I was thinking of writing a "How to pick a good image" page.

Maybe you could specify an example of what is considered to be a good one.

You got some dirt on you. Here's some more!

Was also making an Everything You Wanted To Know About Image Pickin page, if anything from that can be cannibalized into the other.

edited 7th Jan '11 12:54:34 PM by rodneyAnonymous

Becky: Who are you? The Mysterious Stranger: An angel. Huck: What's your name? The Mysterious Stranger: Satan.

350 pixels, not 330; also, I'd go with something to the effect of "While smaller is generally better, the pic should be as big as it needs to be to adequately represent the trope. Legibility of text and/or being able to see fine details (if necessary) is more important than saving bandwidth."

Other than that, I'd say you both have really good starting points, and if a successful marriage of the pages can happen, the finished product will be fantastic.

edited 7th Jan '11 3:59:25 PM by Willbyr

Hm, Images In Wiki Pages says the max width is 300px and 330px may be right also. Could a mod clarify? Also, it seems like the main wiki pages (and not just the forums) shrink images to 300px (although the caption box is also shrunken).

(The image uploader allows up to 350px, but that doesn't mean any images should be that size. Perhaps it should be changed, though, if 350 isn't right.)

edited 8th Jan '11 3:22:45 AM by rodneyAnonymous

Becky: Who are you? The Mysterious Stranger: An angel. Huck: What's your name? The Mysterious Stranger: Satan.

Nope, the main pages will accept up to a 350 pixel pic; anything beyond that gets auto-resized. The 330 vs 350 thing is something I've pointed out multiple times but it never seems to get addressed.

"Multipart images are sometimes necessary, particularly for tropes about changes or comparisons. "Before" is usually on top and "after" on the bottom."

Couldn't we write that part in any other way? It sounds like it encourages multipart images, even though many editors in the the Image Picking are already too quick to add completely unnecessary second pictures where good captions, or common sense, or a better single image would work.

"Single images are usually sufficient. However, with some tropes, especially those that deal with changes or comparisons, it may be necessary to have a multipart image. If this should be the case, it's usually better to stack the 'before' pic above the 'after' pic."

edited 8th Jan '11 7:18:03 PM by Willbyr

Look at Serious Business. (There are probably better examples, it's easier to tell when there is text.) Screenshot the article, superimpose it on the image by itself, see that it is shrunk from 330 px to 300 px.

edited 8th Jan '11 7:26:00 PM by rodneyAnonymous

Becky: Who are you? The Mysterious Stranger: An angel. Huck: What's your name? The Mysterious Stranger: Satan.

Go ahead and edit the page, I write as I think, so the wording is generally wonky. I'd also prefer to remind people that images have a width restriction.

Fight smart, not fair.

Why go to all that trouble? Just right-click the image and click View Image Info (at least in Fire Fox) and it shows up as 330. Bible Black is a flat 350. Also, the New Kids On The Block, Fetish Retardant, and Mythbusters pages all have pics that are resized to 350...gonna fix those right now.

edited 9th Jan '11 8:44:58 AM by Willbyr

Fiddled with the page some more. Added another sentence at the top referencing "clear, concise, witty" and added some more things, "overly literal images" under things to avoid and two more lines to captions.

Fight smart, not fair.

Because you can't tell otherwise. The wiki software is shrinking images for some reason. It also scales the caption box, which makes it harder to tell. Look at Moral Event Horizon; it's even scaling that down (image is only 292 px, scaled to 265px on the wiki page, the text is noticeably less legible); I don't know why.

edited 9th Jan '11 3:59:05 PM by rodneyAnonymous

Becky: Who are you? The Mysterious Stranger: An angel. Huck: What's your name? The Mysterious Stranger: Satan.

rodney, I think you've got something going wonky with your browser. I did a screencap of Moral Event Horizon, and used Office Photo Manager to crop out everything except the pic, and it read as 292 pixels.

It's smaller on the page in my browser (Chromium) too. However, the HTML has <div class="quoteright" style="width:292px;" >

[1] This facsimile operated in part by synAC.

Okay, this is weird...I'm gonna make a Wiki Talk thread about this.

It is because I was view>zoomed out. (Checked the "zoom text only" option.) No actual problem. Sorry.

Becky: Who are you? The Mysterious Stranger: An angel. Huck: What's your name? The Mysterious Stranger: Satan.

Request this be moved to the "Special Efforts" forum.

Fight smart, not fair.

Movéd.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Sweet.

I moved the "things to look for" section above the "things to avoid" section. I vaguely recall that you're supposed to list the things you want before the things you don't. Despite that list being the main reason I wrote the page.

edited 16th Feb '11 7:16:11 AM by Deboss

Fight smart, not fair.

Question: should we ask or an artist's permission to put their picture o this site, or should we ask them to release their pictures under CC-BY-SA? I remember how Wikipedia had removed any pictures uploaded "with special permission" and such coz they weren't freely distributable (as in the artists only gave permission to upload the pictures on the website, but never specified if other people can distribute/copy the images outside Wikipedia). Seriously, this wiki's articles are licensed for distribution, so, if we use any pictures without putting 'em under fair use, shouldn't they be free to distribute like the text?

something

Fair Use allows us to put up most images, but if they have some kind of copyright watermark, it's a no-no. If there's a dispute over your rights to display it here, it's better to err on the side of caution.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Maybe we can write something saying that if it doesnt HAVE to be 350 pixels (readability or such) that its best to resize it to 300 pixels or less. and if they really need an image resizer tool they can go to http://www.picresize.com/

Sparkling and glittering! Jan-Ken-Pon!

Is there anyway to stick a clickable thingy up at the top?

If not, I'll just link Sandbox.How To Pick A Good Image here.

Fight smart, not fair.

I don't see any particular virtue in making images smaller than 350. I guess there's usually nothing particularly wrong with 300 instead of 350, but if 350's a problem, the max image size should be changed, rather than implementing some vague and arbitrary "We'll let you use 350, but probably be upset and frowny if you actually do so" standard.

One of my own nitpicks with the draft version is the reference to "Box Art" for works images. For movies, at least, I think the original one-sheet movie poster is almost invariably a better choice, and box art quite often sucks by comparison. Plus, it's always interesting to see how movies were originally promoted, as opposed to 30 years later, when everybody knows the twist ending so well that it gets spoiled on the box.

Jet-a-Reeno!

The box art thing is an easy fix. Simply replace "box art" with "official promotional art" That covers posters, ad layouts, cover art, tear sheets, logos, those (whatever the equivalent to "splash page is) from trailers...

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.