Wikipedia talk:Image use policy

For older talk see:

• Wikipedia talk:Image use policy/copyright - specific image-related copyright issues
• Wikipedia talk:Image use policy/Archive 1 -- pre-Black Widow talk
• Wikipedia talk:Image use policy/Archive 2 -- pre-JoanB talk
• Wikipedia talk:Image use policy/Archive 3
• Wikipedia talk:Image use policy/Archive 4
• See also: wikipedia talk:sound help, Wikipedia talk:Image description page

international What is the current policy (recommendations) for making images usable for other Wikipedias ? Leaving out descriptions, lettering, captions etc that would help immensely other Wikipedias use them.
Is it at all possible to have editable images apart from SVG (which we don't support yet) ?
See Wikipedia:Embassy for in a way successful story of sharing an image between international Wikipedias.
Kpjas 07:30 14 Jun 2003 (UTC)

it's a good idea to avoid text in an image if possible. If text is essential, keep a source version without the text, as someone from another language site might want to make their own version -- see for example :Image:Europeanunion-med.png -- Tarquin 07:55 14 Jun 2003 (UTC)

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The value of the width (here 270) should be slightly larger than the actual width of the thumbnail.

This is really just a hack, and not recommended for a number of obvious reasons. padding is better, but margin-lefg is even better because it places the spacing only where it is needed. Which I think looks better. -- Egil 13:43 May 5, 2003 (UTC)

PS: I also have left out the <small> for captions, since it decreases readability. The Wikipedia:Manual of Style recommends straight italics, and at least to my taste that makes the image caption stand out to a sufficient degree. -- Egil

Floating images Moved from Wikipedia:Village pump on Wednesday, June 4th, 02003.

A few weeks ago, somebody discovered a set of HTML code that makes aligning works in most versions of most browser. But I can't find it. --Menchi 12:52 1 Jun 2003 (UTC)

You mean a floating frame? that's <div style="float:right;">{image}</div>. To make it work in all browsers, you can make an aligned table by doing <table align=right><tr><td>{image}</table> LittleDan 18:07 1 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Yes, thanks. --Menchi 04:48 2 Jun 2003 (UTC)

See wikipedia:image use policy for markup suggestions.

Size issues Why so small? I have a diagram that I made that's 362px wide, and there's really no way to shrink it without either rendering the text labels illegible or having them take over the whole image. I don't think it's too big from a page-layout perspective, even for a 640-px-wide screen. And don't even bring up the size issue; it's 4.53 KB. -Smack 02:28 8 Jun 2003 (UTC)

You can have images wider than 300 px in articles - just center them and don't have text flow around them. --mav 05:31 8 Jun 2003 (UTC)

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Linking to http://burnallgifs.org/#software (http://burnallgifs.org/#software) for the request to convert .gifs to .pngs may be useful. People need to be warned against using .mngs though.

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Are there any examples of two images overlayed with CSS, perhaps a photo covered with labels, as suggested in the policy?

If that's possible, (i don't know much CSS), would it be alright to use a GIF for the overlay, as IE5 doesn't support PNG transparency. Thanks Tristanb 03:26 16 Jun 2003 (UTC)

IE5 supports transparency in indexed PNGs in exactly the same way as in GIFs (which only comes in indexed flavour anyway), so I don't see the problem. branko

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I disagree with the recommended thumbnail sizes, 150 or 200 seems unnecessarily small. Even if that's the only available size, a graphics editor can upsize to, say, 300 pixels, with trivial loss of quality. I find 300 pixels the ideal width (with 750 pixels width for any bigger version) for a landscape format pic, and 250 pixels width (with 500 pixels width for any larger version) for a portrait format pic. They allow text to flow down the side of the image even on an 800 by 600 screen. (I do not think we should make our pic sizes suit a 640 by 480 screen). Am I allowed to change the advice accordingly?

Note: the 500 and 750 values are chosen so that the reader does not have scroll his screen much, I find having to scroll a lot to view all of a pic is irritating.
Adrian Pingstone 14:06 16 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I've been going towards 300px in practice too, although I noticed at poppy mallow that a 300px image makes the taxobox too wide, I'll probably replace with a smaller image. I've been doing large images between 600-750px, poorer images don't always do well with the 750px size. Stan 14:18 16 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Additional idea: if you're going to make a smaller one for the taxobox, instead of calling it "Image:Poppy_mallow.small.jpg" or "Image:Poppy_mallow.thmb.jpg" or something like that, make three versions: the full size, a small size in case it's ever wanted in an article body, and a "Image:Poppy_mallow.taxo.jpg" or something like that, sized for the taxobox. I wouldn't want to see the taxobox-sized and full-sized versions being the only options. -- John Owens 23:27 16 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Some people browse the web from mobile devices with limited screen resolutions. Some people are still stuck with 640x480 or 800x600 screens. Some people browse the web with non-maximised windows. The current recommendation for floating images is 150->250... I suppose I could live with increasing that to 200->300, but it might be quite controversial. Wait a bit before updating it.

