If you are unable to find a suitable image in the Media Library then you can add your own.

Where to find suitable images

The main place to source high-quality Imperial images is the Asset Library, which is a repository of over 200,000 photos and other digital assets - such as images, logos and templates - that are available for the Imperial community to download. 

One of the key uses of the Asset Library is to find high-quality images to add to your T4 website.

Guidance on using the Asset Library

• Asset Library support pages 
• Asset Library chapter in the T4 Image management course

Ensure your new image is the correct size

Before you upload your image you will first need to ensure it is the correct size for the content type you are adding the image to. There are five different image sizes and you must use the correct size image for the content type you are using. Please refer to the Image sizes for different content type guidance for the correct size to use.

Check you have permission to use the image

We strongly recomend using images from the College's Asset Library as these images are approved for use on the College website. If you are sourcing images from other sources, then you must ensure you have the permission of the copyright holder.

Find out more about image copyright in images and photography

Cropping and resizing your image

There are two ways that you can adjust the size of your image – resizing and cropping. Resizing is the most straightforward way, but your image needs to be in the correct aspect ratio for this method to work. For example, if your image is 6000 pixels wide and 4000 pixels high, then it is very easy to resize the image to 3000 pixels (px) wide and 2000px high as it is the same 3:2 ratio. If you wanted to resize that same image to 3000px by 850px then you would need to change the aspect ratio of the image.  In this case, resizing the image would squash the image, so it would be distorted. That is where you would crop the image instead.

Cropping is the process of cutting an image down to the specific size you require or emphasise a certain portion of the image.

Important: Before you upload your image to the T4 Media Library, please ensure your image file size is no more than 2MB in size in order to optimise the performance of the Imperial website. The instructions for Adobe Photoshop and BeFunky below include how to optimise your image for the web.

Recommended tools for cropping and resizing

Uploading your resized image to the Media Library

Depending on which content type you are using, you will access the Media Library in different ways. For most content types this will be via the specific image(s) fields and the Select media button. If you are adding an image to General content, Accordions or Tabs, then you will add images via the text editor.

When you get to the Media Library, you will see an Images category (folder), if you expand this you will see the six different categories of images. These categories relate to the image size and the content type you are adding the image to.

Please refer to the Image sizes for each content type  guidance for the correct category to use for the content type you are using.

Using descriptive (and unique) filenames

Important - You must ensure that the filename of the image you are uploading is descriptive, for example group-of-students-on-dalby-court.jpg or researchers-in-michael-uren-lab.jpg. Do not use generic filenames like Image1.jpg or Untitled1.jpg.

If more than one image has the same filename in a Media Library folder, then it is possible that the wrong image will show on your web page, so please use a unique filename to prevent this. 

More guidance on uploading images to the Media Library

You can also check out lesson 6 of the T4 Site Manager (version 8) Image Management online course for further guidance on uploading images to the Media Library including 'how to' videos.