Wikipedia:Teahouse/Host lounge/How-to guides/Image guide

This is often one of the most popular questions. Most users who upload images to Wikipedia often have them deleted. Many also have little understanding about copyright, and what type of images Wikipedia can accept.

How do I upload an image?
Note: To prevent spamming, we require all editors to make ten edits, and let four days pass from their first edit, before they can upload images. If you need an image uploaded and can't wait that long, file a request at files for upload.

First, you have to find out an important part of the upload process: are you trying to upload a copyrighted image or a free image? You can find this out by asking to learn more about the image; a link to the image online, etc. If the image is copyrighted, we prefer the new users not to upload the images even if fair use. Fair use is often a tough concept to grasp if one isn't familiar with copyright law, and images often end up getting deleted no matter what. Also, if the image is under a free license users should upload it to the Wikimedia Commons where it can be used easier and with less restrictions. In this section we will explore these concepts.

The image is copyrighted
Bilby's reply: There are only very limited circumstances when you can use copyrighted images. As a rule, if it is possible to replace the copyrighted image with a free equivalent, even if it would be very difficult to create one, it can't be used. The main exceptions are logos, which may be needed for articles about organisations, and scans of book or album covers - it may be impossible to create a free version, because anything you create will still be a copy of the original, and therefore subject to copyright, but you may still need an image for the article. The ins and outs of when you can (and can't) use copyrighted images are all explained at the non-free content policy, which is well worth a look.

Even if the image is ok, though, there are some additional things to keep in mind:
 * You can only add it to articles on Wikipedia - you can't use the image on drafts or on your userpage.
 * Each time you use it, you need to explain why it is needed for that article on the image's page. For example, have a look at the MGM logo - because it is used on three articles, it needs three separate reasons explaining why.

If you have any doubt about an image at all, or just need some help, you can always ask for assistance at the media copyright questions noticeboard - the people there are great at helping out with these problems.

Nathan2055's reply: When you are sure the image is acceptable, use the file upload wizard to quickly upload it!

The image has an acceptable license
Nathan2055's reply: If an image is licensed under a copyleft license, it can be uploaded to Wikimedia Commons and used without restrictions. What a copyleft license, you may ask? It's a license that allows people to reuse the image or edit it and reuse it, more often than not with an addition that requires people to relicense their content under the same license if it uses part of that file. Typically images that are licensed this way are marked as having a Creative Commons Attribution, Attribution-ShareAlike, or as being under the GNU Free Documentation License. All of these are acceptable.

When you are ready to upload, just use the upload wizard on Commons!

The image has been created by you and has not been licensed yet
Nathan2055's reply: If you are reading this, you probably want to know how to donate your own image. Great! First, choose your license. The #1 question I get is "How do I upload an image for Wikipedia use only?". The answer is: you can't. If you want to truly donate an image, you have to freely license it. I recommend the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license, which allows people to use or modify your image but requires them to do so under that license. Uploading is simple, just use the upload wizard on the Wikimedia Commons!

How do I find an image to add to an article?
Bilby's reply: I love using Flickr for images, because there are so many great photos there. Make sure you use their advanced search, though, as that way you can limit the search to images that are free use. To find images, got to the advanced search page and scroll down a bit. Near the bottom of the page are options to "Only search within Creative Commons-licensed content", "Find content to use commercially" and "Find content to modify, adapt, or build upon", allof which you will need to tick - images need to be both Creative Commons (or an equvalent license), and able to be modifed and used commercially before they are guaranteed to be ok for Wikipedia.

If you find an image on Flickr, check on the right side under "owner settings". What you are looking for is a small circle with an icon of person in it, and the word "Attribution" next to it, as with this photo. If the image is accompanied by a circle with a crossed-out dollar sign, or the word "non-commercial", then we can't really use the work. There's more information on the Flickr guide on Commons.

One small warning, though. Sometimes people mistakenly claim that a photo is licensed for Creative Commons when they don't really have the copyright. It is worth asking yourself if the image you want to use looks like it is properly licensed - if it appears to be scanned from a magazine, or if it isn't in keeping with the other works by the same person, it might not be ok.

How do I upload an image from Flickr?
Nathan2055's reply: We have a tool just for that! Fill out the form at http://toolserver.org/~bryan/flickr/upload and a bot will upload your image to the Wikimedia Commons automatically and give you credit!

