The quality images project aims to identify and encourage users who provide images of high technical quality to Commons. Featured pictures are the cream of the crop at Commons and the project is reserved for images of both extraordinary value and technical quality.

Valued images, on the other hand, are those that are the most valuable of their kind for use in an online context, within other Wikimedia projects. The technical requirements for valued images are typically much lower, as there is no concern about suitability for print usage. A built-in camera in a modern mobile phone should be sufficient if the subject is of high value and the photo illustrates it well at a viewing size of 480×360 pixels or equivalent. Valued images are less about technical quality and more about your ingenuity in finding good and valuable subjects which matter, and about the usability of the information on the image page.

All images on Commons are eligible to be nominated as a valued image, be they photographs, animations, schemes, diagrams, charts, scans, symbols, computer renderings, and whether original or derivative work. Documents, spreadsheets, presentations, scores, sound and video files do not fall within the remit of the valued images project.

Valued image candidates can be nominated and reviewed on the valued image candidates page. The same page can be used for nominating and reviewing sets of images as valued image sets.

Judging is carried out by the Commons Community according to the valued image criteria.

There are currently 55,105 images marked as valued images, which is roughly 0.04% of the available images (139,484,200), and 283 valued image sets. See also;