Splashbase: Find free, public domain, hi res photos(splashbase.co)
splashbase.co
Splashbase: Find free, public domain, hi res photos
http://www.splashbase.co/
30 comments
It has very nice pictures to use, thanks for sharing, I was saving money to buy stock photos to use in my product.
Wikimedia Commons, Wikipedia's media database, has over 21 million images that are free and usable for commercial purposes:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
They are "free" but with significant strings attached. The key thing about Splashbase is the images have almost zero strings attached. I say almost because even public domain images will have caveats; for instance, one cannot make it appear that someone is endorsing a product when they did no such thing, etc.
Wikimedia Commons items should have their licence data attached, e.g.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Public_domain
Though I'm not sure how you can search just that subset.
Found it, add +incategory:"Public Domain" to the search, as in this example searching for "cats":
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ASe...
Example result (interestingly tagged as both public domain and CC):
"Two cats, dressed as humans, holding rope, which doll appears to be skipping"
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Two_cats,_dressed_as...
Though, from the dearth of results that may not be searching sub-categories.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Public_domain
Though I'm not sure how you can search just that subset.
Found it, add +incategory:"Public Domain" to the search, as in this example searching for "cats":
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ASe...
Example result (interestingly tagged as both public domain and CC):
"Two cats, dressed as humans, holding rope, which doll appears to be skipping"
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Two_cats,_dressed_as...
Though, from the dearth of results that may not be searching sub-categories.
Right, it doesn't search sub-categories, so while not completely useless, it's merely next to useless (no efficient way to search the corpus of public domain images on Wikimedia Commons).
The main issue with pointing to Wikimedia is that it seems to funnel people into Creative Commons licenses. Maybe that is not the intent, but that is what happens. I like the idea of a prominent place that encourages the Public Domain.
The main issue with pointing to Wikimedia is that it seems to funnel people into Creative Commons licenses. Maybe that is not the intent, but that is what happens. I like the idea of a prominent place that encourages the Public Domain.
Yeah, I recently had to make something commercial where I didn't think attribution was going to be possible, and I knew that SA wasn't going to fly. I figured I'd check out Wikimedia Commons but found it very hard to find truly public domain images. Though there might have been usable pictures available, I ended up just going out and taking one myself because the search wasn't really practical.
I also think a lot of people of the current generation probably don't think that much about licensing and copyright and don't realize how many strings they're attaching to the use of their image when they upload it, when my guess is that for most people, one of the CC licenses like CC-by-SA is essentially the same as releasing it into the public domain (for them), but of course it excludes it from inclusion into any non-CC works for likely over 100 years.
I also think a lot of people of the current generation probably don't think that much about licensing and copyright and don't realize how many strings they're attaching to the use of their image when they upload it, when my guess is that for most people, one of the CC licenses like CC-by-SA is essentially the same as releasing it into the public domain (for them), but of course it excludes it from inclusion into any non-CC works for likely over 100 years.
I hold this article in my bookmarks as a starting point to search various services like this one:
http://designrope.com/design/find-stock-photos-dont-suck/
I love these sites, but unfortunately the amount of really useful photos you can find in these sites is pretty low, unless you don't really have boundaries on the subject. Even then, I find these pictures incredibly difficult to use properly.
1) Even in the flat blur era, you can't illustrate everything with a cool and inspiring picture of a mountain or the slightly unsettling picture of a dark forest. Sometimes the clients needs them smiling construction workers with all their safety gear in place. Good luck finding a picture like that on those free stock websites. It's obvious that if you're doing client work you shouldn't even think of not billable options, there's really no reason to avoid Stocksy, Creative Market and other cool pay-per-picture services.
2)Although you may find the rare gem, these images are free because their quality is not that high (technically speaking, composition is usually pretty good). I increasingly find myself looking at headers of glorious full width websites with a clear noise in the dark areas that completely ruins the effect.
3) Originality is lost. We reached a tipping point where you can spot an unsplash picture from miles away.
Conclusion: use them as placeholders in new projects, use them for templates or themes you're selling, use them to illustrate your blog post about some inspiring stuff. Avoid them for a personal project you care about, abhor them for client work.
I love these sites, but unfortunately the amount of really useful photos you can find in these sites is pretty low, unless you don't really have boundaries on the subject. Even then, I find these pictures incredibly difficult to use properly.
