What are flags?

Sometimes you will come across a photo that needs to be removed from the encyclopedia. It might be irrelevant, not respect the quality guidelines or be of poor quality. Flags enable you to signal these photos so that they get removed. Flags are very important to maintain the quality of the encyclopedia. 

How to flag a photo?

To flag a photo as inappropriate use the triangle sign button on the left below.

You can flag as many photos as you feel necessary per day.

Select a reason to flag the photo and add a comment if you feel it is necessary to better explain the reason of your flag.

When a photo is flagged as inappropriate, the flag will be reviewed by the moderators who will decide to remove the photo or not and will forward the flag to the author of the photo or the member who added it.

When to flag a photo?

Important note

Criterias to flag are not absolute. The quality issues listed below can be found in many photos in Fotopedia, small composition imperfections for example. A little bit of quality issues is ok. So please use your best and most reasonable judgement when flagging.

Also, some articles have many photos of very high quality, others are empty. It is ok to flag a photo in one article and not another. The level of quality in these articles is different and you need to adjust your judgement when flagging.

Below are a list of reasons to flag a photo. We did our best to cover the issues we encounter the most, yet the list is not exhaustive. If we missed anything or if you can help us improve the information below please let us know.

Irrelevant

• The photo has nothing to do with the article. Make sure you check the text below.
• The relevant subject of the photo for this article is not visible enough
• Friends and family on the photo

For these flags please add any information that can help the moderators validate your report.

Be more specific

The specific article documents the photo the best, it gives it the most meaning. For example, a photo of the Pantheon in Rome can be in the following articles:

• Pantheon, Rome, Province of Rome, Lazio, Italy
• Pantheon, Roman temple, Temple
• Pantheon, Architecture of ancient Rome, Architecture

The photo should first be added to Pantheon, the most specific article, before being added to any other article.

Similar point of view

Adding several photos taken from a similar angle to an article doesn't bring anything more than adding one. Please select the best photo and add only that one.

Watermarks, Frames, Size and Layout

Size: We recommend you add photos with the highest resolution possible. Photos in resolutions lower than 1400x1080 will be reported and removed. 

Visible digital watermarking: whether it is your name or a date or a logo or any other mark, we need all digital watermarking removed from Fotopedia.

Frames: all frames need to be removed. The smallest frame or half frame is still a frame. This enables Fotopedia to have a coherent design and be nicer to navigate.

Layout:

• The rotation of the photo is incorrect
• Photo is rotated or cropped leaving an empty edge (we regularly get one pixel lines on the side of a photo that is visible on dark backgrounds only, be careful when you crop)
• Analog photography scanned with the border of the photographic film

Sharpness and Focus

Image editing

Compression

Compression enables us to remove unnecessary data from our photos and enable them to upload fast on the web. Good compression doesn't change the appearance of a photo in a noticeable way:

• Too high compression level (wiki)
• Compression artifact (wiki)

Noise

Noise can be an undesirable by-product of image capture or of image editing:

• Too much noise: fixed-pattern noise, random noise, banding noise, film grain, ...
• Too high noise reduction level

Exposition, Brightness and Contrast

• Over or under exposed
• Too high or too low contrast
• Too high or too low brightness
• Shadowed subject

Color

• Wrong color balance
• Unreasonable hue
• Inappropriate color space

Optical aberrations

Wikipedia has a good theoretical article about optical aberrations if you are interested. Below are the most frequent ones encountered:

• Distortion: barrel distortion, pincushion distortion, mustache distortion
• Spherical aberration
• Cylindrical perspective
• Astigmatism
• Chromatic aberration
• Vignetting

Dust

• Sensor dust
• Dust inside the lens
• Dust on the lens

Flash

Use your flash carefully or you might encounter the following issues:

• Harsh light
• Murky area
• Distracting reflections
• Red-eye effect 

Composition

Composition is the placement or arrangement of visual elements or ingredients in a work of art, as distinct from the subject of a work (wikipedia). We don't want to be too harsh on composition. Many photos could be slightly better if the composition was improved, yet they are still good photos. Below is a list of composition issues, some more disturbing than others:

• Inappropriate depth of field
• Inappropriate focal point
• Tilted horizon without interesting perspective
• Neglected backgound/foreground (arm, piece of head, tourist, ...)
• Distracting reflections
• Out of control lens flare
• Inopportune photographer's shadow
• Subject improperly cropped
• Interesting part/element of the image improperly cropped
• Something (finger, strap, hair) is in front of the lens