3 ms·

Where to find great ideas and arresting images (for free)

22 points by getp 19y ago

Mistone 19y ago
yep, flickr is a great resource for amazing images, have been using it for my blogs for some time and always find something good. beats paying hundreds per month for lame ass stock photos that scream STOCK
- dhimes 19y ago
  you're scaring me....hundreds a month?
  - Mistone 19y ago
    ya, photos.com is pretty expensive, and don't even think about getty images, it cost thousands just to use one image, no thanks, I'll take flickr for both quality and price (free) anyday.
Tichy 19y ago
Hm, I just tried it and downloaded an image I found in that way. But then upon closer look the license requires attribution and disallows derivative works. So the search function of flickr is still not good enough, should be more finegrained with respect to the license options. And why does flickr not have an "add to favorites" button? Puzzles me every time I visit the site. It just goes to show that usability is apparently overrated as a factor for success...
- rcoder 19y ago
  Flickr does have fine-grained license options on the advanced search page, and also has an "add to favorites" button. It's just above every image. You do have to register and log in to store favorites, though.
  - Tichy 19y ago
    OK now that I logged in I see it (very small and in grey). I guess since I have been frustrated so many times before (I have this problem EVER time I go on flickr), I didn't expect to find one anymore. Usually I end up going to the FAQ and then somehow I figure out how to do it. I don't use flickr that often, so I keep forgetting. I guess I would expect a big, fat button, since it seems rather important, but it might be different for different people.
GavinB 19y ago
Another good one is sxc.hu. http://www.sxc.hu/advanced_search http://www.sxc.hu/advanced_search Just select "no" under the restricted ok button. You'll need to sign in- just use a bugmenot account - http://www.bugmenot.com/view/sxc.hu http://www.bugmenot.com/view/sxc.hu
rcoder 19y ago
Quote from the original article: "[...]And the license is a generous gift from the photographer to you." As an amateur photographer with almost 4000 CC-licensed images on Flickr, this pisses me off to no end. My images are under the non-commercial attribution-required variant of the Creative Commons license, which means that simply downloading a copy of one of them to include in your business presentation or website is a flagrant violation of the license terms. My "gift-giving" is directed towards the general betterment of society, not lazy web designers or bloggers who don't think other people's work is worth anything.
- rms 19y ago
  That's an out of context quote. He explicitly says to only search for commercially licensed photos.
dhotson 19y ago
One site I really like is http://ffffound.com http://ffffound.com It's an image bookmarking site where people post images they find around the web. I'm pretty sure all the images are copyrighted, but it links back to the original. The site is currently invite only to register, but the people they've got tend to have pretty good taste in images.
cousin_it 19y ago
http://openphotovr.org http://openphotovr.org uses many CC-licensed images from Flickr, honoring license terms and giving attribution with backlinks. For example, we built San Marco from Flickr, unlike Photosynth's San Marco which was shot in one day by one photographer. The problem with architectural photos on Flickr: everybody chooses the "best" viewpoints. This is why I couldn't build a model of Taj Mahal, one of the most photographed places on Earth - all good images of it are taken from the same point.

22 points by getp 19y ago

yep, flickr is a great resource for amazing images, have been using it for my blogs for some time and always find something good. beats paying hundreds per month for lame ass stock photos that scream STOCK

dhimes 19y ago
you're scaring me....hundreds a month?
- Mistone 19y ago
  ya, photos.com is pretty expensive, and don't even think about getty images, it cost thousands just to use one image, no thanks, I'll take flickr for both quality and price (free) anyday.

Tichy 19y ago

Hm, I just tried it and downloaded an image I found in that way. But then upon closer look the license requires attribution and disallows derivative works. So the search function of flickr is still not good enough, should be more finegrained with respect to the license options. And why does flickr not have an "add to favorites" button? Puzzles me every time I visit the site. It just goes to show that usability is apparently overrated as a factor for success...

rcoder 19y ago
Flickr does have fine-grained license options on the advanced search page, and also has an "add to favorites" button. It's just above every image. You do have to register and log in to store favorites, though.
- Tichy 19y ago
  OK now that I logged in I see it (very small and in grey). I guess since I have been frustrated so many times before (I have this problem EVER time I go on flickr), I didn't expect to find one anymore. Usually I end up going to the FAQ and then somehow I figure out how to do it. I don't use flickr that often, so I keep forgetting. I guess I would expect a big, fat button, since it seems rather important, but it might be different for different people.

GavinB 19y ago

Another good one is sxc.hu. http://www.sxc.hu/advanced_search http://www.sxc.hu/advanced_search Just select "no" under the restricted ok button. You'll need to sign in- just use a bugmenot account - http://www.bugmenot.com/view/sxc.hu http://www.bugmenot.com/view/sxc.hu

rcoder 19y ago

Quote from the original article: "[...]And the license is a generous gift from the photographer to you." As an amateur photographer with almost 4000 CC-licensed images on Flickr, this pisses me off to no end. My images are under the non-commercial attribution-required variant of the Creative Commons license, which means that simply downloading a copy of one of them to include in your business presentation or website is a flagrant violation of the license terms. My "gift-giving" is directed towards the general betterment of society, not lazy web designers or bloggers who don't think other people's work is worth anything.

rms 19y ago
That's an out of context quote. He explicitly says to only search for commercially licensed photos.

dhotson 19y ago

One site I really like is http://ffffound.com http://ffffound.com It's an image bookmarking site where people post images they find around the web. I'm pretty sure all the images are copyrighted, but it links back to the original. The site is currently invite only to register, but the people they've got tend to have pretty good taste in images.

cousin_it 19y ago

http://openphotovr.org http://openphotovr.org uses many CC-licensed images from Flickr, honoring license terms and giving attribution with backlinks. For example, we built San Marco from Flickr, unlike Photosynth's San Marco which was shot in one day by one photographer. The problem with architectural photos on Flickr: everybody chooses the "best" viewpoints. This is why I couldn't build a model of Taj Mahal, one of the most photographed places on Earth - all good images of it are taken from the same point.