1) Even in the flat blur era, you can't illustrate everything with a cool and inspiring picture of a mountain or the slightly unsettling picture of a dark forest. Sometimes the clients needs them smiling construction workers with all their safety gear in place. Good luck finding a picture like that on those free stock websites. It's obvious that if you're doing client work you shouldn't even think of not billable options, there's really no reason to avoid Stocksy, Creative Market and other cool pay-per-picture services.
2)Although you may find the rare gem, these images are free because their quality is not that high (technically speaking, composition is usually pretty good). I increasingly find myself looking at headers of glorious full width websites with a clear noise in the dark areas that completely ruins the effect.
3) Originality is lost. We reached a tipping point where you can spot an unsplash picture from miles away.
Conclusion: use them as placeholders in new projects, use them for templates or themes you're selling, use them to illustrate your blog post about some inspiring stuff. Avoid them for a personal project you care about, abhor them for client work.
It seems like Splashbase only shows images from one source, http://unsplash.com
Yet, I think Splashbase has a far more useful & easy to navigate interface.
Could you add more sources?
Yet, I think Splashbase has a far more useful & easy to navigate interface.
Could you add more sources?
Unless more sources are added I think it is simpler to just browse the Unsplash archive at http://unsplash.com/archive#_=_
For those who prefer to get the images downloaded automatically to your Mac, I made unsplash-rb:
https://github.com/istvanp/unsplash-rb
https://github.com/istvanp/unsplash-rb
Images sourced from:
http://unsplash.com/
Which was discussed a while back:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5794083
http://unsplash.com/
Which was discussed a while back:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5794083
I just have a script that downloads all of unsplash's images. Much easier to glance through locally.
Also, a little shameless self promotion... I've been trying to give this image away for a little while now: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jscheel/13069799215/. Feel free to use however you want.
Also, a little shameless self promotion... I've been trying to give this image away for a little while now: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jscheel/13069799215/. Feel free to use however you want.
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I think you should have the view and download buttons overlay the images...and only reveal them when a user hovers over an image (e.g. http://theme-fusion.com/themes/).
Currently, the buttons are bulky and awkward, especially when the screen is re-sized for mobile devices.
Currently, the buttons are bulky and awkward, especially when the screen is re-sized for mobile devices.
But how are you going to hover over an image on a mobile device?
Well I guess the overlay would have to be activated by tapping the image.
Clearly lacking content, but it's great to see these crop up and they inevitably get a few images other places don't have. I'm a fan of http://www.morguefile.com/ myself.
This is actually great. I was using Splash (http://unsplash.com/) a few days ago, and had to look at every image to find what I was looking for since there was no tags.
I run a website which uses a blurred photo as the background. I'd love an API from splashbase that I could poll daily for rotating in new images on my server.
Show mercy to your users!
By allowing browsers to cache the image preferably: everybody gets a random photo, which then sticks for a while, but if you want a new one, you can always just force reload the page. But of course, it all stands and falls with the selection of images.
I have no idea wether visitors get anything out of this, probably not, but I use random color schemes on my personal site and it makes it much more enjoyable for me to work on it. Most people only ever see one page or two, but I have seen thousands if not tens of thousands, and a bit of variety can go a long way :)
I have no idea wether visitors get anything out of this, probably not, but I use random color schemes on my personal site and it makes it much more enjoyable for me to work on it. Most people only ever see one page or two, but I have seen thousands if not tens of thousands, and a bit of variety can go a long way :)
Bing also shows different daily backgrounds.
I'm a developer for Ticketbud, and we let our event organizers upload high-res background images on their event pages. If Splashbase had an API, I'd be keen to work it into our interface.
https://tbkmf.ticketbud.com/2014
https://tbkmf.ticketbud.com/2014
Awesome. For browsing, it'd be so great to have a list of tags that are available... or am I overlooking something?
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Any plan for aggregate other free hi res photos from more sites? Or there is already alternative?
bookmarked, thanks.
Needs infinity scroll
this site just copied all of unsplash.com's images and added tags to them.
the original site unplash.com, has infinite scroll.
there are only a few images in total so I don't think splashbase is necessary. It takes less than a minute of scrolling to get through the entire db of images.
the original site unplash.com, has infinite scroll.
there are only a few images in total so I don't think splashbase is necessary. It takes less than a minute of scrolling to get through the entire db of images.
[1] https://www.flickr.com/search/advanced/