MEDIA GUIDELINES

Summary

  • Minimum size: 700(?) pixels wide
  • Ideal dimensions: 700 wide x 525(?) tall
  • Aspect ratio (width : height): 4:3(?)
  • Resolution: 72 dpi (max 144 dpi)
  • Format: JPEG (use .jpg extension)

Image orientation

To look best in the ExploreLoneStarCoastal.com image display, your image should be horizontally oriented (i.e. landscape). We use horizontal image frames on most parts of the website, and your image will be automatically cropped to fit.

We use a standard 4:3 aspect ratio, which is what most cameras and cell phones will take in their default photo mode.

Low resolution images

To avoid looking blurry, images should be at least 700 pixels wide since they will be scaled up or down to fit the width of the image frames. Images should not be larger than 1200 pixels wide to enable fast uploads.

Wide or panoramic images

If the image width is more than 4 times its height (i.e. wide or panoramic format), the image will be horizontally compressed to fit the frame width and the image height will be stretched to the height of the frame to avoid blank margins above and below the image. Thus, images should have an aspect ratio near 4:3 to avoid compression of panoramic images and extreme cropping of vertical images.

Credits, Captions, and Logos

Every image must include a credit for the photographer or the organization that owns the copyright for the image. Short captions for each image are also strongly recommended to help visitors know what is in the picture and/or where it was captured. Business or organizational logos or images with text should never be used as the lead image for a nomination and are generally discouraged.

Videos

You may include one or more short (< 3 minutes), well-produced videos with your nominations. Each nomination must also include at least one still image in order to create a good quality thumbnail image for use in galleries and other pages.

Videos must first be uploaded to YouTube and be viewable to the public. Popup display ads must be disabled before using it on the ExploreLoneStarCoastal.com site.

Documents

One or more PDF documents may be uploaded to the content management system and will be downloadable under the Downloads section of the nomination page. Be sure to enter a title for each the PDF document in Title Case. The title will provide the hyperlink text for users to download the PDF.