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A player's image is how he is perceived by his opponents. It's his perceived poker strategy and consists of a short-term and a long-term component. The long-term component, a player's perceived regular style of play, is what is shown in heads-up displays, while the short-term component is how a player has been playing the last few rounds.
At the lower stakes, many of the regulars play lots of tables (9+) at the same time. They will not notice or remember too many things about how you play, except for something obvious. But as you move to higher stakes, the regulars start paying more and more attention to their tables and the player pool gets smaller. That is you see the same regulars over and over, and most everyone will become familiar with your game. In other words, you will develop a long-term image with these regulars, and will also get an impression of how they play.
As stated above, your short-term image is how you have acted resently. It consists of all the specific plays that you have made which your opponents can remember, particularly those against them. This could include a lot of recent pre-flop raises, or you might have three-bet a specific player every time he raised (in the last few rounds). Many of your opponents will notice these things and they might get annoyed and start playing back.
Our goal is to be aware of our image, both long- and short-term, and to manipulate it to our advantage. Since we cannot really manipulate our long-term image (without actually changing our strategy, which would defy the entire manipulation in the first place), we will focus on manipulating what we do in the short-term.
Just like we could manipulate our perceived range, we can also manipulate our image. Where manipulating our perceived range had an effect for one hand, manipulating our image has an effect that can last multiple hands. This means that our goal is to create an image for ourselves that maximizes our opponent mistakes against our actual strategy.
By pretending for some time to play one way and then playing another way, our opponents' strategies will hopefully lag behind, allowing us to exploit their adjustments. For instance we can let our pre-flop strategy fluctuate between playing tight and playing loose, or we can three-bet an opponent three times in a row, and then play tighter again.
We can manipulate our image by being more or less aggressive in certain spots, by going to the showdown with marginal hands, or by showing our cards when we win a pot by bluffing. However, it's best to be careful with voluntarily giving information away, even if it's a trap. Our opponent might figure out why we are showing our hand and adjust properly.
Also, when your cards are shown after you have bluffed, you do not only show them your bluff, but your opponents also see exactly how you played the rest of the hand. So even if showing your bluff makes them believe what you want them to, you are trading some of your long-term edge for a short-term advantage.
It's also possible that your image in certain situations influences your image in other spots. For example, if you are temporarily playing an aggressive pre-flop game by three-betting certain people light, your opponents might automatically think you are also aggressive post-flop and start adjusting to that perceived looseness too. If you have folded to someone's last few three-bets, this opponent might assume he can push you around on the flop and raise all of your continuation-bets.
In other words, when you have three-bet someone several times in the last few hands and are now in a post-flop pot against him, he will probably think that your post-flop strategy is similarly aggressive. Exploit this by playing extra aggressive with strong hands (don't slow-play), and by playing more passively with weak hands.
The key thing is to constantly be aware of your image as seen by every player at the table, and to think about how you can change this image so that your opponents play worse against you. Of course, some players will adjust more to information you give them than others. And someone who's sixteen-tabling is less likely to notice that you have three-bet them the last five times they raised than somebody who's four-tabling. In addition, some players, and this can include a few of those who play only four tables, play a very solid, consistent strategy, and will not adjust to you at all. So try to find out who you can manipulate and get creative against them.