How do I add an image to an article?
Nathan2055's reply: Simple! Just add the code:

Then replace the example stuff with how you want your image to look! Don't be afraid to use the preview button, and have fun!

How do I add a caption to an image that's already in an article?
Rosiestep's reply: If there's already an image in an article, you'll add the caption at the end of the image syntax. In this example, the caption would be written in the last area, "Example caption":

Remember that when adding a caption, it should be a suitable caption: keep it clear, succinct, and relevant. For more information, please see WP:CAPTION.

My image was deleted because of copyright reasons, why? What can I do to get it undeleted?
Bilby's reply: This is long, because I'm assuming we would want to know what the image was first, and thus the actual answer would be tailored based on the situation.

There are three issues here, making this an interesting question.

Why do we delete copyrighted images?


 * Wikipedia is intended to be free for anyone to use, for any reason, in any way, so long as they acknowledge where the material came from. You can copy pages an put them on your own website, quote large portions of articles, or even create and sell your own books based on Wikipedia articles - and many people do. But if we add non-free content, such as copyrighted images, we limit how Wikipedia can be reused - people aren't free to do anything they wish with the content, because some of the content would be restricted by copyright.


 * Accordingly, Wikipedia has stricter standards for images than you might find elsewhere. "Fair use" is tricky on Wikipedia. Fair use would allow us to use copyrighted works if we only used a small portion for educational purposes, and Wikipedia would therefore be ok. But people who reuse Wikipedia might discover that their use doesn't qualify. Thus we have the strict rules in the non-free content policy they go beyond the normal fair use limitations.

Why was my particular image deleted?


 * Commons has a nice diagram at File:Licensing_tutorial_en.svg for their images, which might be useful.


 * Generally if an image is deleted because of copyright, it could be for one of several reasons:
 * The simplest is that it was copyrighted and didn't meet the requirements spelled out in the policy for non-free content. This normally means that someone felt that it was potentially replaceable with a free-use equivalent, so we need to wait for one to come along. For example, if someone is alive and there is a chance that an astute photographer could grab a photograph of them, then there is a chance for a free-use photo. Alternatively, you might have forgotten to include a rationale explaining why the image is to be used in the specific article in which it appears, or the image might have been removed form the article, and is therefore no longer required.
 * Sometimes the problem is that it is what we call a "derivative" work. This means that it is based on a copyrighted image, so even though you may have drawn or taken it yourself, your version might still have copyright concerns. As an example, even if you draw your own picture of Mickey Mouse, the design of Mickey Mouse is still under copyright. Sometimes this can catch you by surprise - in some countries some architectural works and public sculptures may be protected by copyright, so even though you only took a photo of them while standing on the street, your photo is considered to be a derivative work and a potential copyright problem. Other countries have freedom of panorama, which allows you to take photos of works in public spaces.
 * You may have been mistaken or misled about the copyright status of the image. Sometimes people add images to websites which they claim are free of copyright, and so well-meaning contributors add them to Wikipedia, not realizing that the claimed permissions were false. Or sometimes people misread the copyright permissions - Wikipedia needs images that can be used for any purpose, even commercial ones, so images which are "for use on Wikipedia only", or which are limited to non commercial use, don't quite meet the requirements.
 * Occasionally, people add images to Wikipedia which they are fully allowed to add, either because the images are not protected by copyright or because the author is specifically releasing them as free-use images, but they get deleted anyway. This is normally because another contributor couldn't determine whether or not the image was allowed, and therefore erred on the side of caution.
 * In some countries the copyright laws with images are either more or less restrictive than in the US. On Commons, public domain images need to be public domain in both the US (where the digital images are stored), and in the country where they came from.
 * Sometimes, of course, it is just a mistake.

How do I get it undeleted?


 * The best first step is to find out who deleted your image and explain why it is ok. When you visit the page of a deleted image, you should see a bright pink box with "A page with this title has previously been deleted." In there it will state who deleted the image, a link to their talk page, and generally why it was deleted. If you visit their talk page you can ask for it to be returned, but you will have to say why. If it is copyrighted but comes under the non-free content exceptions you will need to add an explanation as to why it is needed for the article you want to add it to when the image is undeleted. If the reason was that there was nothing on the image's page to explain why the image was ok, you will need to add a license to the image and possibly contact the volunteer response team (often called OTRS), to let them see evidence that the image was licensed properly. If it is they'll make a note on the image so that this won't happen again.