LATEST PICTURES
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 details 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. For example:
- 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, not with other individuals.
- A suitable picture of a hammerhead shark would show its distinctive hammer-like head, to distinguish it from other species of shark.
- A map of Moldova should show its frontiers with Romania and Ukraine, so people may know where the country actually is, in relation to its neighbors.
- Rice is best represented with an image of plain rice, not fried rice.Wikipedia aids the download performance by converting full images into thumbnails before they are transmitted. However, not all image formats provide a significant size reduction through this technique. In most browsers you can review the memory footprint of downloaded images by moving the cursor over the image, right-clicking, then selecting Properties. The resulting window will show the resulting file size in Kb or Mb. For best results, you may want to focus on reducing the size of the largest image files on a page, particularly when they are disproportionately large compared to other images.There are several image file formats available, each with their own benefits and drawbacks. One method of reducing the image downloaded time is to change the chosen format.
- GIF images with a frame size larger than 12.5 million pixels (measured as pixel height × pixel width × number of frames in the animation) cannot currently be displayed in thumbnail form in Wikipedia articles. A thumbnail of a GIF image can be considerably larger in filesize than the original image. For the best results, try to upload GIF images in the framesize that you intend to use in the article.
- Animated GIF images have a few additional restrictions. Images larger than 12.5 million pixels (measured as pixel height × pixel width × number of frames in the animation) currently will only show the first frame of the animation in a thumbnail. When not using a GIF animation at its original frame size, consider creating an Ogg Theora movie of the animation.
- The PNG format is useful for storing graphics that contain text, line art, or other images with sharp transitions. It can achieve the same graphical results as a GIF file, and in many cases do so with a higher rate of file compression. For this reason, PNG format files are usually preferred to the GIF format. (However, for certain types of images, PNG thumbnailing is not as efficient as GIF thumbnailing, when Wikimedia GIF thumbnailing is enabled.)
- A JPEG or other compressed image format can be much smaller than a comparable GIF or PNG format file. When there is no apparent difference in quality, such as with a photograph that has no sharp graphical transitions, a compressed image format such as JPEG may be preferable for reasons of download performance. Wikipedia is often able to achieve much better compression of JPEG photograph thumbnails than comparable PNG images, and with little perceptible loss of quality.
- Where an image consists solely of line art, charts text and simple graphics, an SVG file can be significantly smaller than other graphics formats. This is because the data is encoded as a series of drawing commands, rather than as style="color: white;">raster graphics. There are open source applications available for rendering graphics in SVG format. However, SVG thumbnails are rendered as PNGs.
- Rather than including an image gallery on an article, which could add significantly to the download size, consider creating a gallery/category on the Wikipedia Commons instead.
Opportunity's Close-up of 'Oileán Ruaidh'
An iron meteorite is the latest quarry for NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity.>>
Opportunity's Surroundings After Sol 2363 Drive
This stereo mosaic of images from the navigation camera on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity shows surroundings of the rover's location following an 81-meter (266-foot) drive. >>
Mars Rover Opportunity Approaching Possible Meteorite
A dark rock about the size of a toaster oven is visible in images NASA's Mars rover Opportunity took on Sept. 16. It may be a meteorite. The rover is going for a closer look.>>
'Cambridge Bay' Outcrop Examined by Opportunity (Stereo)
This panorama taken by NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity includes an outcrop informally called "Cambridge Bay". Opportunity examined this outcrop in August 2010. >>
Martian Dust Devil Whirls into Opportunity's View
In its six-and-a-half years on Mars, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity had never seen a dust devil before this month. >>
NASA Mars Rover Seeing Destination in More Detail
A super-resolution view toward Endeavour Crater from NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity shows discernible features in the rim of that long-term destin
[edit]Image choice and placement
Caption
Anything that is not a keyword is used as the caption of the image. Captions are only shown on images which have a Frame type used. The caption is also shown when the user's mouse is over the image, with or without a frame type being used. Because keywords are case-sensitive, right is not the same as Right. right is a keyword, Right is used as a caption.Changing: There is no information available right now on Wikipedia about how to change the caption of an image once it has been set - even if it is wrong.[change]Combining keywords
With the exception of using the frame and size (px) keywords together, all keywords can be used together in an image tag. If two keywords are trying to do the same thing the last one in the tag will be used. For example, if a tag has both left and right, the image will be put on the side of the page of which ever tag was added last.- Example
[[Image:Wiki.png|50px|this is a caption|left|frame|right|Left|Image: 50 pixels]]This image will be displayed at full size, framed, on the right side of the page with the caption ofImage: 50 pixels. - The keyword 50px is not used because the frame keyword is used.
- The caption is Image: 50pixels because it is the last part of the tag which is not a keyword.
- The image is placed on the right side of the page because right is the last position keyword in the tag. The word Left is not a keyword because it is
- today's walk: Uldale Head and Linghaw
Grains Gill and Weasel Gill from the parking spot near Carlingill Bridge
looking up Carlin Gill from the bridge
Grayrigg Common from the field I ascended ..
.. and escaped here onto the open fell
this path is on the map and easy to follow despite the bracken
Grayrigg Common seen over the M6 from the path
looking down the Lune Valley from the path ..
.. and onwards to the slopes of Uldale Head
looking down Grains Gill from near the top of the path
looking back at my ascent route from the slopes of Uldale Head
I join a good track coming up the north ridge
Uldale Head summit looking northwest towards the Lakeland fells
Uldale Head summit looking east
