| name | quote-background-image |
| description | Use this skill whenever choosing or evaluating a background image for the 'quote' section of a Source Library collection page — the wide banner where a sourced quotation is overlaid on an image drawn from the collection's plates or illustrations. Trigger for any request to pick, rank, or judge a background image behind quote text, select a plate for the quote banner, or decide whether a candidate image works as a text background. The goal is a beautiful, legible, on-theme backdrop that the quotation reads cleanly over. |
Quote Background Image Selection
Picking the image that sits behind an overlaid quotation on a collection page. The image must be striking on its own AND let the text read cleanly on top. Legibility wins ties: a stunning image the quote can't be read over is the wrong choice.
The job in one line
Choose the most beautiful image from the collection that has a calm area for text, no competing text of its own, even mid-tone lighting, and fits the collection's subject.
Evaluate every candidate against these
Legibility (non-negotiable — fails here = rejected)
- A calm zone for the text. Part of the image must be even-toned and low-detail where the quote will sit. Busy detail belongs at the edges, not where words land.
- Even, mid-tone lighting. Not too light, not too dark. Avoid high-contrast images (a bright window beside deep shadow) where text would be readable over one half and lost over the other.
- No text on the image itself. No title pages, captions, printed words, or labels. Overlaid type fighting printed type is a mess.
- No strong subject dead-centre. A face, a single object, or the focal point in the middle collides with the quote. Want the focus offset, or a texture/pattern with no single focus.
Composition
- Survives a wide crop. Quote banners are wide. Portrait images with the action at the very top or bottom get cut off. Favour images that still read when cropped to a wide strip.
- No faces looking straight at the reader. Distracting behind text, and slightly unsettling at banner scale.
Beauty & fit
- Genuinely striking. This is a feature slot; pick the best visual in the collection, not the first usable one.
- Atmospheric over literal. A texture, pattern, ornamental border, or a detail crop reads better as a background than a busy full-scene illustration.
- On-theme. Match the collection's subject and mood: an alchemical emblem for alchemy, a celestial diagram for astrology, a botanical plate for a plant collection. Not a random pretty image.
Content safety
- Nothing disturbing. These collections include demonology, witchcraft, anatomy, and torture imagery. Avoid gore, distressing scenes, or anything grim behind an inviting quote.
- No heavy degradation. Foxing, water stains, mould spots, and tears on old scans look like mess or damage behind text. Avoid badly degraded pages even if the underlying image is good.
- High enough resolution. It will be stretched wide; it must not blur or pixelate.
The override
If no image is genuinely good, a plain tonal background beats a bad photo. Don't force a weak, busy, or illegible image into the slot just to have one. A solid or subtly textured colour from the site palette is the correct fallback.
Selection method
- Pull the collection's available plates/illustrations.
- Discard anything that fails a legibility rule (text on image, too dark/light, focus dead-centre, can't survive wide crop) or a safety rule (disturbing, degraded, low-res).
- From what remains, rank by beauty and thematic fit.
- Prefer atmospheric details and textures over busy full scenes.
- If nothing clears the bar, recommend the plain tonal fallback.
Quick checklist (per candidate)
Any "no" on the first half (legibility/safety) = reject. "No" on theme/beauty = deprioritise.
Examples
Good: a softly lit alchemical emblem with ornament around the edges and an even mid-tone centre; a star chart with the dense constellations to one side; a botanical plate cropped to a calm field of leaves.
Bad: a title page (printed text); a stark woodcut of a demon centred on the page (disturbing, dead-centre focus); a brilliant-white engraving on blank paper (too light for overlay); a water-stained manuscript leaf (degradation reads as mess).
