Category: General

27 Mar 2016 00:10

Joined:	04/03/2014
Level:	Gold
Points:	19194

Points:	5

The "Issue of Usage of Images in Articles

I want to solve this issue of usage of images in articles once for all. The image posting guidelines are too complicated and my two years of experience in Techulator left me with even more confused state of mind than before regarding this matter.

As a writer and not being a journalist, it is not expected of me to roam around the world clicking original photos for each and everything I write. What I understood so far after going through all the rules and regulations are that:

Neither am I supposed to use photographs posted by others on the net, nor am I eligible to use a photograph given in the official website of that product.

Neither I can take a screenshot of any product, nor I can copy the image, edit it and use.

But the most confusing part is, I've tried all of these (without knowing that it is not allowed), and some of them got accepted, while others got rejected.

Once I was told by the editors that I should acknowledge the sites from where I have taken the images, and it was accepted. The next time when I did that sincerely, it was not allowed.

I request all the friends, editors and webmasters to help me out from this mess, as without images the articles look so drab and uninteresting. Awaiting your kind responses.

#23905

27 Mar 2016 00:51

Joined:	01/01/2015
Level:	Gold
Points:	41446

Points:	5

Even I am not much clear with the exact guidelines. But, the issue needs to be handled on a case to case basis. If you are reviewing a mobile app, or a PC tool, you can use the screen shot feature. Because, the term " original images" hold no meaning here. You should take a screen shot either on your mobile phone, or use the screen shots feature on your PC.

If you are reviewing a new product, you may take the images from a third party site and edit it in any tool like Paint, or any allied software. Make sure you have used the images that are NOT copyright protected.

If you are unable to do either of them for some reason, you may use a third party image ( not copyrighted) and acknowledge the same indicating the source. That should be acceptable with what I have understood from over one years' experience on the site.

These are the steps I normally take while adding images to articles. I have not faced any issues with my images being rejected. Hopefully, this helps you.

Live....and Let Live!

#23906

27 Mar 2016 03:03

Joined:	04/03/2014
Level:	Gold
Points:	19194

Points:	1

I have used the same, as I have stated in the post itself, and while most of them got accepted some got rejected.
And please let me know how to know whether an image is copyrighted, (I am asking for those which do not have a watermark or any other mark on them.)

#23907

27 Mar 2016 05:03

Joined:	26/06/2015
Level:	Gold
Points:	15787

Points:	4

I try to find the images from the creative commons "share alike" sources. Most of the Google images have "Getty images" into it. So they are copyrighted and watermarked. and they pass through where don't notice them. So the best option these days is using creative commons sources. So that you can be assured that you're not using any illegal images.

Another thing is that these days you have to find the image as per the article page layout size. So you have to find the image that fits into the new layout. So manual cropping has to be done.

I hope that Tony sir finalize a good layout which is readable for both text and image. This way we can choose the right images too.

#23908

27 Mar 2016 07:20

Joined:	04/03/2014
Level:	Gold
Points:	19194

Points:	1

@Mahesh.
Thanks a lot for that information. Please let me know from where you find these "creative common share alike" images. It would be of great help. The cropping of the images are not much of an issue, I'm able to handle that as of now.

#23909

27 Mar 2016 09:24

Joined:	14/06/2012
Level:	Gold
Points:	4238

Points:	5

Anwesha,
Basically there is one thumb rule while using images in your articles - can the actual owner of the image complain regarding the unauthorized use of the image? This is why few of your articles with such images were accepted and this was not.
In your present article you have taken images which are hard to get and one of them even has watermark on it. It means that the owner probably does not want his images to be used without prior permission.

Regarding few of your doubts:
1. You can use images of products taken from official product website as they are available for press usage only.
2. You can take screenshots of any software you use and review.

You can use creative commons photos but make sure you give proper attribution as using those images too have certain guidelines like giving proper acknowledgement to the author and mentioning that the image is available for free use under creative commons.
Few such sources let you use images of free if the use is for non-commercial purpose but if you use those on TEC that does not fall under non-commercial purpose.

Another thing is that we are more concerned about is the search engines processing the images as copied images. Search engines won't care if the image is free for use, what they will see is that we are copying most of our images and therefore have lack of originality.

#23910

27 Mar 2016 09:27

Joined:	26/06/2015
Level:	Gold
Points:	15787

Points:	4

Here are some of the places where you can get the images:

1. Unsplash: Unsplash.com
2. Flickr : https://www.flickr.com/creativecommons/
3. Stocksnap : https://stocksnap.io/
4. Negative space: http://negativespace.co/

As for images in Tech domain, most of the images in tech republic and ZDNet are often under creative common license. You just have to check for such images. I think there are also some of the creative commons images listed on "Duckduckgo" search engine. Lot of other sources depending on type of image you want to check.

#23914

28 Mar 2016 10:14

Joined:	30/05/2009
Level:	Gold
Points:	47571

Points:	5

We don't recommend using images from other sources, even if the author allows you to use them. The reason is, when Google detects that those images are taken from other sources, Google would consider our site as a site that is not capable of making our own images and a site that depends on reproduced images. That causes a big negative impact on our search engine ranking. In terms of search engine ranking, in most cases, an article without images is better than an article with reproduced images.

Agreed, there may be cases where an article will be of no value if it has no images. In such cases, you can use images distributed through press releases or images made available to the media by the product manufacturer.

We generally discourage using images from other sources unless those images are really required for the article to make sense.

#23921

31 Mar 2016 04:30

Joined:	04/03/2014
Level:	Gold
Points:	19194

Points:	1

Thanks a lot to everyone for the answers. Hope this time the images I use won't get rejected.

The "Issue of Usage of Images in Articles

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