What are the best practices for using images in your designs?

For context:

I typically design at one extreme (simple, utilitarian) or the other (I'd simply call it "arty" but for sake of example, something like an artists site where the content is to be consumed and not interacted with or manipulated). Projects where we might not care to be mobile or user friendly.

For sites where a lot of visitor interaction is expected, I generally refrain as much as I possibly can from using images outside of absolute necessity. Things like a logo in a header and the like.

I find myself inspired to buck that trend for a project I have in my lap, using highly textured images and handwritten buttons. I expect to use rather large images to get the effect I want as making small, repeatable patterns didn't seem to work. There would essentially be a custom image for a background and a heading for every section within the body. For what amounts to a news site/blog there's never that amount of images in the average design.

I may be overthinking it but I'm unsure of the best ways to do this. Or at least in the least ugliest manner possible.

Epic visual tool

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