#gonna try to put IDs and alt text in my art from now on | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

dracolunae · 2 years

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Hey, i was wondering if you could give some tips on how to write image IDs? I've been starting to add them to the alt text of my image selfposts but i feel like im not doing them properly and since you have the update accounts and write them often i thought that you could give some good advice about it Also here's some other halloween candy for you lmao

[Image ID:

A photo of a long white ceramic serving plate topped with slices of cake with a light and dark swirled pattern in the cross section. The slices are laid out like tipped over dominos bricks.

End ID]

Yay! Marmorkuchen!

But about image IDs. I tend to go from big to small in the description. Describe the most banel basic ass shit first, like “Is this a photo, is it art, if so what kind? Digital? Photograph or scan of a manual drawing? Is this an infographic?” From then you can describe the general topics, themes and layout of whatever it is you’re describing. You also have to consider whether you’re writing this ID for people who are familiar with the contents (fanart) or if it’s gonna be for people who don’t. Deciding the level of detail is a personal choice but mostly influenced by what amount of detail is necessary for this to be a functional image ID. You wouldn’t describe the font that something is written in unless it matters for example!

You can also decide what writing style best fits the ID. i tend to write full, dense sentences to get as much info in without the ID running too long but I also write in full sentences and following grammar rules. Sometimes a note taking style works better if there’s lots of disjointed things you can’t fit well into nice sentences!

And if you’re describing multiple things or a series of things in one post you can describe key elements in more detail once and then refer to them more simply for the rest of the ID!

I normally avoid putting IDs in alt text because they can be harder to access for people and have a much shorter character limit. Also try to always surround your ID with some form of ID start and end indicators and keep the ID, if in the body of the text, as close to the image as possible!

As an example, say you’re got a 4 panel comic, I’d describe it like this (gonna make smth up as an example) if I was writing a description for an audience who isn’t necessarily super familiar with the material.

[Image ID:

A 4 panel comic of a made up scene in Just Roll With It Riptide. It is drawn digitally and fully coloured. The scene takes place on a ship, presumably the one the show is set on, called the Albatross.

Panel One: Jay, a woman with long ginger hair wearing a blue jacket over a white blouse, catches Gillion, a turquoise skinned Triton with green hair, fish fins and wearing a black sleeveless turtleneck shirt, sneaking around the ship. Gillion is carrying a brown sack over his shoulder and sneaking. A speech bubble from Jay reads: “Gillion, what are you doing?”

Panel 2: Gillion is turned towards Jay, looking sheepish. You can see that the bag he’s carrying is filled with gold, which is leaking a little trail of coins behind him. Now that you can see Gillion’s entire body you can see he also has a tail and a flask of water tied around his waist, containing a small cute pink frog-octopus hybrid, which is know as Pretzel. Gillion: “Nothing Jay! I am merely, uh, relieving the ship of an unnecessary load so we can sail faster!”

Panel 3: Jay and Gillion stare at each other, Jay is unimpressed. Pretzel, peaking out of the flask at Gillion’s hip, starts collecting coins from where they leak out of the bag. Jay: “Gillion if you throw any more gold overboard as taxes I’m throwing you overboard to lighten our load.” “You” is written in italics for emphasis.

Panel 4: Gillion starts sprinting towards the edge of the ship, indicated through a running pose and blur lines, with Jay giving chase. Her eyes are in glowing red and a targeting reticule is superimposed over one of her eyes, as though she was locking in on her target (Gillion). A stream of gold sprays everywhere from the speed of the chase and Pretzel goes flying with it.

End ID]

#friendly visitors #anyone else feel free to add on this was just everything I could think off from the top of my head #and also now I really wanna see this jrwi comic I made up as an example

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