LinkIT Image Selection Guide
How to Pick Your Images Like a Pro
LinkIT is an initiative taken by the Information Technology Society (INTECS) of the Faculty of IT, University of Moratuwa to create a platform to recognize student writing and to encourage the students to start their blogging journey using the well-renowned platform, Medium.
We at LinkIT strive to make sure every piece we publish meets a professional standard. It will help us produce quality content on a consistent level.
Here are a few tips when selecting images for your article.
Always Use Photos That You Have a Legal Right to Publish
What do you mean by legal right?
All the images you find on Google search are not free to use. Some of them are copyrighted. This means the owner of the image can sue you if you use that image without their permission. Read this incident where an individual had to pay 800 dollars to avoid a lawsuit.
You get the legal right to use an image
- If the owner gives you permission
- If you purchase a license to use that image
- If you are the owner
- If the owner willingly made the image publicly free for everyone
- If you get the image from a free stock photo website
The reason why I have the last option bold is that it is the easiest and simplest way to get high-quality images for your article. It is best to stay away from all the hassle and use safe images.
Always stay away from the grey area.
Why Should You Choose Images You Have a Legal Right to?
Copyright Violation — Costliest Reason
Literally, a lawsuit can cost you thousands of dollars. It is best to keep yourself safe from these issues.
Curation — Most Important Reason
For all those who haven’t heard what curation is, it is where Medium’s curation team, reviews recently published stories and selects those that meet a high editorial standard for curation. When a story is curated, it becomes eligible to be distributed to readers across Medium surfaces — on the homepage, on topic pages, in the Medium app, in the Daily Digest newsletter we get, and in other emails — and shared via Medium’s recommendation system.
This would increase the chance of your stories to trend on medium and increase your views. And if you have signed up for the Medium Partner Program, you probably have a higher chance of earning some good money.
Curators are very specific about the quality of the articles published. That includes whether you have the legal right to include a photo and a few others. Read more about curation guidelines here.
Use Pleasant Photos
Please do not use photos that people might consider offensive or uncomfortable to look at. Try to keep your images pleasant.
Make sure not to fill your article with images. Your images should enhance your article, not distract your reader from it.
Caption Your Photos Appropriately
Make sure you always caption your images. Articles with uncaptioned images do not get curated. Always make it a habit to attribute your images even if you own them.
Free stock photo websites
Although the following pattern is not necessary, it is important to include the required details in your caption.
For example, if you take an image from a free stock photo site like Unsplash, you can simply copy the attribution when you download the image. It will look something like “Photo by {Owner} on {Website}”. Similarly, you can fill in the necessary details when you take the image from other free stock image sites such as Pixabay and Pexels.
If it is an illustration or vector graphic, you can change the attribution to “Illustration by {Owner} on {Website}”. Freepik is a well-known website for quality vector graphics and illustrations.
To make things easier for you, the Medium story editor comes built-in with an Unsplash image picker. All you have to do is keep the cursor at the beginning of the line and click the plus sign. And then click on the search icon and search for your image. Once you click the image, the image will be inserted and captioned appropriately.
Screenshots
If you have screenshots of your code, you can caption it like “Screenshot by Author”. It is always preferable if you embed the code in something like Codepen or use a tool like Carbon rather than insert screenshots of code. Suppose if it is a screenshot of a website, you can attribute like “Screenshot of {Website Name} by Author”.
Thanks for reading. I hope this was helpful. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a response.
LinkIT is an initiative taken by the Information Technology Society (INTECS) of the Faculty of IT, University of Moratuwa to create a platform to recognize student writing and to encourage the students to start their blogging journey using the well-renowned platform, Medium.
We at LinkIT strive to make sure every piece we publish meets a professional standard. It will help us produce quality content on a consistent level.
Here are a few tips when selecting images for your article.
Always Use Photos That You Have a Legal Right to Publish
What do you mean by legal right?
All the images you find on Google search are not free to use. Some of them are copyrighted. This means the owner of the image can sue you if you use that image without their permission. Read this incident where an individual had to pay 800 dollars to avoid a lawsuit.
You get the legal right to use an image
- If the owner gives you permission
- If you purchase a license to use that image
- If you are the owner
- If the owner willingly made the image publicly free for everyone
- If you get the image from a free stock photo website
The reason why I have the last option bold is that it is the easiest and simplest way to get high-quality images for your article. It is best to stay away from all the hassle and use safe images.
Always stay away from the grey area.
Why Should You Choose Images You Have a Legal Right to?
Copyright Violation — Costliest Reason
Literally, a lawsuit can cost you thousands of dollars. It is best to keep yourself safe from these issues.
Curation — Most Important Reason
For all those who haven’t heard what curation is, it is where Medium’s curation team, reviews recently published stories and selects those that meet a high editorial standard for curation. When a story is curated, it becomes eligible to be distributed to readers across Medium surfaces — on the homepage, on topic pages, in the Medium app, in the Daily Digest newsletter we get, and in other emails — and shared via Medium’s recommendation system.
This would increase the chance of your stories to trend on medium and increase your views. And if you have signed up for the Medium Partner Program, you probably have a higher chance of earning some good money.
Curators are very specific about the quality of the articles published. That includes whether you have the legal right to include a photo and a few others. Read more about curation guidelines here.
Use Pleasant Photos
Please do not use photos that people might consider offensive or uncomfortable to look at. Try to keep your images pleasant.
Make sure not to fill your article with images. Your images should enhance your article, not distract your reader from it.
Caption Your Photos Appropriately
Make sure you always caption your images. Articles with uncaptioned images do not get curated. Always make it a habit to attribute your images even if you own them.
Free stock photo websites
Although the following pattern is not necessary, it is important to include the required details in your caption.
For example, if you take an image from a free stock photo site like Unsplash, you can simply copy the attribution when you download the image. It will look something like “Photo by {Owner} on {Website}”. Similarly, you can fill in the necessary details when you take the image from other free stock image sites such as Pixabay and Pexels.
If it is an illustration or vector graphic, you can change the attribution to “Illustration by {Owner} on {Website}”. Freepik is a well-known website for quality vector graphics and illustrations.
To make things easier for you, the Medium story editor comes built-in with an Unsplash image picker. All you have to do is keep the cursor at the beginning of the line and click the plus sign. And then click on the search icon and search for your image. Once you click the image, the image will be inserted and captioned appropriately.
Screenshots
If you have screenshots of your code, you can caption it like “Screenshot by Author”. It is always preferable if you embed the code in something like Codepen or use a tool like Carbon rather than insert screenshots of code. Suppose if it is a screenshot of a website, you can attribute like “Screenshot of {Website Name} by Author”.
Thanks for reading. I hope this was helpful. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a response.
