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Adding images to Guild Wars Wiki is a great way to enhance the content of an article, or liven up a userpage. Here are some basics on how to format images to be wiki friendly. Image use is regulated by our Image use policy.
Screenshots[edit]
The most common of all images on Guild Wars Wiki are screenshots taken from the game.
Tips on screen capturing[edit]
- For highest quality screenshots you should capture them in the .bmp format and convert to a wiki friendly file type using a 3rd party software. See Command line.
- For high quality screenshots, Graphic options (F11/Graphics) should be set as follows:
- Anti-Aliasing - highest option available with your video card
- Visual Quality - 3/4 to highest quality or higher
- Terrain Quality - High
- Reflections - All
- Texture Quality - High
- Shadow Quality - Off
- Shader Quality - High
- Enable Wait for vertical sync
- Disable Post processing effects
- Enable Use best texture filtering
- Press Shift + Print Screen to hide the game interface during the capture, so you get a clean shot.
- You can also toggle the game interface off (and back on again) by pressing Ctrl + Shift + H.
- Watch for the mouse hover. A mouse hovering over objects will make them glow (sometimes covering their details), though this goes away if you hide the game interface.
- Depending on the performance of your computer and the graphics settings, the capture will not take place in the instant you press the key, but up to half a second later. This is important to know when trying to capture moving objects, such as dancing players.
- When setting up a scenery to take a capture, take heed of the direction from which the light comes. Capturing images of objects with backlight will make them lose a lot of detail due to shadows. NPCs will turn towards you when talked to. This can be used to make them face the light.
- When choosing a location to take screenshots, take heed of the color and brightness of the light. Some areas are brighter than others and in many places the light is strongly hued.
Other images for Guild Wars Wiki[edit]
Other images that are commonly found on Guild Wars Wiki are GW.dat file extracts. These are most often found in the .png format.
Any image not taken from the game, or directly from an alternative ArenaNet source must comply with Copyright policy. Be sure to determine if your image is copyrighted prior to uploading it.
Making images wiki friendly[edit]
- Permitted file types: png, gif, jpg, jpeg.
- Although files up to 16 megabytes can be uploaded, there is no need for any image to be that large. Any image that is larger than a few hundred kilobytes can cause issues for people trying to view the page that it is used on, so it is recommended that images be no larger than 500kb.
- General web friendly image sizing should be kept in mind when uploading an image.
- Use descriptive titles. Suffix the filename with the content description. For example acceptable map names would be "File:North Kryta Province map.jpg" or "File:Sol Pyrrhus map.jpg". For images of weapons with multiple skins acceptable names would be "File:Weapon (skin).jpg" (i.e. "File:Fire Staff (core).jpg", "File:Fire Staff (Tyrian).jpg" and "File:Fire Staff (Canthan).jpg").
- Avoid overly long or complicated image names, or image names containing any type of punctuation marks.
Uploading images to Guild Wars Wiki[edit]
There are two general ways to initially upload an image to the wiki.
- Use the Upload file link in the toolbox. This takes you directly to the Upload file page. Make sure you are using the appropriate image naming format depending on the use of your image. See the Image use policy for naming details.
- Create a link
[[File:<image name>.<extension>]] on the page you wish the image to appear on. Then click on the red link. This allows you to verify the image name is correct before uploading it.
Select the appropriate use for your image[edit]
- General use - used in mainspace articles, associated mainspace talk pages, public templates
- User space - used only on user pages, must comply with User image naming formats
- Guild space - used only on guild pages, must comply with Guild image naming formats
Select the appropriate licensing tag for your image[edit]
- Normal image - original artwork that carries no copyright and is free to be released under GNU Free Documentation License, or images previously released into the Public Domain
- ArenaNet owned image - images from official ArenaNet sources other than screenshots
- Guild Wars screenshot - images captured in Guild Wars
Replacing an existing image[edit]
Replacing an image that already exists can be done by simply using the Upload a new version of this file link on the image page. This maintains the proper name and image history and allows an image to be reverted to a prior version if the new version is decided to be not an improvement.
- Due to server cache issues it may take an hour or more for the new image to appear. Refresh the page or try clearing your browser cache using Ctrl + F5 in most browsers, to help resolve this issue if the new image doesn't appear after an hour. Do not simply reupload a new version immediately as this only makes the problem worse.
Free and open-source image editing software[edit]
DISCLAIMER: This section describes software written by a third party. The Official Guild Wars Wiki does not endorse, explicitly or otherwise, the use of any third party tools. As with all third party software, the user should investigate the tool themselves and take precautions prior to installation in order to protect their privacy and security.
These free and open source software packages have been recommended by Wikipedians for use in image and media manipulation:
- The GIMP [1] — General image editor. (Linux, Windows, Mac OS X)
- ImageMagick [2] — Image conversion and transformation suite. (Linux, Windows, Mac OS X)
- GraphicsMagick [3] — A clone of ImageMagick emphasizing consistency of the programming API and end-user command-line options. (Linux, Windows, Mac OS X)
- Paint.NET [4] — Image editing software based on the .NET platform. (Windows)
See Also[edit]
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