It is said that "a picture is worth a thousand words". What strikes me about this is that it also says you can use words to describe a picture. My favorite thing about writing is that you can make an entire world with just words, and description is half of this world.
But there's a way to get your picture across clearly, to portray what you have in mind. It's important you do this, and a major part of writing.
First, my favorite thing to do is to imagine the object. If you can, look at it. Let's use an apple as an example.
Now, come up with a few basic adjectives using all of your different senses. For example, red, smooth and round. Now many times this will do, but if you're writing something formal, or if you're writing creatively, we need to make these adjectives better.
First, my favorite thing to do is to imagine the objesct. If you can, look at it. Let's use an apple as an example: ruby, polished, round, and glassy. Personally, I think round is good enough, and I added glassy because it too fits the description.
Finally, we will use simile and metaphors to really get our point across. This is good for creative writing, though you don't have to do that for all objects. Think of objects that look, feel, smell, or taste the same way as the object you wish to describe. For example, an apple has a similar texture to a glass ornament. It's very fun to go in depth with this, and to come up with random objects that still fit, such as "a glass chandelier". Now, you're picturing a glass chandelier, and comparing the texture and smoothness to glass.
And so, our apple has become "A polished, round apple with a glassy apperance and ruby color, resembling the texture of a glass chandelier"
But that's just a single object. What about an entire scene. Take this image:
It looks simple, but there are so many intricate details to this scene. Again, you want to portray as accurate of a picture as possible to your readers.
For this, we have to split the scene into various objects/areas. For me, I see the waves. the reflections of the sun, the mountains in the background, and that ship object in the distance. So, now, we can use the same steps above.
The waves become "deep blue, rippling waves". The sun's reflections become "yellow sunlight refracting like a cracked lightbulb". The mountains in the background are now "silhouettes of large peaks poking at the sky". The ship can simply just be a ship riding on the waves.
Remember not to overuse descriptions, since no one wants to read a story of just only descriptions. A good rule of thumb is to only describe things that are important. Say, if that ship in the background is where the main character is trying to raid in a pirate adventure story, then describe the ship with two to three sentences. But if the mountains are important, you can just leave it as "a ship", and describe the mountains much more. .
And so, with this knowledge this scene told from the eyes of a character from this view is:
"Deep blue waves rippled and lapped against me, the sunlight refracting through the surface like a cracked lightbulb. Far away, large peaks of a mountain poked at the sky. I could see a ship in the distance, riding the waves."
Description is a powerful tool for any writer, and these techniques are great to make your writing so much more interesting.
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