Wowpedia:Image guidelines

This guideline outlines good practices to use for images uploaded to Wowpedia, and steps that can be taken to make them display better and/or become lighter for download. To upload image files, visit Special:Upload.

Image usage and layout
Images make an article memorable and pretty. They can speak where words fail. At the same time, misplaced or untidy images can detract from an article. When choosing images, keep in mind placement, size, and the appropriateness of the image to the section. Let images flow with the text instead of break it up.

Almost all images (especially screenshots) should use the "thumb" (example: ) option which displays large images as thumbnails. Images should generally be right aligned to enhance readability by allowing a smooth flow of text down the left margin - the "thumb" option does this by default. If an infobox is not being used in an article, a right aligned picture in the lead section is encouraged.

For general information on wiki images, see the MetaWiki page on images and other uploaded files.

Galleries
When an article has many images, or can be improved by having more, and having inline images be detract from the readability of an articles, the use of a  section is encouraged.

Image sourcing
To include the image in a page:
 *  File.png 
 *  [[File:File.jpg]]  for a direct link

For more methods of showing or linking images, see Help:Editing and Help:Navigational image.

Transparency
Images that require transparency should use the PNG file format. GIFs also handle transparency, but only in an on-off sense; they do not allow smooth shading (anti-aliasing) of edges, which is required to work with our different wiki skins, and they only support 256 colors. See the article on the GIMP for more information on how to do this.

Screenshot layout
Game screenshots are "photo" like in appearance, and rectangular (do not need shading). The JPG file format works well for these as they tend to be fairly sizeable and JPG compression brings them down to manageable sizes.


 * Location pictures should...
 * Show no UI
 * Not show the player character
 * Example location


 * NPC portraits should...
 * Show the NPC selected
 * Show no UI
 * Be cropped to the NPC's shape
 * Example NPC


 * Item screenshots should...
 * Not contain player's names
 * Be cropped to the item's shape or position
 * Example item

Compression levels
For the majority of images, the maximum size should be 500 kB. If yours is larger, it should be compressed or cropped (unless it really benefits from being large and high quality).
 * JPG: Compression levels of 80-85% normally do the job. In no case should you ever have to go above 90%; the minimal increase in image quality does not outweigh the increased file size.
 * PNG: Reducing the number of unique colors in the picture will make PNG files much smaller. See the article on the GIMP for how to do it in that image editor.

Resolution

 * Crop non-landscape images to show the important areas.
 * Do not upload huge images - try to keep to about 1280x960 as a reasonable upper size limit.
 * Do not blow up small images to larger sizes without good reason - as this can detract from their overall quality.