Help talk:Images/Archive 1

This is an archive of past Help talk:Images discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page, except for maintenance such as updating links.

.ini?

I can't find my .ini files, I have checked both "my documents" andwhere I installed it, but I can't find them? --81.232.125.202 15:09, 9 March 2007 (EST)

Are you looking for Oblivion or Morrowind? (And hopefully if you were looking for Morrowind's you realized that the page had a typo, the file you're looking for is Morrowind.ini, not Morrowidn.ini). You may also need to check your windows options; make sure that you're telling windows to display all files, and make sure that windows is listing the extensions for file names. --Nephele 15:31, 9 March 2007 (EST)

No, it's strange but I can't find the Oblivion .ini's? I want to enable screenshots in oblivion but... :( --81.232.125.202 14:19, 10 March 2007 (EST) PS. I can find a file called Oblivion.esm in the "data" folder but I can't find anything else :(

Nevermind, I found it, why didnät I see it before? :S --81.232.125.202 14:30, 10 March 2007 (EST)

structure of help page is unsatisfying

When I read through the Help:Images page, it seems to me that most topics are out of order. I would prefer to have it in a different more workflow like order, like: prerequisite, capturing screenshots, improving screenshots and preparing images, uploading, adding images to pages, linkable images, viewing images, additional help, links. Are there any objections if I 'improve' this page like this ? --Adjego 07:25, 5 February 2008 (EST)

No objections but for a big change to a help page it's probably going to be best if you write it in a private sandbox first and then invite comments rather than just replacing it. What's helpful to one person is obvious to another so it's always a good idea to get feedback from the wider community. –Rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 07:30, 5 February 2008 (EST)

OK! Please have a look at User:Adjego/Sandbox for the rearranged page. There are only very little changes in content and nothing was removed. How do I get feedback from the wider community ? -- Adjego 15:52, 5 February 2008 (EST)

That looks fine to me. If anybody else has any comments I'm sure they'll make them in a couple of days. If nobody has any complaints, just paste it over the existing article in a week or so. That might seem a long time but for help and policy pages it's usually a good idea to wait in case anybody has a problem. –Rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 11:05, 6 February 2008 (EST)

Looks good to me. After reading this help page again for the first time in a while, there are a few other tweaks I could see doing (missing links, etc), but I'll wait until you've put your new copy in place to make those tweaks. --Nephele^Talk 20:13, 13 February 2008 (EST)

Yes, there are a couple of things I like to change as well. But for this version I thought to only change the layout/order without content changes. (Well I did change 2 things...) I'm going to make the change as soon as possible. Too busy at the moment. -- Adjego 16:09, 14 February 2008 (EST)

(Update) The changed page is now uploaded. -- Adjego 10:09, 15 February 2008 (EST)

A Histogram

Screenshots are too dark

I can't seem to make my screenshots bright enough. I've tried 100-magnitude night-eye, and it makes almost no difference. When I turn up the gamma correction to the brightest setting, it just makes the image darker! Also, when I try to use Photoshop to make the picture brighter, it doesn't work withoud destroying the image quality. Is there anything else I should try? Thedolphindude 12:15, 12 June 2008 (EDT)

Of course, make sure your brightness is up to a god level, but check your monitor's brightness too, that could be a cause too.-Puddle ^{Talk•Contribs.} 12:21, 12 June 2008 (EDT)

More important than brightness in Photoshop is contrast. If you just crank the brightess, it ends up looking all grey and foggy, or just washed out. What you need to do is adjust the contrast. Open up the Levels (Image/Adjust/Levels, or simply Ctrl-L), and when you see the histogram, you'll notice that most of the image falls well below the halfway point of the curve. Move the white slider to the left, just to where the curve begins to rise. You might want to adjust the grey slider a bit as well, depending on the image. The example on the side shows a before and after of what a curve should look like. --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 12:31, 12 June 2008 (EDT)

Thanks, it worked great. Thedolphindude 13:06, 12 June 2008 (EDT)

Regarding the information on lighting under Tips on this help page: Crank my what now? Also, it is unclear if some of the tips refer to changing settings in an image editor, the game's settings (e.g., Settings > Display > Brightness), or both. --Jreynolds2^Talk 03:54, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Recommended Image Names

Our image naming system seems to have caused some problems lately, which haven't really been resolved.

