Singles Dating Sites

Online Dating Profile Picture Tips

By Melanie on April 28th, 2011

The text part of your online dating profile might be the most exciting and interesting in the entire online dating site you have registered at; however, if you fail to post a profile picture, you will not attract as much attention as deserve. The first impression always counts irrespective whether you are meeting someone online or offline. Your profile photo, therefore, should be almost as good as or even better than the rest of your profile, illustrating what and who you are and giving prospective partners a very good idea of what to expect when they meet you.

OkCupid.com Study

The people at OkCupid.com studied more than 7000 profile photographs posted on OkCupid.com in a bid to identify the most popular shots. According to their study, women tend to smile and make flirty faces much more than men do; however, if they do it away from the camera, they will not get that second look. If you are woman, smile into the camera and not away from it. Men, on the other hand, attract more attention from the fairer sex if they avoid smiling and look away from the camera. This could be because women love mystery in men and enjoy guessing what he might be looking at.

Cleavage and abs shots are equally popular. If you are a man with a great body, you had better remove your shirt before clicking your dating profile picture. However, if you haven’t been taking care of yourself recently, you had better keep your shirt on. It just depends on the quality of your abs and whether they are really capable of attracting messages from charming singles. The same goes for cleavage shots. It is a commonly known fact that older women get fewer messages than younger women; however, a 32-year-old who has posted her cleavage shot will get only one message less than the average 18-year-old does in a month. Cleavage shots, therefore, do attract attention.

Technical Issues Count

Ensure that the photo you are about to post as your dating profile photo is of top quality. This means that it should not be cloudy, dark, low-resolution, or blurred—it should be bright, sharp, and clear. Using a tripod, shooting in continuous mode, using high quality lenses, and so on are just a few ways to take a good photograph. Once you have a really good photograph, you can use Photoshop to make it awesome.

Cropping

A huge majority of singles at online dating sites are not aware of the importance of cropping one’s photograph before posting it online. If you want to look really great in your profile photograph, you must first find out the technical aspects of posting profile pictures.

When you upload a photograph that is either too large or too tiny, the online dating service will present it in weird ways. You can find out the ideal dimensions and formats easily. Just right click on an already posted profile picture and click on the “view image info.” You will get all the information regarding the image and will be able to crop your image accordingly.

Spicing Up Your Picture

Once you have chosen your profile photo and have cropped it to the proper dimension, you can spice it up to make it look more attractive. You don’t need to be an expert to touch up a photo; you simply need to know the basics of Photoshop or how to use sites like Piknik. Alternatively, you can get the help of a professional or a friend who understands the subject well. For instance, the lomographic effect makes pictures look fresh, bright, and colorful while the Sketch appearance makes it look unique.

General Tips

Here are some general tips to help you. Your profile photograph should be your photograph; don’t post a photograph of you with your spouse, business logo, car, dog, and so on. You can post these as secondary pictures. Your profile photograph should not be a group photograph; other users are not interested in playing guessing games.

Your dating profile photo should be bright, sharp, and close-up—so close that people can see the white of your eyes. As far as possible, avoid photographs taken from a long distance. Your photo should show your head and shoulders clearly.

Post the latest photo of you as a dating profile picture. If someone gets interested in you and wants to meet you, he/she should recognize you as soon as he/she sees you. Otherwise, your first meeting will turn out to be a disaster. If you are using multiple dating sites, use the same pictures in all your dating profiles.

 

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