Use of Images Policy

We are keen for all events listed on the website or other promotional material to include images showing the area you are going to.

However to make sure that you don’t violate copyright law, GOC policy is that you should only upload photos to the website that you’ve taken yourself, or when you know the person who took it and they have given you permission to use it on our website.

Please do not upload images you find on the internet, even if they say they may be re-used. That’s because there are often additional terms for using them, such as giving credit to the owner correctly, or paying a licence fee etc.  

Please also respect the wishes of anybody in your photo who might not want it published, and never use photos of anyone taken in a private place without their consent. Members must never upload or publish any images that might be considered offensive.

OS maps are Crown Copyright, and cannot be reproduced without a licence. For those of you who wish to include area maps or the like, please only use mapping from a legitimate free source, such as www.openstreetmap.org

Helpful Guidance

Images used on this site are cropped in different ways for use in different parts of the site.  Because of the cropping, images with text, for example copyright notices, should not be used.

Featured images are shown at a ratio of 1:1.618 (mobile devices) and 1:3.236 (larger screens, eg desktops and laptops).  Images used as links to posts are shown at a ratio of 1:1, as are images used in post galleries.  Cropping for these ratios is always centred on the image.

TIP! Select the image from the library and click ‘Expand Details’ (which is the link near the top right hand corner of the screen) to display the image as it will appear when cropped. Look out for heads being chopped off. Where the image is cropped adversely the file can be edited using your favourite editor and replace the library image for that perfect shot.

Priority Pictures #prioritypic

Several responses to the January 2023 GOC website & IT user feedback survey suggested that it be made easier for group co-ordinators and event leaders to find images for their events if they don’t already have one to use.

In response, we reviewed publicly visible photos on recent event reports on the website to identify some to prioritise for wider use elsewhere, and added the hashtag #prioritypic to the image description of each in the media library.

Our criteria for priority pictures are:

• high quality, high resolution photos, of
• diverse people
• enjoying themselves
• doing diverse activities
• in beautiful surroundings.

So, please:

• if you don’t have a suitable image of your own to use for your event, feel free to use one that has been identified as a priority picture – go to the media library in the site administration area, enter #prioritypic in the search field (top right), and you should see dozens already identified for priority use
• if you have high quality images of your own that you think meet most or even all of the other criteria as well, then please add #prioritypic yourself in the image description so that all of us can find them and use them as well
• if you find any images of your own with the #prioritypic hashtag that you do NOT want used by more widely, please change the hashtag to #NOTpriority – so that they do not appear in a #prioritypic search, and we know not to use them (or add #prioritypic to them) if we find them.

Similarly, please let me know if you see an image on the home page or elsewhere that you want me to remove or change.

Thank you! Martin Gilbraith, Website & IT manager