Photo Invitations - The Ten Best Ways to Mess Up
Photo Invitations are the easy way to make custom wedding invitations. They are simple and deliver a quick, easy to interpret message. But sometimes they are just plain boring and say nothing about the people behind the invitation. Here are ten ways to really make your photo invitations not work for you:
10. A photo of an abstract object. Okay, we know you are trying to be artistic and what not, but sending people photo invitations of any nature with some abstract photo that says nothing about anything is not very personalized and does not really deliver the message.
9. Cheesy Photoshopped invitations. This may be the other extreme. Too much customization can become cheesy, especially when people first learn how to use Photoshop. For instance, overuse of a "green screen" effect to place people in different locations or using text to create dialogue boxes for those photographed can greatly reduce the quality of photo invitations.
8. Pixilated photos. This usually occurs when printing photo invitations at home. Photos should always have a resolution of 300 pixels per square inch. If printing a photo from a camera phone or other low-quality imaging device this is sure to happen. No one wants pixilated photo invitations. It may be funny when your eyes are represented by two black squares, but those invited may not decide to show up when they see that.
7. Stock photos. The first time I received one of these I was bluffed. It came in the form of a baby birthday party photo invitation. I thought, "Wow, what a perfect baby looking baby … and what a great photo." The photo turned out to be a stock photo – exactly what it looked like. The baby was no where nearly as cute as the one on the invitation.
6. Extremely Photoshopped photo invitations. It is okay to cover up a few blemishes and touch up the color on some photos, get rid of some red eye, etc., but do so in moderation. Do not smooth things out to so much that your photo invite looks like you are coming out from the mist under some heavenly glow. That says "cheesy" all over it and is annoying to people who know what you really look like. Be real, be yourself in your photo invitations
5. Red eye photos. This is worse than doing too much Photoshopping because it shows that not only did you pick a bad photo where you look like your eyes are glowing, but also you did not even take a minute to fix it up.
4. Photo invitations printed out while you were running out of ink on your printer. So you are going to do the printing job yourself, but then your ink jet runs out of juice. Either get new cartridges or stop printing. It is shameful to send out photo invitations that either discolored, or have lines down them, clear signs of lack of printer ink.
3. Text-covering-your-face invitations. It's fine to put text in your photo invitations, just make sure it is not covering up someone's face. That will just make for a great joke photo invitation.
2. Invitations printed out on bad paper. If you are printing your own photo invitations, pick high-quality photo invitations paper. There is almost nothing worse than getting a flimsy photo invitation with ink bleeding all over the place and see through effects that cause eye trouble.
1. Headshot photo invitations. This may seem like a freak incident, but these do exist. I do not mean professional headshots, I mean like those that you take for your driver's license. I was invited to a couple's engagement party with a photo invitation that had their two photos, that both looked like they may have been mug shots taken in jail. If these are really the only two photos that exist of these people that you wish you feature on your photo invitation then simply revert to the 10th worst option on this list, which is to use an abstract photo for the invitations. At least then, people might show up to your event.