
Show HN: Free hi-resolution photos for your website. 10 new photos every 10 days - mikaelcho
http://unsplash.com/
======
ChrisNorstrom
What the hell's happening to HN? Why so many negative put downs on pet
projects? Someone just posted 10 free images for you to photoshop your
startup's screenshot onto. Shut up, take it, and say thank you.

Jesus Christ! What? Your poor egos are hurt because you didn't change the
world before age 25 and now have to attack everyone's pet project for not
being the next flickr?

So what did you guys make? Post links please.

~~~
Groxx
And down-vote them.

Honestly. Nearly every crappy comment I see, while lower on the page, is still
_black_. They're sending a signal that such behavior is _acceptable_. Kill
them off ASAP.

------
bretthopper
It's amazing how much the title submission can influence comments.

Original title: "Hated expensive, crappy stock photos so I made this."

Current title: "Free hi-resolution photos for your website. 10 new photos
every 10 days"

A lot of these comments are really negative and might be confusing to people
who didn't know the original title. And frankly, when you have a title like
that to start, it warrants some of the criticism.

If you just take this site for what it is, and what the new title says, then
it's awesome and no one should really have a problem with someone spending
their time taking great quality photos and releasing them for free.

~~~
mortenjorck
The title is still too general, if I understand the point of these photos:
They appear to be intended as splash images for app websites (I guess the
first batch of 10 is for desktop apps), with the implication that you will
perspective-distort a screenshot and superimpose it on one of these, using it
on your home page.

It's not a bad idea. It certainly can lend a more dramatic look to a low-
budget brochureware site, although were these to become popular, they'd
quickly become recognizable.

------
jlarocco
There are millions (billions?) of stock photos in the world, and your plan is
to replace all of them with 10 pictures of a MacBook Air?

Even with more pictures it's unlikely you'll beat a Creative Commons search on
Flickr:

[http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=&l=cc&ss=0&ct=0&...](http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=&l=cc&ss=0&ct=0&mt=photos&w=all&adv=1)

~~~
paulwithap
Why does he need to beat Flickr? Should I not open an e-commerce shop because
Amazon exists?

I think this is a great idea. Why go through the hassle of selling your photos
and worrying about people stealing them when you can make money on ad revenue
instead?

~~~
hnriot
"Should I not open an e-commerce shop because Amazon exists?" - probably not,
and definitely not if you're going to only sell 10 things.

~~~
Groxx
I'm sure the many thousands (millions?) of small-business online stores could
have benefitted from this advice. Obviously they were mistaken in believing
they could make a profit.

------
calinet6
Interesting, but a slight critique. There's some lens chromatic aberration in
the bokeh/blur... a better lens that performs with little chroma wide open
would solve it, or failing that stopping down just a couple notches down from
wide open.

Yet another reasons people pay for hi-resolution high-quality photographs, or
take their own. Photographs cost money because they provide value, and some
random photos taken by a non-professional don't always cut it. Great of you to
give it a shot and put it out there though.

~~~
mikeleeorg
I love this advice. While most commenters are addressing potential legal
issues, you addressed a technical issue - the art of taking the photographs
themselves. That's awesome of you. I hope to see more of this kind of advice
on HN.

~~~
Chronic24
Technical issues are irrelevant if there are prohibitive legal issues at hand.

------
adventured
I think the developer took MVP to the extreme.

For legal reasons it's critical to fully explain the license on the photos
available for download, and the terms for anybody submitting the photos.
Unfortunately it's really not enough to just say: "Free hi-resolution photos
for your website."

~~~
mikaelcho
Hey, thanks for the comment. Looking to add something now. Apparently this is
the most 'open' and least restrictive of the CC licenses:
<http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en_US> but it still says we
would need to attribute the author which we don't require.

~~~
usea
There's also CC0 which puts the work into the public domain
<http://creativecommons.org/choose/zero/>

~~~
mikaelcho
Awesome. Thanks. Added this text "do whatever you want" and linked to that
license: <http://cl.ly/image/3J0C3L1R301B>

~~~
tav
Thanks for putting the works into the public domain Mikael! You should link to
the actual license though: <http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/>
Thank you again and good luck with the effort!

------
grimtrigger
Those looking for stock images: google image has a creative commons filter.
Trying to find free "stock images" is a road to hell. The key word is
"creative commons".

~~~
hadem
Example searches for both Google Images and Flickr.

