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This might be an odd question.

Currently, I am writing a website documentation. And the content includes many words such as image, photo, picture.

I am a bit confused on using it as which one have to be photo and which one have to be image.

For a native speaker, do you really care on it's meaning?

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    The terms tend to be used somewhat loosely. All refer to an individual graphic of some sort, rather than a page containing a collection of components. They refer to something that if stored individually, would be in one of the graphic or image file formats. Generally, "photo" refers to a photograph, what would come out of a camera. "Image" and "picture" are used pretty interchangeably. They refer more broadly to anything of a graphic nature as differentiated from a text document. In addition to photos, this could include such things like artwork or graphics, scans of things, graphs, etc.
    – fixer1234
    Mar 31 '17 at 7:53
  • @fixer1234 you forgot to mention snapshots, sketches, portraits and drawings.
    – SovereignSun
    Mar 31 '17 at 10:40
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  1. Image - is mostly something that is represented or something that represents something, also a replica of something.
  2. Photo - a photo is a photograph (an image taken by a camera). The tricky thing is that a photo is always an image or a picture but a picture or an image may or may not be a photo.
  3. Picture - is mostly something that is painted. Comes from the word "pictura" (Latin)

Mostly Image and Picture are close synonyms. While photo is a relatively close synonym but mostly always means an image taken by a camera.

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    If you are referring to web content then "image" is the best choice.
    – SovereignSun
    Mar 31 '17 at 10:36
  • This looks pretty good to me, but I'm not the only one who forgot to mention snapshots, sketches, portraits and drawings. :-) +1
    – fixer1234
    Mar 31 '17 at 16:21

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