Good images for articles do more than break up blocks of text. They can establish context, show something that words struggle to explain, introduce a place or person, provide evidence and help carry a reader through a story.
This section looks at the practical decisions involved in article photography: which images to choose, how many an article actually needs, where photographs should appear and what roles lead and supporting images should play.
We also examine a question that’s easy to overlook when publishing: does this photograph genuinely add something to the article? If an image isn’t helping the reader understand, experience or navigate the story, it may not need to be there.
Most pages don’t suffer from bad photos — they suffer from unclear visual roles. This guide explains how to use lead vs supporting images to control hierarchy, reduce visual noise, and make pages easier to scan, understand, and trust.