[http://www.google.com/search?as_st=y&tbm=isch&hl=en&...](http://www.google.com/search?as_st=y&tbm=isch&hl=en&as_q=venice&as_epq=&as_oq=&as_eq=&cr=&as_sitesearch=&safe=images&tbs=sur:fmc&biw=950&bih=979&sei=XaenUcq1MuTl0QHvoIDYDQ)

[http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=venice&l=comm&ss=0&#...</a>

~~~
hayksaakian
how do I even find that setting in a normal images search?

I don't see it under search tools...

~~~
deefour
"Usage Rights" at the bottom of this page:
<http://www.google.com/advanced_image_search>

You get there by clicking the gear icon on the right side of the image search
results page; 'Advanced search' is under that. Yay for Google making one more
tool more difficult interact with.

------
ambiate
You tread dangerous ground offering free images with logos and brands in them.
Be careful in choosing a license.

~~~
quanticle
I can't upvote this enough. The first thing that jumped out at me when I was
browsing the photos is the prominent "Macbook Air" branding on the laptop.
Unless you have Apple's permission to use their trademark in your work, you
could be on shaky legal ground should they choose to pursue legal action
against you.

There's a reason why advertisers will edit out branding of products that they
happen to use in their ads. The most prominent examples I can think of are
tire companies. They use recognizable luxury and sports cars to show off their
tires, but, if you look closely, they've edited out the logos and nameplates
of those cars. Presumably this is to legally shield themselves from those car
manufacturers accusing the tire company of misusing their trademarks, or
implying an endorsement where none exists. In this case, it might be wise to
edit out the Macbook Air and Apple branding, so that it doesn't look like
you're being endorsed or supported by Apple.

~~~
larrys
"Presumably this is to legally shield themselves from those car manufacturers
accusing the tire company of misusing their trademarks"

I wouldn't assume that. It could also be simply because they don't want to
give publicity to another brand. For example it's hard to believe that if
Coach decided to put an ad with an Apple Macbook in it they would have an
issue with that. [1]

In any case here are the Apple guidelines:

[http://www.apple.com/legal/intellectual-
property/guidelinesf...](http://www.apple.com/legal/intellectual-
property/guidelinesfor3rdparties.html)

I see nothing on this page which prohibits someone from using an Apple product
in a photograph and it's almost impossible to believe that Apple could claim
trademark (or even if they could would expend energy to stamp this out) over
someone taking a photo of their laptop. In other words a picture of someone
sitting in a coffee shop using a Macbook, iphone whatever.

[1] That said Coach is a large company and they would almost certainly be
ritually correct in their approach. Done on a smaller scale the amount of care
does not have to be the same.

~~~
ambiate
Our local credit union was sued by the city for using a picture of a local
bridge on their debit cards. The credit union owned the rights to the
photograph that was provided by a local photographer. The city owned the right
to pictures of the local bridge. Vicious cycle.

~~~
jimktrains2
How does a city "own the right to pictures of the local bridge"?

~~~
estebank
This is just insane...

"However, a French court ruled, in June 1990, that a special lighting display
on the tower in 1989, for the tower's 100th anniversary, was an "original
visual creation" protected by copyright. The Court of Cassation, France's
judicial court of last resort, upheld the ruling in March 1992.[54] The
Société d'exploitation de la tour Eiffel (SETE) now considers any illumination
of the tower to be under copyright.[55] As a result, it is no longer legal to
publish contemporary photographs of the tower at night without permission in
France and some other countries."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eiffel_Tower#Image_copyright_c...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eiffel_Tower#Image_copyright_claims)

~~~
slantyyz
From what I understand, they won't go after a tourist posting to Flickr, but
they will go after anyone trying to sell images or use those images in a
commercial way.

------
austengary
What I surprise; HN crapping all over a show submission. Not even in a
constructive form, hate for the sake of hate. Love it. Though to be fair, I'm
glad you all seem to see no value in this. I'll use these and won't in turn
have to replace them as they take on the ubiquity of Bootstrap

------
sengstrom
Well this is great if you are looking for apple products displayed in a cafe
environment with that natural wood feel. If not, I guess I'm out of luck.

~~~
mikaelcho
Thanks for the comment! Will add more (and different photos in the future).
This was just the first batch.

------
footoverhand
Why do all of the photo's have Apple products in them?

I would recommend displaying the license in which these high resolution photos
can be used, because "free" isn't a license.

~~~
fetbaffe
> Why do all of the photo's have Apple products in them?

Some people believe they become better humans for using Apple products. By
showing it to the world they think that other people will agree.