Basically, our current naming recommendations are somewhat vague. That vagueness is intentional. The guidelines explicitly state that either hyphens or underscores (which are equivalent to spaces) are acceptable separators. We don't specify whether the category part of the name must be uppercase or lowercase. We don't state whether the name portion should match the game name, or the game editor ID; we don't say whether spaces should be included or removed from the name. None of these details are spelled out in the recommendations because different editors have always had different preferences when it comes to such details. Therefore, there is no single strict set of naming guidelines that would encompass the site's existing images. Furthermore, it's impractical to impose a new set of naming standards on all of our thousands of existing images: images cannot be renamed, so there is no way to reorganize images while ensuring that the image contribution history is maintained. The inability to rename images is a fundamental reason why our image naming system is flexible.

For those same reasons, I'd really prefer that we not get into establishing more precise naming guidelines, or more consistent image names. I think any such process is likely to be ugly from start to finish. Most of the decisions are ultimately based on personal preferences, so there's no objective way to decide upon a single set of strict guidelines. Which means it's unlikely a consensus will be possible -- the guidelines are likely to be decided by votes, meaning some people are going to dislike them. And the result will probably require the majority (if not nearly all) of our existing images to be renamed: the chances are that a single, strict naming system would be a hybrid of several different editors' preferences, and therefore would not exactly match any one existing naming system. Even with the help of bots, any large-scale image renaming would be a nightmare I don't think the process of developing or enforcing a strict image naming system would ultimately be beneficial to UESPWiki.

On the other hand, the flexible names are currently causing problems for the wiki. Images shouldn't end up being renamed each time they're uploaded just because a different editor is uploading the image. Such renaming requires unnecessary edits to every article that uses the images. Even worse, the renaming/deletion process destroys the image's contribution history. Just as we don't delete an article and start from scratch every time we update an article, we shouldn't delete all previous versions of an image each time it's updated. The editors who provided the earlier version of the image deserve full credit for their contributions. There are situations where access to an old version of an image would be useful (making sense out of an old version of an article, or an old discussion; if you want to update markers on a map such as Image:SI-Map-Cann, The Great Hall.jpg, it's much easier if a clean version of the map is already available).

Overall, the wiki relies upon its history system to ensure that all editors get full credit for their work, even if that work is later substantially revised or even altogether replaced. This system isn't just a matter of courtesy and respect for other editors -- it's also legally necessary to establish an article's authors and copyright. The same holds true for images. From my point of view, the site's legal requirements are more important than trying to impose consistent naming standards on images.

As I see it, for a flexible naming system to work everybody (or at the very least all of the site's admins) needs to accept that the naming system is flexible. That means recognizing and making use of images, regardless of the details of the naming system used for that image. That means accepting that our image naming system is fundamentally inconsistent -- there's no advantage to imposing consistency across one set of 100 images if those 100 images are inconsistent with another set of images.

Based on that principle, I'd like to recommend the following:

• If an image already exists, and if that image's name is at least roughly compatible with our naming guidelines, then any new revisions of the image should be uploaded using the same name as the existing image -- whether or not that name conforms with the current editor's naming preferences.
  • In cases where the existing image has a clearly incompatible name (for example, if the name does not start with the correct game prefix -- OB, MW, etc; or the name does not describe the image contents) then it is still appropriate to upload the new image to a new, acceptable name.
  • When there's uncertainty about the validity of the original image's name, give the original editor the benefit of the doubt; assume that the name is part of that person's preferred naming system.
• If an image is mistakenly uploaded to a new name (instead of being uploading using an existing, valid image name) then the editor should be asked to re-upload the image with the more appropriate name. Allowing the editor who created/revised the latest version of the image to upload the image himself/herself ensures that the correct editor gets full credit for his/her efforts.
  • If the editor does not re-upload the image after a reasonable amount of time (i.e., a week) then another editor can re-upload the image as long as the edit summary on the re-upload clearly states who actually created the image.

Does that work for everyone? In other words, does that provide a fair way to deal with image revisions that everyone can live with? If not, are there any other suggestions? --Nephele^Talk 00:53, 12 January 2009 (EST)

That makes sense to me, and is actually what I've typically done in the past. It was seeing correctly-named images being proposed for deletion that irked me. –Rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 03:27, 12 January 2009 (EST)

Actually, the different kinds of naming makes you recognize who made the picture by just looking at the title. That is, if you worked with them enough. :-)

I think you're right Nephele, as long as the conditions are met, there is little reason to "fix" the image names. Though I would like to propose an exception. Say a user has uploaded one image of a series yet to be completed, and I'm quite unhappy about the quality of that. When I want to complete the series (so doing most of them), and wanting to replace that one image, I'd rather upload it in the same format as all the others. For example, if one bad quality Morrowind NPC image existed MW-MasterAryon.jpg, and I'm doing all other MW NPC images as MW-NPC-<Name with spaces>.jpg, I would prefer to rename that single image when replacing it so it better fits the entire batch. --Timenn < talk > 04:19, 12 January 2009 (EST)

