Colour-wash overlay over images

Selected answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Facebook & G+ community.

• 
  Unique Websites: I've just read Google's guidelines that state:
  
  "Many websites show interstitials or overlays that partially or completely cover the contents of the page the user is visiting. These interstitials, commonly seen on mobile devices promoting a website’s native app, mailing list sign-up forms, or advertisements, can make for a bad user experience."
  
  Presumably it's still OK to have colour-wash overlays over individual images? (On hover the colour-wash overlays disappear, but they tie images together into a single colour-scheme and can make the overall site look better.)
  
  Google link = https: // developers.google.com/webmasters/mobile-sites/mobile-seo/common-mistakes#mobile-only-404s
  
  Note - I don't think Google SHOULD be targeting this (it leads to the website looking better, therefore a better user experience) - just wondered if a colour-wash overlay over images could get caught up in their algorithm??
• 
  Suraj Gadage: +United Nations ;According to Google, interstitials (of any nature) are not a good experience for users and Google doesn’t like it. Google made this statement based on a case study (http://goo.gl/gTsd1m) of how Google+ used App Interstitials to promote users to download the Google+ app. And later they decided to drop the App Interstitial because it didn't lead to any significant improvement in app downloads, but did lead to a much higher web page abandoned rate.
  
  In your case even if you have colour-wash overlay that would disappear after hovering mouse cursor, please note that Google will log it as a mobile usability issue. But I wouldn't really worry about it. I will try to see if Interstitials impacts the user experience on my website or not by doing an AB testing.
  
  Hope this helps!
• 
  Unique Websites: Many thanks +Suraj Gadage ;- my customers actually really like the image overlays as it makes the website looks better and more cohesive; my questions was really whether this could - unintentionally - trip an algorithm and get them penalised.
• 
  Suraj Gadage: +Unique Websites ;as I mentioned in my comment Google will just log it as mobile usability issue. Don't worry you won't be penalized for that :)
• 
  Jim Munro: From the expert panel in this week's SEO Questions hangout on air on 00:33:46 into the YouTube video: https://dumbseoquestions.com/q/colourwash_overlay_over_images +Unique Websites
  
  If our answers were useful to you, please consider assisting us with any or all of the following:
  
  Check our Facebook Page here: https://www.facebook.com/dumbseoquestions/
  
  Please add your G+ review here: https://www.google.com/search?q=Dumb%20SEO%20Questions&ludocid=1541347987741926815#lrd=0x0:0x1563f7d4149ee59f,+1
  
  Please subscribe to our Youtube channnel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCC5ZteEQigCzE-SZkbTMnQ?sub_confirmation=1
  
  Follow our Twitter account here: https://twitter.com/intent/user?screen_name=DumbSeoQs
  
• 
  Unique Websites: Many thanks to the panel.