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On the Travel.SE there is this identification question about the location of scene in a Windows Screen Saver image. The answer tracked down the original photographer (and location) of the image, and from here it gets interesting. The original image has a person (albeit virtually obscured), while the Windows version does not. It was suggested in a comment that Windows Screen saver images don't have people in them.

The question I want to ask is "What are the guidelines for a windows screen saver image?". But I don't know if this is a photography question or a legal question.

So would asking it be on topic here?

(Another question I'd like answered is - was the person edited in or out?)

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No, I don't think this is on-topic for Photo-SE.

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More specifically, I don't think what the completely arbitrary rules that Microsoft might have on what images they include for screen savers are would be on topic, but there are other related things that might be.

  • If they had some kind of artistic concept they wanted them to express, how to fulfill that would be on topic.
  • If you wanted to know how to do a technical process, such as removing the person, so that an image would meet the requirements, that would be on topic.

Pretty much anything that takes the document and ties it back to something to do with photography would be on topic, but asking what MS's policy on a screen saver image they bundle is not categorically different than asking what their EULA states or what their service contracts are. It doesn't have anything to do with photography directly, but may end up requiring some knowledge of photography to understand or meet.

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  • I had intended the question be about the artistic concept. As I imagine that would state what the guidelines are for people in screen savers images.
    – Peter M
    Apr 3 at 15:50
  • @PeterM I'm not really sure what the artistic concept around removing people would be. That's more of a privacy concern, especially when it comes to terms associated with what Microsoft uses as photos for screensavers and login screens.
    – AJ Henderson Mod
    Apr 4 at 18:25
  • I don't mean removing people, I mean do the guidelines prohibit people etc
    – Peter M
    Apr 4 at 19:29
  • @PeterM yeah, what Microsoft's specific guidelines are about whether there are allowed to be people isn't an artistic choice, it's a legal one and doesn't have any artistic element to it most likely.
    – AJ Henderson Mod
    Apr 4 at 21:37

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