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Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Images

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This page provides an overview of how images are used on Wikipedia. For detailed guidelines, see the Image use policy. For instructions on uploading and including images, see Help:Files.

Choosing images

Pertinence and encyclopedic nature

A helicopter hovers above the Sydney Opera House. The helicopter is too far away to make out fine details, and only a small portion of the Sydney Opera House's roof is in frame.
This image of a helicopter over the Sydney Opera House shows neither adequately.

Images must be significant and relevant in the topic's context, not primarily decorative. Each image in an article should have a clear and unique illustrative purpose and serve as an important illustrative aid to understanding the subject. When possible, find better images and improve captions rather than simply removing poor or inappropriate ones, especially on pages with few visuals. However, not every article needs images, and too many can be distracting or cause undue weight: usually, less is more.

See also Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Icons § Encyclopedic purpose on misuse of icons and other elements for decorative intent.

Images should look like what they are meant to illustrate, regardless of whether they are authentic. For example, a painting of a cupcake may be an acceptable image for Cupcake, but a real cupcake that has been decorated to look like something else entirely is less appropriate. Similarly, an image of a generic-looking cell under a light microscope might be useful on multiple articles, as long as there are no visible differences between the cell in the image and the typical appearance of the cell being illustrated.

Strive for variety. For example, in an article with numerous images of persons (e.g. Running), seek to depict a variety of ages, genders, and ethnicities. If an article on a military officer already shows its subject in uniform, then two more formal in-uniform portraits would add little interest or information, but a map of an important battle and an image of its aftermath would be more informative. Resist the temptation to overwhelm an article with images of marginal value simply because many images are available. Prioritize quality over quantity.

Ethnic groups

Articles about ethnic groups or similarly large human populations should not be illustrated by a photomontage or gallery of images of group members.[a] This does not apply to articles about things such as body parts or haircuts.[b]

Image quality

Use the best quality images available. Poor-quality images—dark or blurry; poor-quality video stills; showing the subject too small, hidden in clutter, ambiguous, or at an awkward angle; and so on—should not be used unless absolutely necessary. Think carefully about which images best illustrate the subject matter. For example:

  • An image of a white-tailed eagle is useless if the bird appears as a speck in the sky.
  • A biography should lead with a portrait photograph of the subject alone, not with other people.
  • A suitable picture of a hammerhead shark would show its distinctive hammer-like head, to distinguish it from other sharks.
  • A map of Moldova should show its frontiers with Romania and Ukraine, so people may know where the country is located in relation to its neighbors.
  • Rice is best represented with an image of plain rice, not fried rice.
  • Intangible concepts can be illustrated; for example, two boars butting heads portrays aggression.

Pages using seals, flags, banners, logos, or other symbols to represent governments, organizations, and institutions should use the version prescribed by that entity when available. These are preferable to amateur creations of similar quality, including photographs of physical representations of emblems.

Avoid presenting textual information as images

Scale references

An image sometimes includes a familiar object to communicate scale. Such fiducial markers should be as culturally universal and standardized as possible: rulers, matches, batteries, pens, pencils, footballs (soccer balls), people and their body parts, vehicles, and famous structures such as the Eiffel Tower are good choices, but many others are possible. Such objects as coins, banknotes, and sheets of paper are less satisfactory because they are specific to given locales, but may be better than none at all since at least the general scale is still communicated.

Quantitative data, if available, should still be given in the caption or the article.

Offensive images

Options to hide an image

Wikipedia is not censored: its mission is to present information, including information which some may find offensive. However, a potentially offensive image—one that would be considered vulgar, horrifying, or obscene by typical Wikipedia readers[nb 1]—should be included only if it is treated in an encyclopedic manner, i.e. only if its omission would cause the article to be less informative, relevant, or accurate, and no equally suitable alternative is available. Images should respect conventional expectations of readers for a given topic as much as is possible without sacrificing the quality of the article. Avoid images that contain irrelevant or extraneous elements that might seem offensive or harassing to readers; for example, photographs taken in a pornographic context would normally be inappropriate for articles about human anatomy.

