Conformance: Mandatory
Photos are a great addition to incorporate in your brand materials. This helps tell the story of our rich culture and vibrant city. Images should be high-quality and appropriate for the medium.
Requirements
- All photos are available for public use when citing "courtesy of the City of San Antonio."
- Photos may not be used for commercial purposes or political advertising. All uses must be in accordance with State and Federal law.
NOTE: The City reserves all rights not expressly granted.
Alt Text
You must use alternative text (also known as “alt text”) when images are published on or distributed through digital spaces (e.g., websites, emails, PDF, PowerPoint, Word documents, etc.). This allows a description of the image to be read by screen readers or assistive technologies used by users who are visually impaired or when images are unable to be displayed.
Guidelines
- Do not use “picture of” or “image of” to describe image
- Use appropriate capitalization and punctuation. The alt text will appear as you have written it if the image is unable to be displayed.
Principles
The general guidelines for displaying City images are to capture the following:
- Living in the moment
- Smile faces
- Unique perspectives
- Vibrant community
Exceptions
Stock images from sources like Adobe Stock, Shutterstock, Unsplash, Freepix, etc. are acceptable if a City image is not available.
Benefits
- Helps show our city in a positive light
- Highlights communities, residents and employees in a meaningful way
Risks
- Avoid using illustrative art if City or stock images are available
Examples
Living in the Moment
Go for the candid and avoid staged or posed images. Doing so will give the photo longer shelf life.
Smiling Faces
Smiling faces go a long way. Especially when they aren't looking straight into the camera.
Unique Perspectives
Get different angles in your photos. It makes them interesting, unique and draws users in a bit more.
Vibrant Community
San Antonio is a diverse and vibrant city that can be captured in neighborhoods to the people who occupy them.
City Stock Photos
We have a work-in-progress City Flickr account that has great stock photography to showcase our beautiful city and City services. Check out what we have!
City Stock Photos
City Event Photos
We have a SharePoint site that has event photography taken throughout the year by our City photographer as requested by departments. This site is only accessible to City employees.
City Event Photos (Internal Only)
Lightroom Preset
Presets are filters that can be applied to your photos. The City filter was created specifically to give a little pop and bring out the vibrant colors of the city. The filter does not need to be applied to every photo but is here when you need it.
Download Filter(ZIP, 9MB)
Importing Preset Into Lightroom
- Open the Lightroom app on your mobile device and tap Add Photos.
- Navigate to the location where you saved the DNG file and select the one that you wish to import.
- If you are using an iOS device, tap "From Camera Roll" to proceed.
- If you are using an Android device, tap "Gallery/Folder".
- If you saved the DNG files on cloud storage, tap "From Files" on iOS devices and the specific cloud storage folder on Android devices.
NOTE: As preset files are DNG files, you may see a "Cannot Load File" error message when you open the file. Continue following the steps to import DNG presets to your Lightroom Library.
- Once you open the file that you imported, tap the three-dot icon on the upper-right corner of the screen.
- Tap Create Presets and add a name for your newly imported preset.