QUOTE(GlassBeadGame @ Tue 14th July 2009, 2:14am)
QUOTE(Kato @ Mon 13th July 2009, 7:06pm)
In light of this business, the National Portrait Gallery have taken their high resolution pictures off their website, I gather.
Correct. That happened in April according to Mr. Coetzee. But look at
this (completely random) example. How could this "low res" image not be suitable for any encyclopedic use?
It's fine for encyclopedic use, but Commons is not just for Wikipedia purposes. It's a depository of "free" images, so if a better quality image is available it should be used.