Forum:Standard Size Pictures

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Standard Size Pictures

What this wiki seems to be lacking is standard sizes for it's pictures. A good example of this is on the 'Recent Adventures...' section of the main page. Another good example is the Jack Harkness page. If you look down the page there are 9 pictures and they are all different sizes. If you set a standard size for character pictures and then another for screen shots I think this wiki would look a lot better and lot more consistent. --Rbfskywalker 11:33, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

The image sizing on the Jack Harkness page seems alright, the different images lend different things to the article, their sizing is partially determined by the layout of the article and the text around it.

Also I'm not sure a standardised sizing system would work as many screenshots are captured in 4:3 while others are 16:9, while further others are cropped images, all resulting a different shaped image.

As for the recent adventures section on the main page, it could be standardised, but again it is sometimes dependent on the source images and the detail within those source images to bring detail to the image. --Tangerineduel 13:26, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

I think all infoboxes should have a standard image size, at least for characters. For a start it would allow us to get decent full-body shots of the character. As for the within the ariticles, I think standardising would be limiting to the variety of images available. I think the recent adventures needs to be standardised to a degree. All television episodes should be the same (and mostly are), and other types just need to be as close as they can be. Taccer 07 15:30, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Generally speaking the standard size for infoboxes is 250px, though sometimes this can be smaller if (usually in the case of characters) there's a large or long image and a very small amount of text it can sometimes overwhelm the text. --Tangerineduel 16:24, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

I'd note here that other common boxes on pages — like stub templates, wikipediainfo, realworld — have all been sized so as to perfectly match up to an infobox using a 250px picture. If you alter the picture width, up or down, it tends to throw the whole page off, in my view. The issue of whether an image is captured 16:9, 4:3 or cropped is relatively moot. As long as the picture is at least 250 px wide to begin with, it'll "look right" on the page. That said, there are a couple of provisos. First, if the picture is cropped in such a way that it's a vertically oriented rectangle, then setting to 250 px will still be right horizontally, but it'll be an EXTREMELY long picture. Second, you should generally try to crop your pic so it's basically a square or, preferably, a horizontal rectangle. Body shots — which tend to be vertical rectangles —aren't generally preferable for infoboxes, because they push the info in the boxes way down on the page. Moreover, it's usually not important to the purposes of identification to see what sort of pants someone is wearing. Tightly cropped closeups come across much more strongly in an infobox. Where body shots are needed — such as with some aliens — a nice vertical rectangle can be placed in the main article itself.

Another thing to remember: when not logged in, users won't really get the symmetry built in to templates and infoboxes. The advertisement at the top right pushes all pictures down so far that on most pages, the infobox is actually below the level of the article text. There's no need to make that situation even worse by trying to fit a vertically oriented picture into a horizontally-oriented space.

As for standard sizes in the body of an article, it already exists. Just use "thumb" without modification in the "image" syntax. There's no need to define a pixel width if you're using thumbnails. Also, remember the object is only to make the image look good at the thumbnail level, not to impress people when they click on the thumbnail and see the original size. Not that many ordinary users take the time to go beyond the article to look at the image file. Thus, a clear tight cropping of closeup from an old VHS copy of an episode works better than trying to get a wide shot from an HD episode. At thumbnail size, even the clearest "group photo" looks pretty confusing. CzechOut ☎ | ✍ 09:27, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

I'd just like to say I apprececiate whoever has been resizing the nfobox images on the Doctor incarnation pages. Not sure whats happenned to 9 and 10, though... Taccer 07 19:42, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Archivist's notes

This thread is deemed to have affected policy in that it's made clear here that the general size of an infobox pic is 250px.
czechout<staff /> ☎ ✍ 01:29:49 Sat 28 May 2011