Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Images

Offensive images

See also:

Wikipedia:Image blacklist

It is common for an article's lead or infobox to carry a representative image—such as of a person or place, a book or album cover—to give readers visual confirmation that they've arrived at the right page.

For some topics, selecting the lead image can be difficult. While Wikipedia is not censored, lead images should be selected with care (see § Offensive images, above). The lead image is perhaps the first thing to catch the reader's eye, so avoid lead images that readers would not expect to see there. Unlike other content beyond the lead, the lead image should be chosen with these considerations in mind.

Advice on selecting a lead image includes:

• Lead images should be natural and appropriate representations of the topic; they should not only illustrate the topic specifically, but also be the type of image used for similar purposes in high-quality reference works, and therefore what our readers will expect to see. Lead images are not required, and not having a lead image may be the best solution if there is no easy representation of the topic.
• Shortcuts

  • MOS:SHOCK
  • MOS:SHOCKVALUE
  Lead images should be of least shock value; an alternative image that accurately represents the topic without shock value should always be preferred. For example, using an image of deportees being subjected to selection as the lead image at this version of The Holocaust is far preferable to the appropriate images that appear later in the article that show the treatment of the prisoners or corpses from the camps.
• Sometimes it is impossible to avoid using a lead image with perceived shock value, for example in articles on human genitalia. Editors may assume, per Wikipedia:Content disclaimer, that readers are aware that such articles may contain such images.
• Using photomontages or a gallery of images of group members should be avoided in articles about ethnic groups or similarly large human populations. This does not apply to articles about things such as body parts or haircuts.
• On some mobile platforms an article's first image may be displayed at the top of the article, even if it appears well into the article in the desktop view. When placing images consider whether this phenomenon may mislead or confuse readers using mobile devices.

Syntax

Basic example (producing the image at right):

[[File:Siberian Husky pho.jpg|thumb|alt=A white dog in a harness playfully nuzzles a young boy |A [[Siberian Husky]] used as a pack animal]]

• File:Siberian Husky pho.jpg The file (image) name must be exact (including capitalization, punctuation and spacing) and must include .jpg, .png or other extension. (Image: and File: work the same.) If Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons both have an image with the specified name, the Wikipedia version is the one that will appear in the article.
• thumb is required in most cases
• alt=A white dog in a harness playfully nuzzles a young boy Alt text is meant for those who cannot see the image; unlike the caption, it summarizes the image's appearance. It should comport with Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Accessibility/Alternative text for images and should name famous events, people and things.
• A [[Siberian Husky]] used as a pack animal The caption comes last, and gives the meaning or significance of the image.

See WP:Extended image syntax for further features and options. If the image does not display after you have carefully checked the syntax, it may have been blacklisted.

VR photographs

To display

• Images adjacent to text
  should use the |thumb (thumbnail) or |frameless parameter, typically sized differently from the original.^[a] The default image width then becomes 220 pixels (px), which registered (logged-in) users can change via Preferences.^{[nb 2]}
  . The Siberian Husky image above is displayed at whatever your base width is.