Images for the lead

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[c] 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; not having a lead image may be the best solution if there is no easy representation of the topic.
  • 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 this image of deportees being subjected to selection as the lead image 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. Where 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.
  • Articles about ethnic groups or similarly large human populations should not be illustrated by a photomontage or gallery of images of group members.[a] This does not apply to articles about things such as body parts or haircuts.[b]
  • On some mobile platforms, such as the official Wikipedia mobile app and mobile site, 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.

How to place an image

Syntax

Basic example (producing this image):

[[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]]

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 VR photographs (a.k.a. 360-degree panoramas or photospheres), use {{PanoViewer}}.

Size

  • Images adjacent to text should use the thumb (thumbnail) or frameless parameter, typically sized differently from the original.[d] The default image width then becomes 250 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.
Image using width |upright=1.6, so that it is 80% wider than the Siberian Husky image above (which is at the default |upright=1 width)
Image using |upright=0.5; a scaling factor less than 1 contracts the image width.
  • 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 when it is desired to present an image at other than the default width.[nb 3] As a general rule, images should not be set to a larger fixed width than 250px (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 250 and round the result as desired. For example, |150px is roughly equivalent to |upright=0.6 because 150 / 250 = 0.6.
    • Cases where fixed sizes may be used include for standardization of size via templates (such as within infobox templates or the display of country flag icons), for displaying reduced images sizes where space is constrained (such as images used in the In the News and Did You Know sections on the 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=1.15 might be used for an image with fine detail (e.g. a map or diagram) to render it "15% wider than this user generally wants". (For a reader with the usual base width setting of 250px, this is 287px.)
      • |upright=0.6 might be used for an image with little detail (e.g. a simple drawing or flag) which can be adequately displayed "60% of the width this user generally wants". (For a reader with the usual base width setting of 250px, this is 150px.)
    • 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=1.6 should usually be the largest value for images floated beside text.
      • Lead images should usually use |upright=1.2 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. Just |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|center or |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.
This image uses |thumb|center|upright=2.5 to expand the image, center it, and clear the area on either side.

Location

A white dog in a harness playfully nuzzles a young boy
A Siberian Husky used as a pack animal

Most images should be on the right side of the page, which is the default placement.[nb 4] Left-aligned images may distort the layout of an article and make it harder to navigate. They can make lines of text jump to the left in the middle of a paragraph and may also 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 whenever possible, and always 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 most relevant article section; if this is not possible, try not to place an image too early, i.e., far ahead of the text discussing what the image illustrates, if this could puzzle the reader. The first image of a section should be placed below any hatnote (typically a navigational hatnote in the form of {{Main}}, {{Further}} and {{See also}} templates). Do not place an image at the end of the previous section as this will not be visible in the appropriate section on mobile devices. Only small inline images can be placed within a paragraph; a thumb image creates a paragraph break.

Text sandwiching

Wide images opposite one another ...
... can create an unsightly text sandwich.

Mul­ti­ple im­ages may be stag­gered left and right, but a­void sand­wich­ing text be­tween two op­po­sing im­ages, in­fo­boxes, or sim­i­lar tem­pla­tes. In­ste­ad­, con­sid­er us­ing the {{Multiple image}} tem­plate, which pla­ces im­ag­es to­geth­er but ig­nores us­ers' pre­fer­red im­age size, or move one im­age to an­other rele­vant sec­tion. Text can al­so be­come sand­wiched if a sin­gle im­age or tem­pla­te's width is set too wide. If you are unsure how to re­solve the sand­wich­ing ef­fect, you may use the {{Sandwiched text}} clean­up tag.

Portrait

For people, animals etc. it is preferable to place images so that they face towards the text – this will draw the attention of the reader into the text. Do not do this by reversing the image.

References from article text

The article text should not refer to an image with terms such as left, right, above, or below (because image placement varies with platform and screen size, especially mobile platforms, and is meaningless to screen readers). The description of an image should be in its caption, not in article text. To refer to an image from article text, a link to an anchor point may be used. To keep the anchor point attached to the image even if image is moved, this technique may be used: <div class=floatright id=Bananas-image>[[File:Bananavarieties.jpg|thumb|Bananas]].</div> That image would be linked from article text as: Bananas can be many colors, as seen in [[#Bananas-image|this illustration]].

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.)