It's exactly like the cross.

~~~
FireBeyond
And color me unsurprised - of course there's a Moleskine notebook.

------
azov
Nice shots, but why not just submit them to Wikimedia Commons/Flickr/etc under
Creative Commons license? Much better chance of people actually finding and
using them, IMO.

------
growt
why the hate guys? he made some good looking pictures and is offering them for
free. And the top 3 comments here are people hating. Creative Commons is
difficult in most stock photo use cases - there is often the requirement to
display an attribution close to the picture, which would look odd in most
designs. So please calm down and try to appreciate the effort.

------
wyck
Quality + Scarcity = You get what you pay for.

If you don't want to pay the big bucks and don't use a lot of media, hire a
photographer. In any large city a LF photographer post on craiglists will net
you more emails then you know what to do with. If you only need a handful of
shots just use one of the many "Fiver" type sites.

I don't know why this post is upvoted so high, unless your website sells
macbooks, watches, or glasses of water, the premise is ridiculous.

------
jjcm
<http://sxc.hu> has a ton of free stock photos of varying licenses/quality.
Also searching on flickr for cc'd images often will net you some good photos.

------
Osiris
Oddly, the first thing that I noticed is that the image of him typing at the
keyboard has really bad chroma aberration (notice the purple around all the
keys).

~~~
Terretta
The photo quality would be rejected at some stock sites not just thanks to
this severe chromatic aberration (try a better lens?) but also the excessive
post processing causing contrast fringing, etc.

These cannot be used in commercial print for discerning customers.

I've found great results on Flickr with a Creative Commons search, and buying
stock photos for commercial work is a tiny part of a print piece budget.

~~~
slantyyz
>> These cannot be used in commercial print for discerning customers.

Yeah, I'm not sure that's his target market. Most of the people who would use
his images probably don't even know what CA is or how to spot it -- they just
care about "free".

I imagine that more serious image hunters would stick with the big stock
agencies.

------
armandososa
Maybe you could try turning on your screens, perhaps using a white or light
blue fullscreen image so there is some kind of light reflected into the hands
and objects surrounding the devices. Otherwise it will look odd when somebody
photoshops a screenshot on top of the black screen.

Some of the other feedback is spot on, but I, for one, thank you for your
intentions. Being thankful and polite is so underrated.

------
yefim323
The photos look amazing. May I ask what the license is on these photos?

~~~
mikaelcho
Thanks. Everything is free for commercial and personal use.

~~~
angersock
Would you mind throwing that up on the top of the page?

EDIT: Rather, making explicit that they are royalty-free images for both non-
commercial and commercial use.

~~~
mikaelcho
Yup! Working on it now. Thanks for the comment.

------
callmeed
This is cool, good work. My startup is in the photography industry–don't worry
about competing with Flickr's CC images or even microstock sites. Just focus
on _"Splash images for your software/mobile startup."_ ... if anything, you're
competing with the free PSDs you find on Dribbble

I have a full studio with Profoto strobes. If you need some more contributors,
let me know.

Some other thoughts:

\- I think you'll grow out of Tumblr and Dropbox real quick (I'm already
seeing Dropbox errors)

\- Give people an option to "buy out" an image from the set. For, say, $100
someone can license exclusively an image and it's no longer available.

\- Include some Photoshop files that place a screen shot on the image and
apply the proper perspective/warping. People can then just drop in their
screen shots.

Good MVP.

EDIT: Here's a quick-and-dirty example of a PSD with a "placed" screenshot
that is adjusted properly to fit the screen:

<http://cloud.bigfolio.com/unsplash-1.psd>

------
kunai
It's... just a bunch of photos of Apple products.

Not even close to a full stock photo replacement.

~~~
perryh2
And the phone's not even an iPhone 5. What is this, 2011?

------
KVFinn
10 CC photos of an Apple laptop at the top of hacker news...

This is someone winning a bet that they could get anything to the top of
hacker news somehow, right?

------
_mpu
Common, this is pure Apple dope... And how cliché! The neat and clean hacker
standing straight in front of an espresso and his shiny Macbook lying a sweet
wooden table...

Hacking is sooooooo cool and clean!

------
omegote
Stock photography is way more than Apple overpriced products and shot-at-f1.4
bokeh-powered pictures.

------
kghose
Also, Flickr has lots and lots of good quality CC and other free to use
licensed photos.

<http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons/>

------
mikkel
I love stuff like this - super simple solution to a common pain point.

<http://placeit.breezi.com/> is a very similar service with CC images.

