Adding photos to tour locations

Each location on your tour can have up to five photos displayed on the listener’s screen. Here’s an example from a tour called Starting up in Woodstock:

It’s best to use photos selectively. Even though you can upload up to five photos per location, it doesn’t mean you have to. Only upload images that are useful or highlight something special. You could show:

• What a site or location looked like in the past
• A close up of a particular detail on an object or building
• A photo of a person or subject being talked about
• An interior shot of a building
• A wide angle shot to give perspective on a subject from afar

If you didn’t take a photo yourself, or you don’t own the copyright, please make sure you have permission to use it.

Using Creative Commons images #

You can also use Creative Commons images, but these normally require attribution. (These credits can be added to the tour description).

To find Creative Commons images using a Google search, follow these steps:

1. Search for an image in Google Images
2. Below the search box, click ‘Search tools’  A new menu will appear – click ‘Usage rights’  
3. Then select ‘Creative Commons Licenses’.

Now every image you see is free to use and can be cropped appropriately.

If you’re unsure of what could work best for a specific location, feel free to get in touch with us for some advice.

How to add photos to a location #

Before sending us your photos or uploading them yourself, please do the following:

1. Name all the photos using the location number and name, e.g. 02-munich-old-town-hall.jpeg. This will increase traffic from search engines like Google. If you are sending us photos for a tour that has already been published, this will allow easy matching when our editors upload the photos on your behalf.
   • If you are uploading multiple photos to the same location, along with specifying the location number and name, please also indicate which order you’d like the photo to be i.e. 02-munich-old-town-hall-3.jpeg
2. The photos will display as either square or portrait, depending on the screen. The minimum / ideal width is 2048px. The ideal height is 2075px, but the vertical size of photos can be larger.
3. Try to balance file size and photo quality. Large files make your tour slower to download. 2MB is the maximum allowed, but sizes of around 500KB are preferable. Please use .JPEG or .PNG file formats.

For new tours #

To add an image to a location: In the Your Script tab, click Images to expand it and select ‘Choose File(s). Make sure to click Save Location once you’re done adding the images.

For published tours #

To send us photos for a tour that has already been published, please use a file transfer site like Wetransfer.

For a featured location #

Once your tour is published or ready for publishing, you can also choose a featured location. Listeners can preview this location in the app, in addition to the first three locations on your tour.

How to Set Up Your Featured Location:

1. Open your publisher dashboard and scroll down to the list of Your Tours.
2. Click on the Distribution button next to the specific tour.
3. Open Featured Location.
4. Choose your ideal featured location from the list. (This will automatically load the audio for this location, which you can listen to, if you wish).
5. Add up to five images.
6. Click Save.

You can crop the image you plan to upload directly in Mapmaker before you save it. Once you’ve chosen the file, you can use the built-in cropping tool to adjust the image to the ideal dimensions. The tool is available for any of the images you upload, including tour images, your profile image, tour cover, and Viator images.

Here’s how to use it:

1. Click “Choose File(s)” to select your image, which will appear in the “Edit Image” pop-up window
2. Use the crop handles to select the portion of the image you want to keep, moving the frame around to find the spot you want to focus on. (The crop handles are set to the recommended dimensions for the specific type of image you’re uploading.)
3. Adjust your image as needed, zooming in or out and straightening the image using the sliders on the right side of the editor.
4. Click “Save” to apply your crop 

The cropping tool is especially useful when you want to highlight specific details or remove unnecessary elements from your photos. For best results, try to maintain the recommended dimensions for the specific images. You’ll find a complete reference of all image sizes used across VoiceMap, on our list of all image sizes.

Make sure the photos you upload or share with us are in the correct size before you upload or send them to us. Here’s how you can do this on Windows and MacOS.

On Windows:

1. Open the image in the Photos app.
2. Click on the three dots in the top-right corner and select ‘Resize’.
3. Choose the ‘Pixels’ option.
4. Slide the curser under ‘Quality’ to the left, until the ‘New’ size shown at the bottom is smaller than 2MB
5. Save the image and upload.

On MacOS:

1. Open the image in the Preview app.
2. Choose ‘Tools’, and ‘Adjust Size’, then select ‘Resample image’ (if it’s not pre-selected).
3. Enter a smaller value in the ‘Resolution’ field.
4. The new size is shown at the bottom.

You can also use other tools you can use include MS Paint, Photoshop, or free online tools like this one.