Image descriptions for composite or montage images in fixed layout EPUB.

Hi DAISY

I work with lots of illustrated publishers who are creating highly designed books for print. Putting aside the debate as to whether they _should_ make fixed layout EPUB… I have a question about how to best advise them on adding alt tags and extended image descriptions when they use composites and montages of images.

Very often a designer will design one full bleed image for the entire background of the spread (so one image across two HXTML pages in FXL EPUB). There are good reasons for this - they want to use professional Photoshop features to add effects and filters that are not available in the page layout apps. They want to merge images together using opacity and blend modes. They want to tie images together, each spread can be a work of art. It simplifies their workflow and separates editorial work from design.

What is the best advice to give them to help with accessibility when faced with a single image that is placed on the spread. See some examples attached below.

As I can see it the options are:

- Use no image descriptions, set as background images
- Add one description that is used to describe all the imagery on the spread (where would that be placed in the reading order?)
- Break up the large images into smaller tiled images, just so we can describe them in sections and drop into the reading order at the appropriate position
- Add extra invisible objects into the reading order that are only there to hold the descriptions?

Does anyone else have any other options that they can see?

Happy to hear of any experience, suggestions or advice!