The Title Of An Image

I avoid phantasy names. That´s easy for me, because my pictures have a clear subject. I think it´s much more difficult, if you are an abstract artist.

More important than people think

Clever titles are probably good for dinner conversation but for search I doubt it helps to have something obtuse.

Street photographs with titles like "Looks like someone needs a dentist" turns me off.

A title like "Car Engine" is not going to be as good as including the specifics.

While working for the newspaper I gained a great respect for Headline writers. It is indeed an art in and of itself.

I relate the title to an artwork to a headline in a newspaper. I believe it is an art in and of itself. I wish I was more talented in this respect but I also believe I am not too bad.

And yes, I believe a good title is certainly important.

A short “snappy”---or more importantly; a thought provoking---title that offers a bit of a description is best.

I feel a title is important as to grab attention, the image then takes the viewer for the ride.
I agree with Walter's fine comment.

how important is the title of a book?
how important is the title of a story in a newspaper?

its as important as anything else. if it sounds dry and boring, not many will go to see it. everything is important - the story that goes with it, the image itself, and the title. descriptive titles should only be used if you can't think of anything creative.

Moby Dick sounds more interesting than - Crazy guy hunting a whale.

titles can make the difference (you won't lose a sale to it i don't think), but to attract attention, a good title is a good idea. it also allows the user one step into figuring out what they are looking at. it shouldn't be self explanatory.


---Mike Savad

There limits -- If the title is going to be flowery and dramatic the image better live up to the hype. We always learned to "exceed expectations" in sales.

Calling something "The Most Amazing Thing You'll Ever See" might be counter productive. Or calling a photograph of a car engine "The Wonders of Internal Combustion" probably won't sell it.

I agree, by no means should the title overpower or compete with the image, the image should be able to support itself on its own merit.

I regularly use just the basic title and put numbers on the subsequent versions. Like "Dead Birch 1", "Dead Birch 2". Short and to the point and more importantly to me (I think) if someone searches for something specific, they won't find the image if I call it "Opus 22". On the other hand, sometimes an image says something to me like a photo of two wood knots I posted a couple of weeks ago, that I titled "I am thinking" because it looked like the face of someone who was considering what to say. I don't do that very often, though. People have told me my titles are boring. If someone can find the image and they like it, I don't care how boring the title is. If they can't find it, they won't buy it.

Creative titles are super important, but sometimes titling the piece by just giving the location and what the subject is, works too especially for google searches. We do both. We have one very popular best-seller that has a creative title and gives the viewer an instant mood and feeling for the image. It is a beautiful image but the title is the icing on the cake and we feel that it does swing the art patron to purchase the piece. The image must move the viewer in some way for the piece to sell, whether it is the colors or the subject but the title can definitely help to swing the mood...
Celebrate life, Debra and Dave

We all enjoyed the playful title back in the day.
That was last year, & then Google changed their search.

So now its like "Black Lab dog standing in Winter white Snow ".

It does not satisfy me, but either does not selling. So I will title as I expect people will search.

But you know.... I am thinking for title here & keywords... We could always have a separate (Real) title in addition in our description box.
A good title to me is very much a part of the piece.

I'm a diehard fan of creative titles. I can be as whimsical, mysterious, dramatic, humorous, etc., as I please with my titles -- and save the SEO stuff for keywords, descriptions, and other text on the page.

For me, Janine's "Black Lab dog standing in Winter white Snow" would quickly become something like "Rover Enjoys a Snow Day". Most of us remember the excitement of a 'snow day', when we were out of school and could play outside all day, instead. I think that resonates with people. :-)

Those other, more SEO-friendly words would become part of my description, instead -- which will still show up in a Google search.

I consider titles to be an integral part of the story I'm sharing with my viewer . . . not an aside to that story. Also, when showing in the 'real world' intriguing titles are awesome conversation starters, which often leads to a sale!

Very important. I think it is the last "step" in a painting or photograph.

I take so much time thinking of a good title and description for my art. It tells the viewer what I as the artist was feeling at the time.
As far as sales go, I think it helps tremendously. Just my thoughts. :)

"------------------" __________,__________,______.

I have achieved high Google ranking with descriptive titles. I have the sales and money and client contacts to go along with that. (also my mortgaged home in Florida with no pool). I used descriptive titles on my work before Google even existed and it was by chance I discovered my search ranking was high after getting e-mails requesting licensing. I applied this later in stock and drove my own traffic to my stock site when everyone else was still guessing if it worked. I applied it here and got sales from the first 2 weeks. But you can all have your own pet theories.

Oh, Tony . . . always so cryptic! ;-)

Thanks for all the replies.It seems that everyone agrees the title is important.
Am I right then in thinking that the title plays the support to the artwork as I first look at an image and then read the title.
If I don't like the artwork then usualy I don't get as far as reading the title.
What do you look at first the title or the artwork.

Certainly after reading the replies I'm going to pay more attention to the titles and will look at the ones I have.
Thanks again for your help.it's always appreciated

it depends how they found you. if it's by search in google, then they see that first. if they are on here, i think they will see the image then look for a reference which is the title. it's a starting point. and i'll see it the same way, though i'm picture oriented, so i'll always see the image first... except when i'm going through their images, then i will see the title first. and i know if the title is way too short or kind of stupid - so will the image, or its stolen. so it might be a girl and a ball, and the title will be girl. or it's a yellow backdrop, and there are mountains and a lake, and the title would be yellow. it shows me that they didn't take the time to even write a good title, they probably didn't do the same with the art - and i'm usually correct.

---Mike Savad

One more thing is that long titles get cut off sometimes here and also the caps bug makes you look illiterate as caps become small letters in long titles. So my priority is descriptive, then short , then catchy, then poetic or humorous. If I can get all that it's great. The hard part for me is coming up with new names for the same subject.I avoid numbering schemes. An exact match on what someone is searching for and your title is golden. If you use inside jargon or slang you can target market.

For me, the capitalization and punctuation is a problem. My workaround is to add the correct title, with appropriate punctuation and caps, to my description. At least, that way, I know a viewer won't think I'm just grammatically unsound. ;-)

yeah i hate the capital thing and the lack of commas - (at least it can remove them if it can warn me about them), but i would like those in there. other sites can handle that. but seeing things like Nj or Usa Or Every Word Capitalized, just looks a bit silly.

new names drive me nuts. some pop into my head, some i have ready for a picture and others i just stare and the screen with a bit of drool, duh.... i have no idea what to call it. that usually happens with flowers, and images that i have a ton of already.

---Mike Savad

I simply use popular (mostly anyway) song names as titles for my photographs. I shoot for something that sort of matches the subject of the photographs, but also personally means something to me.

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I like a clever title. I also see titles that seem to be trying to be clever, but aren't.

I like a title that is clever AND describes the subject. A title that adds to the image. Not always easy.