider. It crops the image, if needed, to make it cover the whole slider.
• Fit: This mode displays the full image without cropping. The parts where the image can’t reach the slider remain empty.
• Blur fit: Like fit mode, blur fit doesn’t crop the image. Unlike the fit mode, blur fit does not leave empty space in the slider. As a matter of fact, it fills them with the blurred version of the original image.
• Stretch: This mode makes the images cover the slider without cropping them. As a result, the images often end up distorted. Use with caution!
• Center: Despite the popular belief, this mode won’t make the slider centered. It simply puts the background image in its original size to the background. As a result, this fill mode loses its responsive behavior.

Here’s a video where you can see an example for every mode. I grabbed this image from Pixabay and chose 1280x720px size. After that, I created a new slider which has 1200x500px size. To illustrate the tile mode better, I used 640x360px image at its slide. In the video, I’ll show how each mode handles the image in the preview’s default desktop, tablet and mobile view.

Mobile and tablet optimization: create optimized images

In the Pro version of Smart Slider 3 you can convert your background and layer images to WebP format and generate small version of your images for smaller screens. As a result your mobile visitors won’t have to load an 1920px wide image for their small screens, but you can make them load, for example, a 500px wide image instead. To resize your images go to Slider settings ￫ Optimize tab and enable Convert to WebP then Resize.

Other background types in Smart Slider 3

Smart Slider 3 is a versatile slider plugin that allows you to create content rich sliders. That is why you aren’t limited to add nothing else but images to your slider. As a matter of fact, Smart Slider 3 Pro lets you set a slide background video instead. You can select an MP4 video from your WordPress Media Library. If the video is in an external source, you can just copy the URL to the video field.

Depending on what you want to create, it can make sense not to use any background image or video. In that case, you can select a simple color as background. By not choosing a background image, you can move the focus towards the content of the slide. This is useful, for instance, when you create hero sliders. The best part about background colors is that they’re available in the free version of Smart Slider 3 as well.

How to create a background overlay?

The overlay is useful to increase contrast between the text and the background. To create an overlay, first pick a background color. After that, lower the opacity of the image or video. As a result, you’ll see the color in the background, and the semi-transparent image or video above it.

If you need the image to be crystal clear with zero transparency, there’s another approach you can try. First, pick a background color and adjust its opacity. Second, turn on the Overlay option right next to it. This makes the color appear on top of the image or video, instead of being under it. In other words, the image or video will be in the background, and the semi-transparent color above it.

Conclusion

The best slider images are the ones that match your brand and make you look professional. That’s why you need to carefully select them for your beautiful sliders. You don’t always need background images though. Instead of an image, feel free to use a video background, as it can help a lot to strengthen your message.

The post Everything You Need to Know About Slider Images appeared first on Smart Slider 3 — WordPress Plugin.

Caching plugin

Caching plugins can help to decrease the loading time of your WordPress photography website. Speed can be a critical part of every website, and if you work with images, it is much more important. If your site loads slowly you can lose your visitors, so you should take care of the performance.

WP Rocket is one of the best caching plugins. It makes your website load fast,it is simple, user friendly, and compatible with the most themes and plugins. It is a premium WordPress caching plugin with three payment plans offered. The plugin offers a simple user interface, and makes your site really fast. You should set it properly, but they have a lot of documentation which can help you where to start.

SEO plugin

SEO is an important factor in a website, if you want the search engines and people to find your website. Don’t be afraid to use an SEO plugin which helps you to use a keyword correctly, and gives you advice on what you should change.

Yoast SEO is the most popular SEO plugin which you can use for free. It lets you easily add SEO titles to your post and pages, you can define a keyword, and also you can write a meta description which will appear below your title in Google. Yoast SEO automatically generates a sitemap which helps search engines to find your WordPress photography website.

Contact form

If you have a website, it is important to add the opportunity for the visitors to contact you. You can add your email address, but if you want to make it more professional, then you can use a contact form plugin. Contact forms has a lot of extra features which you can use, and they are reliable, so you will get the email.

I can highlight Contact form 7 from the contact form plugins because it is a really great and easy to use plugin with 5 Million active installs. Even a beginner can customize their own form, you don’t need any coding skills.

How to display photos on your website?

You can encounter several ways to display images on Photography websites. Image grids, fullscreen images, sliders, gallery templates. They can cheer up your website, and can show your images in different views. But how can you display them? It depends on 2 things: how much images you have and which mode you prefer.

