Gathering Images for your Exhibit
Gathering Images for your Exhibit
August 1, 2013 by Taylor Studios
Sometimes our clients are tasked with providing imagery for use in exhibit graphics. It can be a matter of cost savings, or a matter of access to regional, local, or historic imagery. There are a couple of big no-no’s to remember when it comes to gathering imagery:
No-no number one:*Right clicking to save images you find online, or dragging and dropping images from the web to your desktop.*
The issue: First, the image may be copyrighted. Which means it’s illegal to use without permission from the owner of the image. Next, and equally important, the image is more than likely too small to be printed in a graphic. Images shown on the web are sized fairly small in order to load quickly and look good on a computer screen. Images on graphics have to be much larger and higher quality than those found on the web in order to look good printed.
No-no number two:*Scanning images from a magazine, book, or other printed publication.*
The issue: Printed images are created from little tiny dots of ink, positioned closely together to form the image. When you scan an image and enlarge it for an exhibit graphic, you start to see those little dots, and the image quality looks poor. (Though in some instances this look may be desirable.)
The solutions:
A few last tips
– Keep track of photographers’ names and image credits. It’s very difficult to add and track these after the fact. Always ask how image courtesy or copyright credit should read.
– If you find an image you like but it’s not large enough, email the photographer. It’s possible they have a high-resolution version somewhere.
– If you are unsure of whether a photo is large enough to use, ask your graphic designer.
Leave yourself plenty of time to secure images. Sometimes email or phone call image requests to photographers can take a while to resolve.