• An image's size is controlled by changing its width – after which software automatically adjusts height in proportion. (Most references to an image's "size" really mean its width.)
• Except with very good reason, a fixed width in pixels (e.g. 17px) should not be specified, because it ignores the user's base width setting. Thus upright=scaling factor is preferred whenever an image is to be displayed at something other than the default width.^{[nb 3]} As a general rule, images should not be set to a larger fixed width than 220px (the initial base width), and if an exception to this general rule is warranted, the resulting image should usually be no more than 400px wide (300px for lead images) and 500px tall, for comfortable display on the smallest devices "in common use" (though this may still cause viewing difficulties on some unusual displays).
• To convert a px value to upright, divide it by 220 and round the result as desired. For example, |150px is roughly equivalent to |upright=0.7 because 150 / 220 ≃ 0.682 .
  • Cases where fixed sizes may be used include for standardization of size via templates (such as
    WP:Main Page, or within larger tables such as List of Nobel Peace Prize laureates), or if it is necessary to align images in columns or rows. Templates like {{multiple image
    }} can automatically match the height or width of images with different aspect ratios, though this height or width must be hard coded to a set number of pixels because it cannot scale images to respect users' preferences.
• Where a smaller or larger image is appropriate, use |upright=scaling factor, which expands or contracts the image by a factor relative to the user's base width.
  • For example:
    • upright=1.3 might be used for an image with fine detail (e.g. a map or diagram) to render it "30% larger than this user generally wants". (For a reader with the usual base width setting of 220px, this is 285px.)
    • upright=0.6 might be used for an image with little detail (e.g. a simple drawing or flag) which can be adequately displayed "40% smaller than this user generally wants". (For a reader with the usual base width setting of 220px, this is 130px.)
  • Short, wide images often call for upright of 1 or greater; tall, narrow images may look best with upright of 1 or less.
  • When specifying upright= values greater than 1, take care to balance the need to reveal detail against the danger of overwhelming surrounding article text.
    • Images in which a small region of detail is important (but cropping to that region is unacceptable) may need to be larger than normal, but upright=1.8 should usually be the largest value for images floated beside text.
    • Lead images should usually use upright=1.35 at most.
  • Images within an article, especially those near one another and on the same side, may be more appealing if presented at the same width.
  • If upright is completely absent, that's equivalent to upright=1. But upright alone, with no =scaling factor (e.g. [[File:Dog.jpg|thumb|upright|A big dog]]) is equivalent to upright=0.75; this usage is confusing and therefore deprecated. Historically, "upright" was intended for upright (portrait) images, which look better at a narrower width. Later, the parameter was expanded to support any scaling factor, but the original name remained.
• To present images larger than the guidelines above (e.g. panoramas), use |thumb|
  none, so that the image stands alone; or use {{wide image}} or {{tall image
  }} to present a very large image in a scrollable box.

Location

Most images should be on the right side of the page, which is the default placement.^{[nb 4]} Left-aligned images may disturb the layout of bulleted lists and similar structures that depend on visual uniformity, e.g. by pushing some items on such lists further inward. Hence, avoid left-aligned images near such structures. If an exception to the general rule is warranted, specify |left in the image link: [[File:Siberian Husky pho.jpg|thumb|left|alt=A white dog in a harness playfully nuzzles a young boy |A [[Siberian Husky]] used as a pack animal]].

An image should generally be placed in the

Mul­ti­ple im­ages can be stag­gered right and left. How­ever, a­void sand­wich­ing text be­tween two im­ages that face each oth­er; or be­tween an im­age and in­fo­box, nav­i­ga­tion tem­plate, or sim­i­lar. As an al­ter­na­tive, con­sid­er us­ing the {{

Portrait

It is often preferable to place a portrait (image or representation of a person) so that they "look" toward the text, but do not achieve this by reversing the image, which creates a false presentation. (Faces are never truly symmetric even in the absence of scars or other features.)

References from article text

Image placement varies with platform and screen size, especially mobile platforms, and is meaningless to screen readers. As such, article text should not refer to image positions, especially with terms such as left, right, above, or below. Instead, use captions to identify images.

Inline images

• Substituting frameless for thumb produces an "inline" image. For example,
     This [[File:Flag of Japan.svg|frameless|x20px]] is an inline image.
  produces
     This is an inline image.
• A one-pixel border may be added via |border. For example,
     This [[File:Flag of Japan.svg|frameless|x20px|border]] is an inline image with a border.
  produces
     This is an inline image with a border.
• Inline images do not have captions
• Note the syntax x20px: whereas 20px specifies a 20-pixel width, x20px specifies a 20-pixel height. Heights between x18px and x22px will usually match surrounding text well. (upright is not usually used with inline images.)

All images used on Wikipedia must be uploaded to Wikipedia itself or

Images uploaded to Wikipedia are automatically placed into the