In the past few years there have been some popular trends of how you can display your images. Let’s see them!

Slider

With a slider you can display your images and this is a popular way to showcase your work. But it is also important to always give control to your visitor. If you have an autoplaying slider, make sure that your visitors can stop it and check your images more carefully. A slider can be full width or full page, but you can use a boxed layout which will be as big as the container where the slider is. You can feature images and use it as a header, too.

Photo grid

Photo grid is the most used type of displaying your photos. You can display predefined number of photos, and can add a “more button” to your other photos, or if your design lets you, you can set an infinite scroll for your images. But it is useful to set a category, and the visitors can choose which category they want to see.

Fullscreen images

With a fullscreen image you can show your photo in a good quality, and call the visitors’ and potential customers’ attention. You can use a full screen photo at your homepage, where you can put CTAs which you can navigate to useful parts of your WordPress photography blog.

Carousel

If you have a lot of images, the best way is if you try to save space on your website. Carousels can show more slides next to one another at the same time. It can be useful to show your portfolio in a small place.

Thumbnail gallery

A thumbnail gallery can show a small preview of your photos, so you can check their preview, and if you want to show it in a bigger size, then you can just click on it.

Masonry

Nowadays you can encounter the popular masonry style on a lot of websites. This card design is similar to the photo grid, it lets you display a large number of photos that users can see. In some designs you can add a short title, brief description and a CTA below your image, which helps to navigate the visitor to the page of the actual image.

Useful effects what you can use on your photography page

Animations and effects can cheer up your website and you can grab your visitors’ attention with them. An animation can help to focus on something, like an image or a CTA button. On a photography page you can encounter lots of effects, let’s see the best ones.

Ken burns: The Ken burns effect is a popular zooming effect, it turns a still image into a motion picture. It looks good in a hero image or a header, it grabs the visitors attention, and makes your website live.

Parallax: You can encounter the parallax effect on more and more WordPress photography websites. The effect creates the illusion of depth when you scroll on the page. It makes a great user experience, and cheers up your website, and makes it special.

Change image on hover: A hover effect can show your visitor that something will happen if they click on the image. This can be an actual CTA, but it can be just a simple information which appears to hover like a description of the image.

Before & After: Before & after effect is useful if you want to visualise that something changed before and after a given state.

Open image in lightbox: On most of the websites you can encounter photo galleries where you can enlarge the images in a lightbox. Lightboxes can help to focus on one image, and you can check the images in a bigger size.

Tips & tricks for creating a photography website

If you are thinking of creating a new website for your photos, check out these few tips & tricks, which can be useful for you, and which can make your website more powerful.

1. Always fill the image alt tags

Image alt tags help the search engines to index your images. It is important, because if you fill the alt tag correctly, the visitors can find your website easier.

2. Use readable image filenames

You should take care of the filename of the photo because of SEO reasons as the alt tags. A relevant name is much better than a generic one. For example, if you add an image which shows a golden retriever, don’t use the generic name like DSC1234.jpg because the search engines can’t find it. Instead of that, you can add a name like Golden_Retriever.jpg, and with that you can increase the chance that visitors will find your images.

3. How to put watermark on your images?

If you want to display your images, maybe you want to protect them. The best is if you watermark them. That can be done one by one with your photo editor, but you can use a plugin for that.

4. Provide options to purchase your photos

If you want to sell your images, and you have a WordPress website, you can use an ecommerce plugin like Woocommerce where you can easily set up the prices and the payment.

5. Resize your images before uploading

If you upload your original photo, you give access to your photo for the whole web. In addition, they are too big, and can slow down your website’s loading speed. Resize your images, and then upload them into your WordPress media library.

6. Don’t ignore the updates

Always take care of the updates at a plugin or at your theme, because they are important for security reasons, and the update can have bug fixes, too.

Final Thoughts

Creating a website isn’t simple, but a good choice CMS like WordPress, and great plugins and themes can make the whole building process easier. You can make your own work much simpler if you plan, what you would like to achieve. Check out a few WordPress Photography pages, collect ideas, watch tutorial videos, and then you will see it isn’t as hard as you thought for the first time.

The post Everything You Should Know to Create a WordPress Photography Website appeared first on Smart Slider 3 — WordPress Plugin.