One problem with this is that when I'm creating a large batch of images (as I was with the maps that started this whole ugliness), I'm saving in some cases dozens of images in a row, and then uploading them all at once before I add them to the articles. The majority of the images I'm replacing have incorrectly named files, and only a few have names that are even close to correct by our naming standards. It's several extra steps for me to load up every page and check whether a properly-named image already exists for each file I plan to upload. I'm also not really sure what value there is in keeping those old versions of the maps - they're all fairly low-res and not very informative. Sure there's a bit of attribution for the contributor, but those maps (and correct me if I'm wrong here) look like they're just auto-created by the game using the CreateMaps command, so we're not talking about somebody's magnum opus here. It's really no big loss I'd say. I'm not trying to impose my naming preferences on everybody else here. It's just that when I'm uploading a large batch of images, it's really a hassle to have to keep checking and renaming my files whenever a well-named, but not-so-great-quality image already exists. --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 09:45, 12 January 2009 (EST)

Thanks everyone for the feedback.

Lurlock: You're still free to create dozens of images in a row and use whatever name you prefer when you save them on your hard drive; it's trivial to upload the image using a different name. And I really don't see how it's several extra steps to check the existing image names. You may have to do the steps in a different order, but you ultimately save at least two steps: you don't have to edit the existing articles to change the image name and you don't have to add prod tags to the existing images. Any slight inconvenience is really just the price that we all pay to make a collaborative environment such as the wiki work smoothly; alternatively, consider that making the small effort to glance at the place pages before uploading instead of two minutes later will prevent a lot of work after the fact in the form of justifying proposed deletions, debating the merits of image names, and revamping image name policies. And I really don't think we want to get into deciding what gets kept on the wiki based on value judgments about the quality of other editors' work. When it comes to written contributions, editors get full credit for their contributions no matter how pithy, poorly-spelled, or unintelligible, as long as the article at least has the correct name; why should images have to be a "magnum opus" to get the same consideration?

Timenn: your argument really only works if the entire naming system, for every Morrowind NPC image on the site, was consistent. Or if it was actually possible to "rename" an image on the wiki. But as things stand, there is little value to making one image out of a thousand "fit the entire batch" of 100 new images, especially when its done at the expense of respecting and giving credit to another editor's efforts. And it's a slippery slope: how is one image by an infrequent contributor qualitatively so different from ten images by a regular contributor?

Given the degree of conflict created by this issue lately, I think we no longer have the liberty of taking image naming lightly, or of making exceptions for one editor but not for another editor. In order to move forward and in order for editors to not worry about triggering controversy each time a new image is uploaded to the site, we need some type of new, objective guidelines. I'd prefer to not have to spell out the details of what happens when an image already exists, but I don't think we have much choice. --Nephele^Talk 12:01, 12 January 2009 (EST)

Nephele is right that it doesn't matter what a map is called on your hard disk, and replacing some images whilst uploading others afresh isn't that arduous if you use a tabbed browser.

• Load the article containing the image you're replacing (there's usually only one, after all)
• Load the image in a new tab
• If the image is correctly-named, click the "Upload a new version..." link and find your new image. Done
• If the image isn't correctly-named, click the "Upload File" link and upload the newly-named image; edit the old image page to prod it, and edit the article to point to the new image.

Easy as that. –Rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 12:38, 12 January 2009 (EST)

It wasn't my intention to include that exception in the guidelines, but as a way reducing the strictness of the guidelines agreed upon here. I agree with them, but I don't want to be stuck with them in the odd case. If I replace an image by renaming it, I don't want that reverted just because of these guidelines, if I had a good reason for renaming it. This basically comes down to Wikipedia's Ignore all rules. --Timenn < talk > 18:33, 12 January 2009 (EST)

Okay, since I've got another batch of these in the works, there's one thing about your logic here that I don't get. It seems to me that we're implying that we shouldn't delete ANY image, EVER. Let's try an example. Say I'm looking at this image: [[:Image:Ebernanit.jpg|Ebernanit.jpg]]. Now, I've got a better map of Ebernanit, but it seems from what you're saying that I have one of four options:

1. Ignore naming conventions, and upload my map to the existing file's location. This will preserve Monkeystyle's contribution history, but it results in a lot of files that don't meet naming conventions.
2. Upload my file with proper naming convention, but leave a link in the summary to Monkeystyle's image, and don't delete the old one. This will result in a lot of unused images on the site, but still preserves contribution history as well as keeping files with the correct naming convention.
3. Contact Monkeystyle and convince him to re-upload this image (and all his other images) with proper names, then upload my better versions right on top of them. Then prod the old one. Might be a challenge since he hasn't made any contributions in 6 months.
4. Failing that, re-upload Monkeystyle's image myself with a proper name, and credit him in the edit summary. Then upload my version on top of it and prod the old one. Seems like a lot of work, but this gives credit where it's due, and keeps properly named files, while not cluttering the site with old unused files.

