The images and media policy describes preferred image source, content, and usage in articles and other pages. It applies to all images equally, regardless of uploader, format, and subject.

Images

Source

Nearly all images uploaded to the wiki should be taken by the uploader themselves in the Old School RuneScape game client (in layman's terms, while playing the official Old School RuneScape client). A screenshot is taken by pressing Shift + Prnt Scrn, Prnt Scrn, Windows Key + Shift + S (Windows 10), or Command + Shift + 3 for Macs while the Old School RuneScape window is open, then pasting it into an image editor, usually by pressing Ctrl + V (Command + V for Macs) or opening the Edit menu and selecting Paste. Once in the editor an image can be cropped, edited, and saved (preferably as a .png, details below). Other possible sources, and our related policies, are:

Third-party clients

Images taken in third-party clients are acceptable as long as they are indistinguishable from those taken in the official Old School RuneScape game client. The only exception to this are tile overlays and highlights, which can be used in third-party client images to indicate a certain tile as the place to stand, as a monster spawn location, etc. Such overlays should be used sparingly and be subtle in their implementation, as this policy is designed primarily to save editors' time (who might otherwise have to painstakingly draw indicator lines themselves). Any third-party GPU-based enhancements that change the way the game renders within the client, including increasing the game's render distance, are not allowed and should not be used under any circumstances. However, it is allowed to use features in the official clients that serve a similar purpose.

Fan art

Fan art that has been displayed on the RuneScape website is not acceptable. Other types of fan art such as personal fan art and fan art created by another author is also not acceptable on the wiki and is subject to deletion. Fan art does not include Old School RuneScape images that have had transparency or acceptable particle transparency added, slight colour enhancements or added brightness.

Fansites

Images from other fansites cannot be uploaded. Most websites ask that the images featured there not be used elsewhere, and it is the wiki's policy to honour that request.

Cache

Images from the Jagex cache can be used in situations where they match the in-game appearance of the image subject, especially when obtaining an image of the subject in game is impossible or extremely difficult. Renders from the in-game cache are most often used for pictures of NPCs or detailed item images, and can allow for more accurate transparency, higher resolution, and better angles than taking the pictures in-game.

Content

This section covers guidelines which are applied while in the game. These deal with manipulating the game environment to produce the highest quality images. If these conditions cannot be met, an image can still be uploaded.

Brightness

While any brightness settings are acceptable for any type of image, brightness settings in-game should be placed directly following the fourth peg icon for the best visibility and accuracy.

Costumes

Editors are to wear no costume of any kind; only the item in question should be equipped (unless the image depicts an item set). This type of "trademark item" use is like signing an image, and is therefore against our article ownership policy.

Gender

Any gender may be used for any image (providing the subject matter is available to both genders), and users should not replace images solely to depict their gender of choice. Replacing a low quality image with a higher quality image is perfectly fine, regardless of gender. Both genders may be depicted on equipment articles if there are equipment variations.

Location

It is helpful to stand in a location which contrasts the subject, if it is a worn subject. For instance, when showcasing a green piece of equipment, standing in a grassy area makes it harder to add transparency to the image.

Cutscenes

For cutscenes, only the most important parts should be displayed on the respective article. There should generally be no more than 4 images per cutscene. Action shots of cutscenes may look good, but they also increase the pageload a lot without adding anything useful to guides.

If there are plenty of images available that show cutscenes, they can be added to a separate page, pagename/cutscene. That page can then be linked to on the main page for that quest, thus allowing viewers who want to see more to see more.

Equipment

An image of the full body is preferred over just the head, feet, weapon or any other separated part. The equipment image is meant to show the body of a player wearing the item. Individual item pages are to have the single item equipped in the image. Equipment set pages are to have the full set equipped. To show the item in detail, detailed item images can be made.

Format

This section covers preferred standards which are set or applied after the screenshot is taken, outside of the Old School RuneScape client. This is usually in an image editor.

File type

The preferred image format is PNG (with the file extension .png in lowercase letters) because it has no compression artefacts and it supports transparency unlike JPG/JPEG. Images not in PNG format should be tagged with {{jpeg}} or {{gif}} if there is noticeable artefacting and it can be retaken in PNG format. JPG/JPEG images should not be directly converted to PNG as it does not increase lost quality and instead increases file size.

Transparency

All images showing items, objects, scenery or NPCs should have transparency. This means that the image's background should be deleted and replaced with transparent pixels. If the image editor cannot do this, editors are free to upload images without transparency to which other editors can apply transparency, or they can paint over the background with another colour (preferably white) to make adding transparency much easier and faster for other editors. Existing images without transparency should be tagged with the {{trans}} tag. A guide to applying transparency to images can be found at rsw:Help:Editing/Image transparency.

Particle transparency

Images that have particles or bloom effects may have their particles recreated to support transparency, as long as the recreated particles are not different than the original particles at a glance. Recreated particles must look like the original as much as possible. Existing images without particle transparency should be tagged with the {{Translucency}} tag.

If adding particle transparency is deemed too arduous, normal transparency may be added without cutting out particles, but the image should then be reverted to the original state without transparency if it is aesthetically superior over a partially transparent form. Particle transparency can be applied later.

Inventory icons

All inventory images must not contain shadows. The shadow should be deleted and replaced with transparent pixels. Inventory icons that still have their shadows should be tagged with the {{Inventory shadow}} template.

