quote-background-image

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

1. Pull the collection's available plates/illustrations.
2. 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).
3. From what remains, rank by beauty and thematic fit.
4. Prefer atmospheric details and textures over busy full scenes.
5. If nothing clears the bar, recommend the plain tonal fallback.

Quick checklist (per candidate)

• Calm, even-toned zone for the text?
• Mid-tone, not too dark or too light?
• No printed text on the image?
• Focus offset, not dead-centre?
• Reads well cropped to a wide strip?
• On-theme for this collection?
• Nothing disturbing or badly degraded?
• High enough resolution?

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).