All The Tropes:How to Pick A Good Image: Difference between revisions

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<div style="background-color:yellow;"><big>'''''If you last read this page before DecemberJanuary 20202022, please re-read the section "Copyright, Fair Use, and Everything In-Between". We have removed or correctedadded a large numbermention of statementsa ofnew dubiouswiki legal merit in that sectionpolicy.'''''</big></div>
 
So, you want to find a good image for a page. The image is a great attention-grabber; it's likely to be the first thing a person sees when the page loads. In a page about the work, a good image will introduce the work; in a trope page, it will illustrate the trope and help the reader understand it. Just like a good name, a good image follows the mantra "clear, concise, and witty" (in descending order of importance: clarity is key, the other two are merely [[Bonus Points]]). There are a lot of good ways to go about making sure our images are clear, concise, and witty... let's look at them.
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I am seeking permission to use [[Friday the 13th|this picture]] of yours for the page image of the trope, [[Villain Decay]]. If this is alright, please respond to the email or [https://allthetropes.org/w/index.php?title{{=}}Special:WikiForum&forum{{=}}4 comment in the discussion here]. If you wish us to not use your image, it will be changed, if you give permission but want a specific link please respond.
-Deboss}}
* Original art (from [[DeviantArt]], [[Flickr]], etc.) may be licensed under Creative Commons, licensedGNU Free Documentation, or another similar "re-use in particular circumstances is free" license. If you see that, go ahead and use the picture but be sure to follow the CC terms; for CC, especially follow BY (give the artist credit -- a link back to their website in the caption generally suffices and is a good thing to do anyway) and Remix (if it doesn't have this it means you aren't supposed to alter the image; ''not even resizing''). SA (share-alike) might or might not be covered by thethis wiki's CC license, depending on what other terms are present in the license. NC (non-commercial) is ''not'' covered by this wiki's CC license.
* [[TV Tropes]] added NC to their CC license in 2012, which is why we can't use something copied from The Other Tropes Wiki after they changed their license to include it. If you really want to use an image on TV Tropes that was added after 2012, you'll have to find the original image and use it instead.
 
Speaking of TV Tropes, their version of this page as of the fork included the phrases "If an image has a little copyright stamp (©) on it, we can't use it" and "The same goes for watermarks of ownership". These statements are [[Artistic License: Law|Artistic License Law]] (of the type "'we didn't ''know'' it was copyrighted' is a legal defense"<ref>It isn't.</ref>) that bear no relation to actual copyright law. It is the opinion of All The Tropes that we have the same "fair dealing" and "fair use" rights that other encyclopedic wikis (such as Wikipedia) have to use limited excerpts from copyrighted works for the purpose of review and analysis, as long as we identify that we are using images under fair use. (This "encyclopedic" usage, by the way, is why we [[All The Tropes:How We Do Bans Around Here|come down hard]] on people who add false information to the wiki - allowing one feeble joke is not worth us needing to delete tens of thousands of images.)
 
Also, as per [[Special:WikiForum/Policy_request:_use_Public_Domain_or_Creative_Commons_licensed_images_wherever_we_have_the_option|this forum discussion]], All The Tropes prefers using Public Domain and Creative Commons licensed images when they exist. ''Please use copyrighted images only where there is no other alternative.''
 
== Images for Trope pages ==
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== Images for Work pages ==
* The most common picture for a works page is a title screen or box art. It's what most people will see when they look in the store for a copy, and images are fairly easy to come across.
* Official promotional art such as [[Lobby Card|movie posters]] are common, including cast pictures. This is particularly common when the actual cover is a flat color and a logo or something similarly minimalist.
* Unlike many other types of work, [[Fan Fiction]], [[Web Comic|Web Comics]], and [[Web Original]] have relatively easy-to-access creators. If you want to know what they'd prefer, send them a simple email with links to both the site and the page in question. For instance, this was how the page images for ''[[xkcd]]'' and ''[[Darths and Droids]]'' were chosen.
 
== Images for Creator pages ==
* The most common picture for a works page is a photo (or painting or sketch) of the creator. This is relatively easy to find when the creator is a single person, but even large groups sometimes have promotional images of themselves available somewhere.
* A picture of the creator doing some creating or with a creation is better than a simple profile shot of the creator. For example, which tells you more about this writer: [[c:File:Clarke sm.jpg|Arthur C. Clarke]] in profile, or [[media:Arthur C. Clarke 1965.jpg|Arthur C. Clarke on the set of ''2001: A Space Odyssey'']]?
 
== [[Images in Wiki Pages|ImagesUsing images on the wiki]] ==
:''Main article: [[All The Tropes:Uploading and Adding an Image to a Page]]''
* Pages with quotes should have the image on the right side (you can learn how to do this on [[Help:Formatting]]).
** IfPages thewithout imagequotes isshould ratherhave tall,the moveimage it toon the right asside, welltoo.
* If the image is rather tall, move it to the right as well. ''Note:'' This is the default in MediaWiki wikis such as ours, so there's no need to explicitly say it.
* Modifying images to work better or building a collage are allowed and sometimes preferred over individual, unmodified pictures.
** Newspaper comic strips and web comic strips in particular are frequently modified to fit within the 350-400 pixel width. If a comic is too wide, a common solution is to stack the panels vertically.
** Single images are usually sufficient; however, with some tropes, especially those that deal with changes or comparisons, it may be necessary to have a [[All The Tropes:Multi-Part Picture|multipart image]].
* Troper-made images are fine. If you have artistic skills and would like to make an image for a page, go for it; just look at the [[List of Pages Artists Can Illustrate]] to get started. [[Dug Too Deep]] is one such example.
* If there's more than one good image, feel free to start an [[Image Links Wiki]] subpage for the page.
 
=== Quality of image ===
* Some images simply have bad image quality (compression artifacts, pixelation, and so on). This detracts from what the image is showing, and simple quality upgrades are something you don't even need to ask to replace. For example: [[Giant Enemy Crab]] had [[media:giant-giant-enemy-crab.jpg|this image]] that was replaced with [[media:giantcrabcw_resized_7685.jpg|this higher-resolution copy of the same image]]. No fanfare, just a quick replacement, and on your way.
* While there are no size limits, sizes more than 350 or 400 pixels wide will crowd out text, especially on smaller screens. Either resize the image before uploading it, or use the image width parameter for the File markup (with the Thumb parameter).
* If you need to resize an image (which you shouldn't need to unless it's huge - you can set the image width parameter for the File markup in most cases) and don't like working with MS paint or other programs, you can use [http://www.picresize.com/ pic resize] to do it.
 
=== [[Pothole|Potholing]] ===
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