For non-floating images, I'd recommend 450->600. Larger than 600 will pagewiden on an 800x600 screen, which is bad. Martin 14:42 16 Jun 2003 (UTC)

And some people don't have web browsing capabilities at all! How can we cater to them?

There's going to be a cut-off line somewhere, no matter what.

We cater to people without internet access or web browsing capabilities by licensing our content under the GFDL, so a friend can give them a CD with a TomeRaider download on it, for example, or print off a copy. What, that was a rhetorical question? ;-)

If an image is too large it completely screws up the layout for people with small browser windows. If an image is too small... it's not actually a major problem, especially when we provide a link to a larger version anyway. Hence, I'd rather bias in the direction of too small rather than too big... Martin

I was going to add an unrelated suggestion (v.i.), but even before I came to the Talk: page here, I looked at the Wikipedia: page, saw rule of thumb #4, and thought, "I'm going to add a suggestion that the range be upped to 300." Now I see Adrian beat me to it, but I'll certainly throw in my support. -- John Owens 23:27 16 Jun 2003 (UTC)

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• John Owens and Martin talk moved to Wikipedia talk:Image description page

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In this thumbnail-making integer ratio suggestion, it should clarify whether that means aspect ratio or sizing ratio. I'm pretty sure it means sizing ratio, right? And what's the better term for that? -- John Owens 11:50 17 Jun 2003 (UTC)

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Moved from the village pump:

Can some kind soul show me how to put a sequence of four images down the right hand side of the page so that they form one unit and no text can sneak in between them. I'm referring to Sistine Chapel that I illustrated. I reckon the page would look nicer if I had all four pics together and there would be no problems with pics overlapping in different browsers. Thanks.
Adrian Pingstone 09:01 14 Jun 2003 (UTC)

LittleDan told me something like this a few weeks ago:

<table align=right>
  <tr><td>
     <div style="float:right;">
         [[image:___Name___ | __Description_]] <br>
         <small>''More detailed explanation<br>
         [[media:___Name___ | Larger version]]''</small> 
         <br><br>
         [[image:___Name2___ | __Description_]] <br>
         <small>''More detailed explanation<br>
         [[media:___Name2___ | Larger version]]''</small>
         <br><br>
         [[image:___Name3___ | __Description_]] <br>
         <small>''More detailed explanation<br>
         [[media:___Name3___ | Larger version]]''</small> 
         <br><br>
         [[image:___Name4___ | __Description_]] <br>
         <small>''More detailed explanation<br>
         [[media:___Name4___ | Larger version]]''</small>  
     </div>
  </td></tr>
</table>

--Menchi 09:08 14 Jun 2003 (UTC)

It's easier than that, no need for tables. I've done the first two -- Tarquin

Thanks, Menchi for your info. I'm sorry you had to do so much typing but I'll use Tarquins method (Tarquin, thanks).

Adrian Pingstone 09:46 14 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Not much typing, just copy-and-paste. If Tarquin's method is simpler, the better. :-) --Menchi 09:57 14 Jun 2003 (UTC)

OK, the code is now in place in Sistine Chapel to put four (or whatever) pics in a column, which are then effectively one pic. Thanks to Menchi and Tarquin for their replies.

Adrian Pingstone 11:22 22 Jun 2003 (UTC)

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Thanks to wapcaplet for the section on markup.
In the interests of scalability and uniformity, it might be better to always use the version of the <div> tag with the text-align attribute. -Smack 17:09 20 Jun 2003 (UTC)

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I suggest a system to use the same images from a language wikipedia (i.e. wikipedia in french, in another languages, i.e. in spanish wikipedia), easily.

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Why does my uploaded image not show up on my watchlist? I really would like to know if someone is modifying something regarding my image. Is there a reason for it that it is not automatically on the Watchlist? Thanks, Fantasy 09:56 28 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Are you referring to the image or the image description page? Martin

I think the "image description page".Fantasy

Strange - I thought it did. :-( Well, you can go and fix that yourself (Wikipedia software is open source) or beg a developer on wikipedia:village pump, I guess. It's definately a good idea :) Martin 18:09 28 Jun 2003 (UTC)

A "watch this image" box for each upload would be very nice to have. I've uploaded hundreds of my own images and have yet to put them all on my watch list. --mav