Wikipedia:Images

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

✔ This page documents an English Wikipedia editing guideline. It is a generally accepted standard that editors should follow, though it should be treated with common sense and the occasional exception. When editing this page, please ensure that your revision reflects consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page.
Shortcuts:
WP:IMAGE
WP:IMAGES
You may be looking for Wikipedia:Image use policy.
Example image caption
Example image caption

Wikipedia contains millions of illustrative images and other media. This page gives a very brief overview of how images are used in Wikipedia. More information on including images can be found at Help:Images and other uploaded files.

Contents

[edit] Image preferences

Logged in users can set the size of thumbnails they want in special:preferences under "files". The default, used by those not logged in, is 180 pixels. Logged in users can choose from widths of 120px, 150px, 180px, 200px, 250px or 300px.

Also under files in special:preferences you can set the size limit of images shown on image description pages. By default, if either the width or the height exceeds 800px or 600px respectively, then the image is reduced in size until it fits within those dimensions. You can choose from sizes of 320x240px, 640x480px, 800x600px, 1024x768px, 1280x1024px, or 10000x10000px. The last will effectively display all images at 100% resolution.

[edit] Using images

Main article: Wikipedia:Extended image syntax
See also Embedding Wikicommons' media in Wikipedia articles

Images uploaded to Wikipedia are automatically placed into the image namespace, a namespace of Wikipedia. This means that image page names start with the prefix "Image:". To incorporate your image into an article you need to use the image markup. As an example in its simplest form, to reproduce the image at the top of this page insert the following text into an article:

[[Image:Example.png|thumb|right|Example image caption]]

Where the image is called Example.png. Using "thumb" forces the creation of a thumbnail; replace "Example image caption" with a suitable caption.

The full set of options is more complex — see Wikipedia:Extended image syntax — but the vast majority of images should be displayed in the above format.

Images on external sites can no longer be linked inline to be publicized on Wikipedia. This is due to several reasons:

  • inline linking to images on other sites is often considered "leeching" and is thus rude
  • allowing inline image linking makes it easier for vandals to post images from shock sites
  • allowing inline image linking makes it easier to introduce copyrighted images in Wikipedia.
  • external images are often unreliable

Instead, to place an image on Wikipedia, you will need to upload it.

[edit] Forced image size

See Image use policy: Displayed image size and Manual of Style: Images

[edit] Obtaining images

All images on Wikipedia must comply with the image use policy. This means that they must be compatible with the conditions of the GNU Free Documentation License. In particular, images must be free for commercial use and alteration. Some fair use of copyrighted material is, however, allowed in limited circumstances.

[edit] Making images yourself

For information on digitally creating drawings & diagrams, see Wikipedia:Graphics tutorials.

You can take a photograph with your digital camera, mobile phone with integrated digital camera, draw an image digitally, perhaps with a graphics tablet, graphs drawn from your scientific simulations, or scan drawings or photos taken with a film camera and upload the image.

[edit] Finding images on the Internet

An extensive list of free image resources by topic is at Wikipedia:Public domain image resources. Useful general purpose image search engines include Google Image Search, Picsearch and YotoPhoto. Flickr has a Creative Commons section at http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons. Images with Attribution and Attribution-ShareAlike may be used on Wikipedia subject to the licence terms.

The Wikimedia Toolserver has a Free Image Search Tool (FIST) which automatically culls free images from Flickr, other Wikimedia projects and a few other sites; this may be an easy way to find them.

If you find an image on the Internet that is not available freely, you can email the copyright owner and also ask for their permission to release it under a suitable license adapting the permission requests.

If you cannot find a suitable image, you can make a request at Wikipedia:Requested pictures so that another contributor might find or create a suitable image.

[edit] Uploading images

Main article: Wikipedia:Uploading images

Logged in users with autoconfirmed accounts (meaning at least four days old) can upload media to Wikipedia. It is recommended that free media (but not fair use media) be uploaded to the Wikimedia Commons (separate registration and login there is required). Media on the Commons can be linked to in the same way as media of the same name on to Wikipedia.

Media can be uploaded to the English Wikipedia at special:upload and to the Wikimedia Commons at commons:special:upload.

Each image comes with its own image description page. On that page should be documented the source, author, and copyright status of the image using one of the pre-defined copyright tags. It is also important to add descriptive (who, what, when, why) and technical information (equipment, software, etc.), which will be useful and informative to later editors and readers, and which it is likely that only you, the uploader, can supply. Forging a guideline on the use of sexually explicit images was attempted as well, but at present should be considered unreachable by normal consensus-building measures, and people are advised to advance case by case.

A tool to help decide a license for one's own image, or the appropriate license for any other image, is available here.

[edit] Image choice and placement

This is not the best photograph to show what a helicopter or the Sydney Opera House looks like, but is ideal to use as an example of what isn't ideal to use as an example of a helicopter or the Sydney Opera House.
This is not the best photograph to show what a helicopter or the Sydney Opera House looks like, but is ideal to use as an example of what isn't ideal to use as an example of a helicopter or the Sydney Opera House.

Beyond the basics of copyright and markup, editors face choices of image selection and placement. Some editors maintain that photographs are preferable to paintings and sketches. Notable exceptions exist. Bird identification guides have traditionally used sketches. Other editors dispute giving any preference to photographs.

Articles that use more than one image should present a variety of material near relevant text. Three uniformed portraits would be redundant for a biography of a famous general. A map of a battle and a picture of its aftermath would provide more information to readers.

Images should be large enough to reveal relevant detail without overwhelming the surrounding article text. Similar types of images within an article often look appealing if they appear at the same pixel size. Poor quality images (too dark, blurry etc.) or where the subject in the image is too small, hidden in clutter, ambiguous or otherwise not obvious, should not be used.

Contributors should be judicious in deciding which images are the most suitable for the subject matter in an article.

  • An image of a white-tailed eagle is useless if the bird appears as a speck in the sky.
  • Gloria Steinem looks best as a portrait photograph of herself alone, and not with other individuals.
  • A suitable picture of a hammerhead shark would show its distinctive hammer-like head, to distinguish it from other generic sharks.
  • A map of Moldova should show its frontiers with Romania and Ukraine, or people may not know where the country actually is.
  • Rice is best represented with an image of plain rice, not fried rice.
  • Intangible concepts can be illustrated, for example a cat with its claws out portrays aggression, while a roadside beggar juxtaposed with a Mercedes Benz shows inequality.

For assistance with improving images on Wikipedia, please see the Graphics Lab.

[edit] Pertinence and encyclopedicity

Images must be relevant to the article they appear in and be significantly relative to the article's topic. Their origin must be properly referenced. In the case of an image not directly attributed to its creator (e.g. in the case of reproduction of ancient artwork or artifacts), it is not sufficient to merely indicate the image's immediate source (such as an URL), but the identity of the image's content (author, manuscript, museum id) must be given (see also Wikipedia:Reliable sources). Images that are not properly identified (e.g. images with descriptions such as "a cuneiform tablet", "a medieval manuscript" etc.) are unencyclopedic and hence not useful for Wikipedia.

[edit] Other

Eventually some of the images reach the end of their life cycle. They may be superseded or replaced by an image with a friendlier copyright policy. If you come across an image that needs to go, list it on Wikipedia:Images and media for deletion.

If you have contributed or found an image that stands out from the crowd, you are invited to nominate it for inclusion on the Wikipedia:Featured pictures list.

[edit] See also