# Photography Guidelines

Photographs are submitted to Wildbook as Sightings to identify Individual Animals. Here are the guidelines to follow for a successful identification:

* The **Animal** in the photo is distinguishable (i.e. free-standing or clearly in the foreground).
* The **Individual** takes the majority of the frame with decent resolution.
* The **Individual** is located near the center of the photograph.
* The **Individual** is in focus.

Here are what you need to **AVOID** for a successful identification:

* The **Individual** is part of an overlapping herd or group of animals.
* The **Individual** is relatively small.
* The **Individual** is blurry and out of focus because of being too far or too close to the camera.
* The **Individual** is located around the edges of the image.
* The **Individual** is occluded more than 25% by other animals or objects.
* A part of the **Individual** is off the edge of the frame.

Wildbook caters to multiple species. For best results, visit their Wildbook platform and navigate to **Learn > How to Photograph**.

## Image Formats and Sizes

* Wildbook accepts photographs in a variety of formats, including **.jpg, .jpeg, .png, and .bmp**. (Note: [Raw image formats](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raw_image_format) are not supported and must be converted to an approved format using photo editing software)
* Avoid using photographs of more than **1600px** and less than **480px**.
* When running detection and identification, photographs smaller than **480px** are sized up, which may cause blurriness.
* A compression ratio of 90% is enough.
* Uploading photographs with more than a higher compression ratio will not influence the identification process.
* Each photograph should be no more than 3MB in size. Photographs with bigger sizes put a strain on the server and cause identification to take longer.
````{warning}
While Wildbook allows you to upload video files, they cannot currently be sent through the [Image Analysis Pipeline](../introduction/image-analysis-pipeline.md). We recommend that you take screenshots of your video and upload those images for identification.
````