Help:Images

=Wikia Specific Guidelines=

Licensing
All images added to this wiki must be "free-use", or we must have obtained permission to display the image. That is, they must either by public domain or licensed by the copyright holder under a license that allows anyone to reuse the images. It's important that we do not add images taken from other websites without permission as these are usually not free-use and would be copyright violations.

See StarCraft specific image licensing guidelines for further details.

Uploading

 * To upload images you must be logged in.
 * Click on "Upload file" in the toolbox on the left (under the search boxes)
 * The "Browse" button lets you find the image on your hard drive. Click "open" to select the file.
 * If you want to change the file name, you can do so in the "Destination filename" box.
 * Use the "Summary" box to enter the source of the file and the image copyright tag
 * Click "Upload".

You will be warned if the name will be changed or if there is already a file with that name. You can then decide whether to go ahead or to abandon the upload.

Using Images
To use an image in an article, you simply surround the full name (including the "Image" part) in double square brackets:   will give you:

You can resize by adding the size in pixels between two pipes: will give you:

You can make an image a thumbnail an image by adding "thumb" in the same way. If a pipe is there from a previous variable, you don't need to add another: will give you:

This is automatically formatted to the right of the page. You can change this by adding "left" or "center": will give you:

Anything after the last pipe becomes the alt text or the caption: will give you:

To link to a file without showing it on the page, you can use "Media" instead of "Image":  [[Media:Example.jpg]]  will give you: [[Media:Example.jpg]]

To link to the image page instead, use a colon before the word "Image":  Image:Example.jpg  will give you: Image:Example.jpg

Finally, to create a gallery of images you can use the

=StarCraft Wiki Specific Guidelines= The following are some guidelines concerning the naming, categorization, and usage of images on the StarCraft Wikia.

What To Upload
See the notability policy for some guidelines.

Licensing
All images uploaded to the wiki should indicate the conditions and/or licenses that govern its use somewhere in the description. Images that cannot be legally used maybe removed without warning. The wiki has templates for copyright- and/or license-labelling purposes of which some are described below. All may be found in Category:Image copyright templates.

Template:ImgCPBlizzard
 * Usage:
 * Intended for material taken from directly from Blizzard Entertainment.
 * This may include material from Blizzard websites, such as concept art and videos.
 * This does not include screenshots or camera shots taken by users of Blizzard work. These fall under fair use.
 * Blizzard permits this material to be used under certain conditions (Blizzard Legal FAQ).

Template:ImgCPSonsStorm
 * Usage:
 * Intended for material taken from Sons of the Storm.
 * Please ensure that material taken is related to StarCraft.
 * Sons of the Storm permits this material to be used under certain conditions (Sons of the Storm FAQ).

Template:ImgCPFairUse
 * Usage:
 * Intended for material that may be used under the tenants of fair use.
 * Be careful: fair use is not a catch-all for any material lacking discrete terms of use by the copyright holder.

Template:ImgCPCover
 * Usage:
 * Intended for cover art of Blizzard-licensed work. This may include cover work from
 * Novels
 * Graphic novels
 * The use of this material must adhere to fair use.

Template:ImgCPFreeUse
 * Usage:
 * Intended for material whose copyright holder has allowed the unlimited reuse of by all parties.

Template:ImgCPComic
 * Usage:
 * Intended for material from a comic book or graphic novel that may be used under the tenants of fair use.
 * Be careful: fair use is not a catch-all for any material lacking discrete terms of use by the copyright holder.

Template:ImgCPPubDom
 * Usage:
 * Intended for material which has been released into the public domain or whose copyright has expired.

Descriptions
The description for all images should include:
 * An overview of the image ("what are we looking at?")
 * Name of the artist ("who made it?")
 * Name of the copyright holder if the artist is not the copyright holder
 * Source ("where is it from?")

Naming
Images should be renamed in a descriptive fashion before being uploaded. This makes it easier to locate wayward images in Category:Unused images, in addition to aiding general identification.

Buildings and Units
Building and unit images should take the following format:

__.

Note the existence of underscores. The  represents the extension of the image file type and is only included here for completeness. Aside from that the extension is irrelevant.

