All The Tropes:How to Pick A Good Image: Difference between revisions

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 * The most common picture for a works page is a title screen or box art. It's what most people will see when they look in the store for a copy, and images are fairly easy to come across.
 * Official promotional art such as movie posters are common, including cast pictures. This is particularly common when the actual cover is a flat color and a logo or something similarly minimalist.
-* Unlike many other types of work, [[Fan Fiction]], [[Web Comic|Web Comics]], and [[Web Original]] have relatively easy-to-access creators. If you want to know what they'd prefer, send them a simple email with links to both the site and the page in question. For instance, this was how the page images for ''[[Xkcd]]'' and ''[[Darths and Droids]]'' were chosen.
+* Unlike many other types of work, [[Fan Fiction]], [[Web Comic|Web Comics]], and [[Web Original]] have relatively easy-to-access creators. If you want to know what they'd prefer, send them a simple email with links to both the site and the page in question. For instance, this was how the page images for ''[[xkcd]]'' and ''[[Darths and Droids]]'' were chosen.
+=== Creator pages ===
+* The most common picture for a works page is a photo of the creator. This is relatively easy to find when the creator is a single person, but even large groups sometimes have promotional images of themselves available somewhere.
 === Quality of image ===
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 === Safe For Work ===
-* The wiki aims to be safe for work in its images. Avoid [[Gorn]], nudity, and [[Squick]].
+* The wiki aims to be safe for work in its images. Avoid [[Gorn]], nudity, and [[Squick]]. (This means that pages about pornographic works might end up with no images at all.)
 === [[All The Tropes:Copyrights|Copyright and Fair Use]] ===
-* If an image has a little copyright stamp (©) on it, we can't use it.
+* If an image has a little copyright stamp (©) on it, we can't use it. Even if we get permission from the copyright holder.
 * The same goes for watermarks of ownership; attempting to remove them is too much work (and, as a [[Rules Lawyer]] points out, against the DMCA).
 ** Note that "station bugs" (watermark-like logos in the corner, added by a broadcasting TV station) are not the same as an artist/owner's watermark, though pictures look nicer without them.
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 I am seeking permission to use [[Friday the 13th|this picture]] of yours for the page image of the trope, [[Villain Decay]]. If this is alright, please respond to the email or [https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Forum:Page_Images comment in the discussion here]. If you wish us to not use your image, it will be changed, if you give permission but want a specific link please respond.
 -Deboss}}
-* Original art (from [[Deviant ART]], Flickr, etc.) may be Creative Commons licensed. If you see that, go ahead and use the picture but be sure to follow the CC terms, especially BY (give the artist credit -- a link back to their website in the caption generally suffices and is a good thing to do anyway) and Remix (if it doesn't have this it means you aren't supposed to alter the image; resizing is probably OK). NC (non-commercial) and SA (share-alike) are covered by the wiki's CC license.
+* Original art (from [[DeviantArt]], [[Flickr]], etc.) may be Creative Commons licensed. If you see that, go ahead and use the picture but be sure to follow the CC terms, especially BY (give the artist credit -- a link back to their website in the caption generally suffices and is a good thing to do anyway) and Remix (if it doesn't have this it means you aren't supposed to alter the image; resizing is probably OK). SA (share-alike) is covered by the wiki's CC license. NC (non-commercial) is ''not''.
+* TVTropes added NC to their CC license in 2012, which is why we can't use something copied from The Other Tropes Wiki after they changed their license to include it. If you really want to use an image seen on TVTropes, you'll have to find the original image and use it instead.
 === Tropes ===
 * '''Visual Aid''': Unlike Works, page images for trope pages are there to help explain the trope, not provide an example above the example line.
-* '''Why are [[Comics]], [[Manga]], and [[Web Comic|Web Comics]] so popular?''': Because the addition of [[Speech Bubble]] allows the image to include [[Dialogue]] on top of visualizations, something which multimedia works lack. This, combined with a distinct lack of [[Motion Blur]], leans toward a dominance of these images.
+* '''Why are [[Comics]], [[Manga]], and [[Web Comic]]s so popular?''': Because the addition of [[Speech Bubble]]s allows the image to include [[Dialogue]] on top of visualizations, something which multimedia works lack. This, combined with a distinct lack of [[Motion Blur]], leans toward a dominance of these images.
