Help:Image Template Hub

= The Image Template =

This is the Image Template, as most of you will interact with it:

Our image template serves a number of purposes for us:
 * It covers our butts, legally (more or less).
 * It tells you who or what appears in the image, and which universe they belong to.
 * It tells you where the issue came from.
 * It tells you who created that image - which is both informative and butt-covery.
 * It performs a lot of "Category Magic" (see [[Help:Our Templates|this article) for info.

Largely thanks to that last item, the template is quite complicated, and has a number of weird caveats and concessions that need to be kept in mind while entering. Another contributor to that complication is the fact that, like the historical majesty that is the City of New York, it is a flippin' Frankenstein, with new, sleek, and complex code built on top of intricate, if clumsy code that has existed since the template was first written. That is why this page is a hub, and not a catch-all help page.

So, let's go through the most frequently used fields in a general way, so you know what kinds of things can go in them. (Note, this information is actually on the template's page, in a condensed way).

License
These are the items available for entering into the License field:
 * GFDL - This means that the image is available to us under the . This typically applies to text in reference material. But it is the standard copy-left license that most of Wikipedia's material uses.
 * Public Domain - This means that the image has fallen into the public domain. Only a select few golden age titles would fall under this.
 * Share-A-Like - This is the . This is similar to the GFDL license, in that the creator retains rights, and we are merely allowed to reproduce it under the conditions of the license (which you should be aware of, if you use this license).
 * Fair Use - This is the license under which most of our images fall. It means that the image is available for us to reproduce under . Because it is so common, we have several "Fair Use (blankety blank)" categories which include:
 * Comic Cover - images intended for print on the cover of a comic book. We have a few types of this (more on that later).
 * Comic Single Panel - single panels from the interior of comic books.
 * Comic Scene - a scene or series of images from a comic book, rather than a single panel.
 * Trading Card - an image of/from a trading card.
 * Videogame Screenshot - pretty much what it says it is.
 * Movie Screenshot - pretty much what it says it is.
 * TV Screenshot - ditto.
 * Promotional Materials - like a poster or advertisement.
 * Merchandise - an image of merchandise, like a toy.

ImageType
These are the items available for entering into the ImageType field: There are others, but these are the most likely uses. Also note that there is an "ImageType2" field, for cases where two of these apply.
 * Cover Art - This is for images of the cover art as it was published.
 * Variant Cover - For variant covers, as published.
 * Textless Cover - For textless (a.k.a. "virgin") versions of covers. These don't have the title, issue number, etc. They are typically used for comic solicitations as they are released to the media.
 * Character Image - for images meant to demonstrate what the character looks like, or who they are.
 * Team Image - for images meant to demonstrate what a team looks like.
 * Item Image - for images meant to demonstrate what an item looks like.
 * Location Image - for images meant to demonstrate what a location looks like.
 * Vehicle Image - for images meant to demonstrate what a vehicle looks like.
 * Staff Image - for images meant to demonstrate what a staff member looks like.
 * User Image - for images of YOU, meant for your user page.

Description
Currently, we use this field for a specific purpose; adding the licensing blurb that explains what it is we are using, and how we are using it. To make this easier, we created FairJust. When you fill out the Description field, your input should look like this:


 * Description =

And that will output this:

If your image is not "Used for purposes of illustration in an educational article about the entity represented by the image," then you probably shouldn't be uploading it here.

Source/Issue
These fields are complicated and conditional because of Category Magic, so you'll have to refer to the more specific instructions for types of images to be sure which to use when, but as this page is meant for a general explanation...

While you might expect that we want you to list whichever website you stole your images from, that is not really the case. These fields are tailored to be used for linking back to a primary source that we have a page for on the wiki already. An image from a comic book's source would therefore be a link back to its issue page.

For example, this image comes from, and we fill out the Source field with "Batman Vol 2 10" (C is added automatically).

That said, the majority of images from inside comic books will use the Issue field instead - and only that field, filled out the same way.

When an image comes from something else, like a movie, videogame, or TV Episode, you must manually replace the Issue field with these respective fields:
 * Movie  =
 * Game   =
 * Episode =

And those fields should be filled out with the pagename of the corresponding movie, game, or episode.

If your image comes from something else completely, like a promo image from DC's website, or a poster, or a trading card, then you can use the source field to link a website, etc.

Just to be tricky though, because of Category Magic, Cover Art and Variant Cover images use the Source field instead of the Issue field.

Universe and Subjects
The Universe field is to indicate which universe or reality the image's content belongs to. For example, this image belongs to Prime Earth, while this one belongs to New Earth, and this one belongs to Earth-31. Fancy!

The Subject field is used to show who or what is in the image, and link back to them.

[[:File:Batman Earth-31 022.jpg|This image again], shows both Batman and Robin of Earth-31. So, we fill out the subject fields like so:


 * Subject1     = Bruce Wayne (Earth-31)
 * Subject2     = Carrie Kelley (Earth-31)

Make sure you always fill them out as "Real Name (Reality)," because that pesky Category Magic is all over these fields too. You can add additional Subject fields to the template, up to something like Subject100, if it's that kind of an image. (''PÉREEEEEEEEEEEEEEZ!!!!).

As mentioned, the Category Magic will use these fields to list the image you uploaded as an image of the character in question.

For the example image, the category that is automatically created would be Category:Bruce Wayne (Earth-31)/Images - which exists, as you can see.

Image Credits
This is where you must fill out the artists who created the image. In some cases, this won't be possible, but in the case of comics, it should be.

We have the CoverArtist field for Cover Art and Variant Covers. We have the Penciler, Inker, Colourist, and Letterer field for everything else.

If your image is a photograph, try to be sure you credit the photographer properly by adding the Photographer field (this is complicated if you took it, but just roll with it).

You can optionally add the Medium field to indicate which medium was used to create the image, whether it be pencils and inks, oil paints or acrylics, mixed media, etc. The Medium field does not categorize, so you're safe there.

Notes/Trivia
These fields are for any notes about your image, whether it be something related to the publication of the image, or a note about a reference in the image to something else.

For example, this image contains a note about why it was not used as the cover for its issue, while this image has a trivia note about on whom the artist based his drawings of the characters.

The Notes section automatically adds a note about DC's copyright ownership. So, there is no need to add that yourself.

Specific Template Help
Here is a list of Help pages we have for specific types of image that are commonly uploaded, and just as commonly messed up.
 * Help:Cover Art Images
 * Help:Textless Cover Images
 * Help:Character Images