A few days ago, the incredibly funny MadameSnape IM'd that to me, time stamped and all, as a conversation starter. Nope, not kidding. Welcome to my life :) Yes, it was a bullet hole, and after our horror subsided, we realized the pressing need for an article like this and I was happy to oblige. Thus, the image violation feature.

If your chapter was rejected for image violations, odds are this appeared in your Notes field, much to your considerable despair. Now, before you get all huffy and start telling us that there were no images in your chapter, remember, no matter what chapter you are sending us, we always see your story summary.

10. There were image violations. [Full Details]

The “Full Details” links, so conveniently placed in our Notes takes you to the shortlist in our Site Rules. While, technically, it houses a complete list, it can leave something to be desired in terms of explanation and, of that need, this post was born. But wait, there’s more! In addition to this handy-dandy document and the two k-base articles on the subject matter [HPFF Images|Banners], there is also the pretty nifty Troubleshooter that can be found here.

The first thing to be discussed is that there are two kinds of acceptable images in a story; a banner and a chapter image. A banner is placed in your story summary and is, usually, 700x110 pixels. Banners can be smaller than this but never larger. A chapter image, alternately, is placed directly into your story text and can be no larger than 380x300 pixels. If your banners are too large, it makes the house elves cry, so do us all a favor, and keep your banners within size limits.

Banners:
Banners are a bit like bling for your story and, since this article discusses the violations, I’m not going to go into how you get one or anything else. Scroll up a bit and you’ll see a direct link to the k-base article on everything you ever wanted to know about getting one.

Of late, the most common image violation we have with regards to banners is that the banner is a link. I cannot tell you how many perfectly good stories are rejected because the author has used the HTML provided by their image host and forgotten to remove the link portion. If you do this, bad things will happen and your story will be rejected and then everyone involved will be very very very sad.

If you've managed to sneak past that land mine, congratulations, but it's not time to get out the cake and party hats just yet. We're not going to be very forgiving if your banner is too big. Remember, banners can't be any larger than 700x110 pixels. If you got your banner from a staff member at The Dark Arts, you're pretty much gaurenteed to be safe but, if you made your banner yourself or had your banner made elsewhere, there is a chance that it might be the wrong size. In that case, there's a super easy way to check. Just right click an image and select "properties." In case you want to stretch your image size checking skills, give a try to the image displayed below. It is 350x55

The next big troublemaker is the gnome that runs rampent around the archive changing banners into nothingness. Now, some suspect that it's run by the mastermind's behind Photobucket and Tinypic but, sometimes it's caused by faulty HTML. Either way, if your banner isn't appearing, your story won't be validated, so double check that story summary and your author page and make sure everything is working before you submit a chapter because that is major grounds for rejection. As MadameSnape loves to say, "Preview is your best friend."

Why that is major grounds for rejection brings me to my next point: the 12+ Rule. At HPFF, all public material - your bio, your story and chapter titles, your summaries, and thus, your banner, have to be rated 12+ or lower. This means a lot of things for some people - no razor blades, no AK-47's, no large bloody knives or , no nudity, no bullet holes, no drugs, no drinking...are you getting the drift yet? If any of these things are found in your banners, it is considered a serious image violation and, repeated offenses can have serious consequences. . . such as account suspension.

Another popular issue is probably the most dangerous and also involves the kind of content you can place in your banner. While staff at The Dark Arts know better than to allow a person to put a personal picture in their banner, if you have made your banner yourself, you may run into this problem. Using a picture of you, your friends, your mom, your classmates, etc... in your story banner is a violation of our rules regarding the sharing of personal information. Sharing pictures of yourself on the web is ill advised and, for your safety, prohibited here. Images of celebrities or models are a-okay, but if a staff member suspects that you are using an image of someone else, your chapter may be rejected and your banner removed.

Lastly, and this isn't something that we run into very often, you're only allowed to have one banner per story. That means only one banner in your story summary and no banners in your chapter summaries.

Chapter Images:
Chapter images are somewhat of a different beast and they achieve a different goal. Again, let me remind you that they may be no larger than 380x300 and that you can only have one per chapter. Chapter images go into your chapter itself, not the summary, so if you place it in your summary it will be grounds for chapter rejection.

The most common reason we find to reject a chapter image is, much like a banner, that you used the HTML provided by your host and forgot to remove the link portion of it. After that, things start to get a bit more fuzzy. Chapter images must be rated according to your chapter. (i.e., if your chapter is rated 12+, your banner cannot be rated 15+ or M.) While this does open the door a bit for the kind of content you are allowed to include, please remember not to take things too far and, as always, the rules about personal pictures stand.

Chapter images are also plauged by the same shrouded demon that eats banners, so make sure that your image is in working order and displaying properly before you send your chapters in or they may be rejected.

Without further ado, the final potential chapter image violation would be having more than one in place.