 * '''The image is not an example entry''': the part of the page above the "examples" line is for explanation and related tropes, the part below is for examples. The image is above this line, unless it's too tall. Being an example, or even the greatest/[[Most Triumphant Example (Sugar Wiki)|most triumphant]]/[[Ur Example]], does not make it good at conveying the trope to other people. The goal of an image is to [[Show, Don't Tell]].
 * '''Captions can help''': A picture can need a caption to make the final leap, as long as it tells the story right up to the point where the caption closes the gap.
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 ** Snark, while not discouraged, is a good second to a meaningful quote.
 * '''Things to avoid'''
-** [[Just a Face And A Caption]]: The visual equivalent of a [[Zero Context Example]]. Most of the time, they only make sense if you're already familiar with the work ''and'' the trope. Read the link for more details about why this is a bad idea.
+** [[Just a Face and a Caption]]: The visual equivalent of a [[Zero Context Example]]. Most of the time, they only make sense if you're already familiar with the work ''and'' the trope. Read the link for more details about why this is a bad idea.
 ** Heavy stylized drawing style. If a picture is heavily stylized (and not to illustrate a trope about something being stylized), it's harder for people to decipher what is going on in there.
-** [[Wall of Text]]. If the image is nothing but a paragraph of text with a character drawn so that there's somewhere to stick a [[Speech Bubble]], it's not a great image. It might make a good quote though.
+** [[Wall of Text]]. If the image is nothing but a paragraph of text with a character drawn so that there's somewhere to stick a [[Speech Bubble]], it's not a great image. It might make a good quote, though.
 ** "If you read the example, this makes perfect sense" is not a good way to explain the trope (see the first point).
 ** [[Fauxtivational Poster|Demotivators]] have a current kill order on them. If you find one, the preferred response is to cut the image out of the middle and put the text as a caption, as a placeholder. If you're not sure it's good without it, bring it up in Page Images.
-** [[Entry Pimp]]ing. The image is not there solely to bring your favorite work to the attention of others.<ref>Of course if your favorite work actually does have a better picture for a trope, that's a different matter...</ref>
+** [[Entry Pimp]]ing. The image is not there solely to bring your favorite work to the attention of others.<ref>Of course if your favorite work actually does have a better picture for a trope, that's a different matter.</ref>
-** Spoilers. There's no code to make an image disappear when the image pops up and most peoples eyes are immediately drawn to images, meaning they can't unsee the image.
+** Spoilers. There's no code to make an image disappear when the image pops up and most peoples eyes are immediately drawn to images, meaning they can't unsee the image. This applies to pages that say they contain unmarked spoilers, too - casual readers will see the image before the notice.
 ** Images based on a [[Literal-Minded]] interpretation of the trope's title can be misleading. For example, [[Pet the Dog]] is not about [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|petting dogs]], it's a metaphor, which is a reason that the page features a kitten instead.
 ** "X shows us how it's done", "One of these things is not like the others", and other [[Memetic Mutation|meme-tastic]] captions are worse than nothing. Captions are not mandatory.
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 === [[Pothole|Potholing]] ===
 * Most images don't have the title of the work in them -- which is a problem, since people will likely want to know what work an image is from. Fortunately, we have ways of getting around this. The most common method is to simply make the image clickable. See [[Help:Formatting]] for how to do this.
-* Multisource works. When an image is a parody of another, such as a gaming webcomic or something, the preferred potholing method is the image pointing to the parody source, and the caption pointing to the parodied work. If there's multiple source works, a [[Help:Formatting|footnote]] with a list of the characters named and potholed is preferred. [[Most Common Superpower]] is an example.
+* Multisource works. When an image is a parody of another, such as a gaming web comic or something, the preferred potholing method is the image pointing to the parody source, and the caption pointing to the parodied work. If there's multiple source works, a [[Help:Formatting|footnote]] with a list of the characters named and potholed is preferred. [[Most Common Superpower]] is an example.
 * Non-potholed images that you've found can be potholed to the appropriate work if you know it.
 * If a [[Real Life]] image is chosen, you can either pothole to [[Real Life]] or don't pothole it at all.