If you say anything else, then what you're basically doing is making a value judgement on the image based solely on the name. I don't see how that image is any poorer quality than, say MW-map-Elith-Pal Mine.jpg. It actually represents slightly more work on Monkeystyle's part, because he at least added a label to his maps. But what we're basically saying is we want to keep Rpeh's image for all eternity because it's properly named, while at the same time throwing Monkeystyle's contribution away into the ether simply because the name is wrong, even though the images are about the same in terms of quality and amount of work that went into them. Make up your minds here. I don't think we can have it both ways. Either all the old low-res maps should be kept forever, regardless of name, or they can all be deleted once a better one is available. It's somewhat draconian to suggest that the poor quailty maps can be kept, but only if they're properly named, while those that aren't are summarily deleted. And unlike other contributions, files are gone forever once deleted, so even Admins can't go back into the history and see them. --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 13:07, 16 January 2009 (EST)

With that one, mark it for deletion and use the new image name, as everybody has been describing. Yes, we lose the history. That's just too bad. We're moving towards a standard for naming images and non-standard ones are going to lose their histories. A lot of my early images are about to be deleted during the OBNPCRP because they don't meet our new standards. I'm not going to be crying into my beer and I doubt MonkeyStyle is either. –Rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 13:43, 16 January 2009 (EST)

Well, that's fine, just so long as we're clear that you ARE making a judgement call based on filenames. It was Nephele's comments that led me to believe that we shouldn't be treating one editor's works as more valuable than another's simply because they're a more regular contributor. But here we are saying that basically everything Monkeystyle contributed to the site is worth permanently deleting once someting better comes along simply because he didn't name the files correctly. Just making sure that's what we're saying, because it pretty much amounts to exactly that. --TheRealLurlock ^Talk 14:13, 16 January 2009 (EST)

The basic logic behind the concept is an attempt to compromise; to find a balance between two goals: (a) a naming system for images (so that the contents of an image can be identified from the name; so that sorts and searches have a reasonable chance of finding images) and (b) preserving the contribution history for images. Which means that, yes, we are saying that images end up being kept based on the name, because that satisfies both goals: we have an image with an acceptable name and we keep the contribution history. But I did not say that we will never again delete any images. Furthermore, I don't think it so unreasonable or impossible to attempt to implement a middle-of-the-road guideline. I don't see what's so "draconian" about saying that we should keep images when it is reasonable to do so. I think stating that we must have a rigid naming system to which every image must precisely conform would be draconian. As would stating that we never delete anything from the site ever again; or stating that every time an image is uploaded every previous version of the image gets deleted from the history.

As rpeh already said, for the specific example you gave you would do what's been done countless times in the past: upload your image to a new name that matches our naming guidelines and put Monkeystyle's image up for deletion. That's what was already stated above in my suggestions: "In cases where the existing image has a clearly incompatible name (for example, if the name does not start with the correct game prefix...) then it is still appropriate to upload the new image to a new, acceptable name."

The other options you brought up were not being suggested. My suggestion about contacting the editor to re-upload the image was for recently uploaded images (sorry I didn't state that explicitly; I thought it was clear from the context) -- for example, when you're patrolling recent changes and see that an image was just uploaded. If an image was uploaded in the last week, it's not too unreasonable to think that it might be possible to get in contact with the person who uploaded the image and request that the image be re-uploaded. Furthermore, it was specifically for the case where both versions of the image have an acceptable name — because it really shouldn't be this difficult in such a situation to fully satisfy both of the above-stated goals: to have a valid image name and preserve the contribution history.

I suppose one assumption in everything I've said is that the new version of the image is of better quality than whatever image may have previously existed, and therefore that the new version is the one that we want to use on the site. We are not talking about a case where an image is re-uploaded purely to change the name, and is still being used on the site after the name change (in which case -- as with any case where an image is re-uploaded -- the original creator should be given credit for the image), or even a case where the image is just a photoshopped version of the original (again, we need to give credit).

