Section Goals

This book is about persuasion. More importantly, it’s about specific techniques we can use to persuade others. At the heart of everything we do is the goal of attracting and capturing the eye of the viewer. The Six Priorities remain a critically important tool to determining which element in our design will attract the eye first, then second, then third.

So far, we’ve covered a lot of theory; now we put that theory into practice by looking at still images. Starting with the simplest of stills, a business presentation, we expand from that into photography, image editing, and, finally, creating images that can’t be recorded by a camera.

The chapters in this section are:

•    Chapter 6: Persuasive Presentations. How to make a persuasive presentation and avoid “death by PowerPoint.”

•    Chapter 7: Persuasive Photos. How to take photographs that tell a story.

•    Chapter 8: Edit and Repair Still Images. How to edit and repair images.

•    Chapter 9: Create Composite Images. How to create images using compositing techniques.

Four Fundamental Themes

•    Persuasion is a choice we ask each individual viewer to make.

•    To deliver our message, we must first attract and hold a viewer’s attention.

•    For greatest effect, a persuasive message must contain a cogent story, delivered with emotion, targeted at a specific audience, and end with a clear Call to Action.

•    The Six Priorities and the Rule of Thirds provide guidelines we can use to effectively capture and retain the eye of the viewer.

The Six Priorities

These determine where the eye looks first in an image:

1. Movement

2. Focus

3. Difference

4. Brighter

5. Bigger

6. In front