Copyright and etiquette

Please ensure that you have © permission to use all images and credit photographers/illustrators where possible. They and other potential image providers will be more likely to produce or share their images with us in future.

Quality

Make sure that you only use high-quality images. Quality is affected by a number of constraints, but broadly speaking you should pay attention to:

• artistic quality – choose images that are attractive and appropriate to their intended context;
• technical quality – don't use images that are pixellated, out of focus, dark or otherwise unfit for use;
• the intended size of the image – ensure that it has adequate resolution (i.e. the number of pixels that render the image) and remember that requirements for screen and print will differ in this respect;
• placement, context and crop (bearing in mind that some digital applications will apply a crop automatically, in some circumstances) – ensure the main subject matter is  not obscured or compromised, and that your image does not compromise any contiguous content (e.g. rendering overlaid text illegible);
• repeat uses of the same image – if the audience keep on seeing the same or similar images over a short period of time they will quickly lose interest.

It is nearly always better to omit an image rather than use a poor one. Remember that scaling an image up does not improve the quality, so this should not be done as an attempt to remedy low-resolution images.