Therefore, the quality of the image does matter, in that all of the replaced images are of roughly the same quality. In all cases, the quality of previous image was poor enough that we no longer want to use it. On the other hand, we're also saying in all cases that the quality of the previous image was sufficient for the image to be used on the site -- any unaccepable images should have been put for deletion as soon as they were uploaded. Past that, however, I'm not really sure why the quality of the previous image would be a deciding factor. Or rather, from my point of view, a subjective determination of whether an image is just-barely-acceptable or nearly-good-enough is less important than objective factors, such as a meaningful naming system and such as giving editors credit for their work. --Nephele^Talk 15:18, 16 January 2009 (EST)

My current experience as a new editor is that I have been naming images with spaces, then seeing a category appear later designating it as incorrectly-named, often as "incorrectly categorized," and also noticing that patrollers were "correcting" pages after I uploaded images to them. This initially caused me to feel that I was doing something "wrong," but that feeling is not compatible with the naming instructions on the image help page. After gaining a little more experience as a contributor, I then thought that the value of getting more images on the wiki was great enough that it was not really important that image files be correctly named, and that the community basically doesn't mind making corrections to names and categories. However, I am just guessing that others might feel discouraged from taking the time to take and upload screenshots, and then feeling that they are doing something incorrect. I suggest (at least for the names), either specifying the correct way to name images (hardly the most complex step in the process) or else finding a way to further process uploaded image files and pages that are less likely to make editors feel they are not contributing effectively. --Jreynolds2^Talk 06:13, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

That was actually my line of reasoning when removing the space format from the help page. Whether or not we want to "correct" the image names with spaces, there is little value in encouraging two slightly different naming conventions. --Alfwyn 13:31, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

can't find my Oblivion screenshots?

I followed the instructions but I can't find any of my screenshots I took. Can someone give me step by step instructions on where I can find them?--Repeater 13:23, 12 May 2009 (EDT)

See the explanations here. –Rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 13:39, 12 May 2009 (EDT)

Thanks!--Repeater 13:40, 12 May 2009 (EDT)

Own Images

Can you add images from your own files? If so then how? say an image found on google then put it onto my userpage etc--VergilSparda 19:56, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes you can add images with the normal upload method, take a look at my user page image. I'm the only one using it and only on my user page. Although you need to specify the licensing of the image (If the image is from google then I guess it qualifies as "public domain") --^MC• S'drassa ^•T2M 20:02, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, I found the upload file icon i need to look at things more :), i managed to upload a picture aswell :D--VergilSparda 21:07, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Oblivion_default.ini?

Why does this need to be edited to enable screenshots? I thought this was just a backup .ini with the default settings that was not accessed by Oblivion normally.Axxchor 01:59, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Good point. Fixed. rpeh •T•C•E• 09:24, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Google map for Skyrim?

Are we likely to see a google map for Skyrim similar to the one for Oblivion? I'm not asking because I want one, but because I'm considering whether it would be worth me spending the time creating an image showing the world location of each place in Skyrim along with nearby (major-ish) locations. Clearly, if there is to be a google style map then there's no point in me creating individual ones. I have a couple of further questions regarding filenames (yes I read this page), image format, brightness etc, but they would be redundant if the answer to the above is "yes, there'll be a google map", so I'll only post those if the answer is "no".Screwball 22:21, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Skyrim Troubleshooting Section

I added this section after finding that "Prt Sc" did nothing in my game. An internet search showed many people reporting this problem as well as the second. The Prt Scr function was NOT enabled by default in my game, and a significant number of other people report the same. In addition, there are a number of reports with at least some of the most conventional applications (e.g., Paint) being unable to open .bmp files created when the game is running at certain high (or relatively high) screen resolutions. I am watching this page if anyone has a question or comment about my edit. Jreynolds2 07:24, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Minimum acceptable resolution.

I have a few images I am looking at, and I want to know what the minimum acceptable resolution is, because I see a few that are kind of iffy. Thanks. ES^{Question?•Email•Contribs} 23:04, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Maybe it depends on the image. I think there's also something along the lines of "Something (that's not awful) is often better than nothing." Someone can always replace an image later. Maybe upload them with a note on the pages you will link to, asking for feedback about the quality of the image. Or just upload the file to a page, and put a request for feedback here??? --Jreynolds2^{Talk Contrib E-mail} 00:05, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

It really does depend on context, and of course which game space you're in. Obviously we can't get 2000 x 2000 pixel images for Arena. :) If in doubt, add a {{Cleanup}} tag to the image and in the reason parameter, just highlight that we could use a higher-res image. – Robin Hood↝talk 01:16, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

I was in the SR-npc category. I was curious for those pages. ES^{Question?•Email•Contribs} 01:26, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

File:SR-npc-Giraud Gemane.jpg is a good image to go off of. About 1000x1000 is a good resolution. elliot (talk) 01:28, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

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