Image Names
This is the name of the primary focus of the image. Refer to the appropriate image categories to find names already in use.
 * Marine_SC1_HeadAnim1
 * Zealot_SC-G_Game1
 * Zergling_SC2_Cncpt1
 * Hive_SC1_Art1

Source
This is an identifier for the StarCraft product the image came from.

Type
This identifies the nature of the image.

Every type identifier should be followed by a number, as there may be multiple images of the same type. For example, a category might have images named as follows:
 * Marine_SC1_Game1
 * Marine_SC1_Game2
 * Marine_SC1_Game3
 * Marine_SC2_Game1
 * Marine_SC2_Game2
 * Marine_SC2_Game3

Note that the StarCraft II images are indexed independently of the StarCraft images. Remember that since file extensions are irrelevant to the scheme, it is not permissible to have something as follows:
 * Marine_SC-G_Game3.png
 * Marine_SC-G_Game3.gif

The following would be correct:
 * Marine_SC-G_Game3.png
 * Marine_SC-G_Game4.gif

Case Sensitivity
Names are case sensitive. "Marine_SC1_Game1" is not the same as "Marine_SC1_game1" or "marine_SC1_Game1". The latter two would be incorrect.

Image Categories
All images should be categorized within the Category:Images tree. Like articles, images may belong to multiple categories.

Notable Categories

 * Category:Unused images
 * If in doubt, place the image here as well as in Category:Images. This makes it easier to bring the image to the attention of others.
 * Category:User images
 * This is for images that are used only on user pages. Images used in articles as well as user pages should not be placed here.

Image Size
Note that by image size we mean the amount of space it occupies in file storage space. Uploaded images should be smaller than 150kB each, and ideally they should be far smaller. We wish to avoid having to download multiple megabytes worth of images for an article to function. Ultimately the challenge is to minimize size while preserving sufficient quality for the image to be useful or aesthetically pleasing.

Images not intended for use in articles or to augment the wikis informational content, and exceed 150kB, may be subject to summary deletion without notice.

The following are some suggestions that may help.

JPEG
If in doubt, images should be submitted in JPEG format. JPEG is a lossy compressed format which aims to reduce size by sacrificing some quality.
 * Many image manipulation programs allow one to choose the 'quality' of a JPEG before saving, typically on a scale from 1 (lowest quality) to 100 (highest quality). One will need to try different quality settings and compare the results to the original image to determine the optimal balance. If in doubt start at 80 and adjust as needed. Remember: most images will appear as thumbnails so loss of quality will be less noticeable.
 * If possible find the original image in a lossless format before converting to JPEG.
 * If resizing or cropping a JPEG, to ensure minimum loss of quality either:
 * 1) Convert it to a lossless format first then reconvert it to JPEG, OR
 * 2) Use the GIMP and save directly to JPEG using the advanced option "Use quality settings from original image".

PNG
While JPEG is a good general purpose format, small images maybe submitted in PNG format. PNG is a lossless compressed format which prioritizes quality. This can result in rather large sizes if the image has many pixels and a wide range of colors.
 * Do not upload images in BMP format. BMP is lossless but does not use compression. Convert from BMP to PNG before uploading.
 * Do not upload static (as opposed to animated) images in GIF format. Savings can be had by converting GIF to PNG if one uses a program that gives the option to save 8-bit (as opposed to 24-bit) PNG images.
 * Consider using utilities like pngcrush or OptiPNG to further compress PNG images.

Animated Images
Currently, most animated images are in GIF format. Other formats should be avoided as they are not well supported at this time. Some guidelines follow:
 * Do not upload animated images larger than 300kB. If one cannot, somehow, slim it down than one will have to pick out the noteworthy frames within the animation and upload those separately.
 * Animated images should only be used if the result is a noticeable and notable difference from a static image.

Other Thoughts
Still too large? Consider the following:
 * The wiki is not an art gallery and does not need to include ultra-high resolution images. Upload a lower resolution version instead and give the original high resolution image as the source.
 * Cut out parts of images that are not needed. Focus the image on the object(s) of interest.

Helpful Templates
Template:AttentionImage Template:DeleteImage
 * Usage:
 * Flags an image as requiring some sort of improvement.
 * Usage:
 * Nominates an image for deletion.