Images in infoboxes

Every infobox is different and the documentation for the infobox in question should be consulted for the proper parameters to match the image and caption. When adding an image to an infobox, thumbnails should not be used. Infobox templates should implement the InfoboxImage module so simply supplying the file name will work; for example, to use File:Image PlaceHolder.png, you could simply use |image=Image PlaceHolder.png. If InfoboxImage is not yet fully implemented in the infobox you are using, the same |alt=, |upright=, |title=, etc., options may be called using Extended image syntax, calling |frameless, not |thumb. (You may wish to add a request to the infobox's talk page that the missing parameters be added.)

Making images available

All images used on Wikipedia must be uploaded to Wikipedia itself or Wikimedia Commons. That is, hotlinking is not supported.

Images uploaded to Wikipedia are automatically placed into the File namespace (formerly known as the Image namespace), i.e., the names of image pages start with the prefix File:.

Obtaining images

All images must comply with Wikipedia's image use policy: in general, they must be free for reuse, including commercial use and use after alteration, though some "fair use" of non-free content is allowed in limited circumstances—see Wikipedia:Non-free content.

Finding images already uploaded

Search for existing files through:

Making images yourself

You may upload photographs, drawings, or other graphics created with a camera, scanner, graphics software, and so on. When photographing or scanning potentially copyrighted works, or creating depictions of persons other than yourself, be sure to respect copyright and privacy restrictions. For further information see Wikipedia:Non-free content.

In order to maximize images' usefulness in all languages, avoid including text within them. Instead, add text, links, references, etc., to images using Template:Annotated image or Template:Annotated image 4, which can also be used to expand the area around an image or crop and enlarge part of an image—all without the need for uploading a new, modified image.

Finding images on the Internet

An extensive list of free image resources by topic can be found at: Public domain image resources. In addition to Wikimedia Commons, the Wikimedia Toolserver has a Free Image Search Tool (FIST), which automatically culls free images from the Wikimedia sister projects, Flickr and a few other sites. Several other useful, general purpose image search engines include: Google Images, Picsearch and Openverse. Creative Commons licensed images with Attribution and Attribution-ShareAlike as their license may be used on Wikipedia. Images with any license restricting commercial use or the creation of derivative works may not be used on Wikipedia.

The Creative Commons site has a search page that can be used as a starting point to find suitably licensed images; make sure you check both the checkboxes "use for commercial purposes" and "modify, adapt, or build upon".

If you find an image on the Internet that is not available freely, you can email the copyright owner and ask for their permission to release it under a suitable license, adapting the boilerplate request for permission. If you cannot find a suitable image, you may also list your request at Wikipedia:Requested pictures, so that another contributor may find or create a suitable image.

Requesting images from others

See

Editing images

In this pseudocolor image of the Moon, red tints represent the highest elevations, purple the lowest; lest the reader be misled, the caption should make clear that this is not the coloring a viewer of the Moon would actually see.

An image's utility or quality may be improved by cropping (to focus on the relevant portion), cleaning up scanning artifacts, correcting color balance, removing red-eye effect, or other adjustments.

The caption of an image should mention such edits (e.g. introduction of false color or pseudocolor) if a reader needs to know about them to properly interpret the image.

Edits that improve the presentation without materially altering the content need not be mentioned in the caption e.g. rotation to correct a slightly crooked image, improvement to the contrast of a scan, or blurring a background to make the main subject more prominent. (However, all changes to images taken from outside sources should be noted on the image's description page. For images created by editors themselves, changes which could have been part of the image's original composition—such as rotation or minor cropping—need not be mentioned on the description page.)

Images should not be changed in ways that materially mislead the viewer. For example, images showing artworks, faces, identifiable places or buildings, or text should not be reversed (although those showing soap bubbles or bacteria might be). Do not change color integral to the subject, such as in images of animals. It is usually appropriate to de-speckle or remove scratches from images, though that might be inappropriate for historical photographs.

An image that was originally published as a monochrome image, such as black-and-white or sepia photographs, should not usually be colorized. A Wikipedia editor who adds color to such an image is likely engaging in original research. However, images that were colorized by their creator, an expert, or a reliable source may sometimes be acceptable. Colorized images may also be used where the colorization is an encyclopedic aspect of the image and relevant to the article.

For assistance in editing images, try Wikipedia:Graphics Lab.

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