Chatbox/player names

The chatbox must be cropped away if it is not relevant to the image. If it must stay, Jagex Moderator names can appear as they may be relevant; however, player names are almost never relevant and should be removed in a way that does not distract from the image or replaced with a player spoof name.

Chatheads

The chathead of a non-player character should be a neutral chathead (or the most neutral-looking chathead obtainable from in-game dialogue). Chatheads from the cache, which show the full chathead beyond the normal in-game limitations, can be used. However, chatheads that display more excessive features than necessary may be cropped or removed at the discretion of the uploader.

Cropping

Be sure to crop the image to show only what is needed to serve the image's purpose. Crop away any irrelevant pixels that would distract from the image's original purpose. For example, a player wishing to create an image showing bankers should keep only the pixels showing the banker and possibly the desk they're standing at. The rest of the building and players should be cropped away as much as possible.

Image use

This section covers how images should be uploaded to and used on the Wiki.

Image name

Shortcut:

RS:IMG#NAME

When uploading an image to the Wiki, the name should be as descriptive as possible. It is helpful to identify how the subject is being depicted, whether it is a detail image, an inventory icon, an equipped image, and so on. Names such as "Screenshot-01" or "Untitled 1" are not acceptable. Likewise, including player names in the image title is not allowed. As for the extension, .png is preferred over .PNG.

Subject	Image name	Comment
Item inventory icons	<Item name>.png
Detailed item images	<Item name> detail.png
Item inventory icons showing more than one of an item	<Item name> <Number of items>.png
Scenery	<Name of scenery>.png
Farming Nth growth stage	<Name of scenery> stage <N>.png
Monsters or NPCs	<Monster/NPC name>.png
Chatheads of NPCs	<NPC/Item name> chathead.png
A male player wielding an item	<Item name> equipped male.png
A female player wielding an item	<Item name> equipped female.png
Locations	<Name of location>.png
Quest rewards	<Quest name> reward scroll.png
A player wielding a complete set of armour	<Type of armour set> equipped.png	If the image is of a player wielding a specific set of armour, such as Bronze set (lg), the (lg) or (sk) should also be included in the file name.
The location of something on the world map	<Object> map location.png	Consider using Template:Map instead.
Other images showing the location of something	<Object> location.png
Skill-specific icons	<Object name> icon.png	This includes Slayer, Construction, and Hunter skill guide icons.
Built Construction objects	<Object name> built.png
The location of a simple Treasure Trail	<Location TT type> treasure trail.png
Animations	<Action>.gif
A subject with different versions	<Subject> (1).png, <Subject> (2).png, etc.
Historical images	<Subject> v1.png, <Subject> v2.png etc.	Examples can be found on Graphical updates.
Update Summary image, which is always in the top right corner	<Title of the Update> newspost.png/jpg>.
Update images and Animations used on Official news posts	<Title of the Update> (1).png/jpg/gif, <Title of the Update> (2).png/jpg/gif, etc

Note: If the image is of an item, monster, npc, or quest reward, please try to keep the name consistent with the name of the article for that thing. For example, Bob (smith).png instead of Bob.png. Also keep things such as capitalisation and punctuation consistent not only with the article name, but with the guidelines above. Typically this will mean the parenthesized word will have lower case letters. Spaces should always be used in file names instead of hyphens, etc.

An effort should be made by users uploading files to this wiki to see if in fact the item or image has already been uploaded previously, and to preserve existing naming conventions for this item or for similar kinds of images. Attempts to upload a new image under a new file name for something that already exists on this wiki may result in that image being deleted.

Image descriptions

Image descriptions should be included on the image page. They should be kept short and to-the-point. Please do not give yourself credit in the image description, watermark the image, credit clans, chat names, or other people, or identify Old School RuneScape accounts in the screenshot. Credit is given to you as the uploader of the image in the image history, and the names of the Old School RuneScape accounts involved are irrelevant. Also avoid including explanations such as "replacement for another image." The description should link, if possible, to the article of the subject which it depicts.

Use in articles

All images hosted on the wiki must be used in the main article namespace at least once. Project-related images, such as the sysop crown, are an exception. Since the Wiki is not an image host, no personal-use images are allowed to be uploaded, whether it be for use on a talk page or a signature. You cannot justify a personal image by adding it to the pages of items that appear in your image! If you want a personal image to appear on the wiki, you must use either Dropbox, imgur, puush or Discord, since they are currently the only such websites supported by the wiki. (Hosting sites such as Tinypic aren't supported and so will only display an html link.)

Historical images

Images taken in RuneScape Classic or before a significant appearance update should be kept. New screenshots will replace the old at the top of the page and other places of prominence. The old images should be kept, but moved to the Graphical updates page. Instead, they should be tagged with the Historical image tag: {{historical image|reason for being historical}}.

Glitch images

A glitch image (file, media, etc) may be uploaded if it meets the following requirements:

The image is of original content and does not contain material that may be deemed of duplicate nature to any other media hosted on the wiki.
The image augments text describing such glitches in such a way that simply describing the glitch in a purely textual format would not or could not define the contents of the glitch adequately.
The image portrays the glitch in a manner such that the contents of the glitch are readily notifiable and/or recognizable.

Templates

There are several templates designed for use on file pages. These can mostly be split into two categories; licenses and maintenance.

Licenses

Shortcut:

RS:LICENSES

License name Appearance

{{Animation license|Name of animation}}