~~~
bridgpal
This site is great. Does the image placement, and blending correclty

------
jameswyse
Why all the hate? You guys are always telling people to launch early and at
the end of the day the OP is sharing something that he created to help out his
peers, for free and with the promise of more to come.. I certainly appreciate
it!

edit: I see a lot of you took issue with the original title:

> "Hated expensive, crappy stock photos so I made this"

Granted, it wasn't a great title but I kind of get where he's coming from - I
used to spend hours trawling through istockphoto and shutterstock for decent
photographs and a lot of it matched that description.

------
yoshyosh
This is awesome, I've also felt the same about finding photos. I hope this
changes that. Keep it up! I'll contribute when I learn some post processing so
you can have more awesome photos.

~~~
mikaelcho
Awesome. We're looking for photos to add so when you're ready, you can submit
them here: <http://unsplash.com/submit>

------
b0z0
All of the comments here hating on the "only 10 photos on Apple" seem pretty
ridiculous to me. Clearly, the author chose a theme for today and will add
more non-Apple photos later.

Then again, the OP did release it right at the start, before it'll be useful
to anyone, so I'm surprised it's hit the #1 spot.

Even if you do keep this pace, you'll have a grand total of 365 pictures after
a year, covering something like 36 topics. Not exactly ground-breaking. It
would be great if you could crowd-source and curate the best pictures.

------
volaski
Stock photography sites are about being able to search with any keyword and
come up with a photo that you can instantly use. The value is in convenience,
not the photos themselves

------
DigitalSea
Some really good shots here, they will come in handy at some point in my
current projects release span. Thanks for the free images. I don't get why
everyone here is being so negative? You are getting free high quality images
to use for your startups, be grateful you are getting anything at all. I know
for a fact you could get money for these images on a paid stock site.

The HN community has really deteriorated in the last year or two.

------
romeonova
I think these photos are meant for designers to superimpose their designs on
top of the screens? Not sure if the focus is on the objects in the images.

------
jkuria
What incentive do photographers have to submit to your site? At least on the
'majors' (istockphoto, dreamstrime, shutterstock et al) they earn something.
And if you are the only one doing submissions, you can't possibly cover all
categories so if I'm in search of a particular shot I am unlikely to come to
your site. Not trying to be negative, just trying to understand what your plan
is.

~~~
pfraze
Maybe a license-enforced watermark of the photographer's name.

~~~
BadCRC
but then it's crappy

------
utopkara
My problem with stock photos is, people in them look like robots.
Understandable, since they are usually not actors. Many times when they are
talking, they don't look at each other but some crap object. When taking 20
variants of a scene, at least one should involve people talking with each
other. That's what people usually do when they pose for a stock photo set for
an hour.

------
Nekorosu
I like the idea but this project badly needs all legalities fixed (license is
missing, there is a person but no model release, maybe more).

------
instakill
Another site with high quality public domain photography is
<http://www.pixabay.com>

------
Aardwolf
10 free photos, and it's all Apple fanboy photos? Thanks anyway I guess, don't
look a gift horse in the mouth :)

------
Ma8ee
Absolutely, definitely not, hipsters!

~~~
mikaelcho
Funny you mention. Our first idea for the domain was hipsterphotos.com

------
xauronx
Looks great, and it's an awesome idea. I'm not sure what your incentive to
continue doing this will be, but please do. Also, I would much prefer quality
over quantity. So, if one week you don't have time to create something great,
just skip it. (My opinion of course)

------
mmahemoff
I initially thought it was a service to embed your app's screenshot onto any
device.

Which, btw, would be awesome.

~~~
monkey_slap
PlaceIt does just that and is awesome <http://placeit.breezi.com/>

~~~
mmahemoff
I see. Cool idea, but would work nicer if done client-side so it could update
all those images at once.

------
elmuchoprez
Nice idea, but without a search/tagging system, how is someone supposed to
find relevant images?

------
shayanjm
Thank you so much for this. The pictures are beautiful, and I've used them to
spiffy-up my medium profile. Just published a post with one of them as the
header in "IMHO".

Again, really great work, and thank you again.

------
wojteksz
Nice idea (even similar to <http://picturesdeal.com>) and very good photos
kudos mikaelcho.

------
neovive
You can still obtain some decent free stock photos on sxc.hu, although many of
the searches are filled with links to premium photos.

------
HunterV
Awesome, really excited about this.

Just a thought: You should have a "tip jar" so people can show their
appreciation where it counts.

~~~
mikaelcho
Good idea. Thanks for the "tip."

------
jroes
Since Dropbox is 509'ing, can someone who's downloaded the photos mirror them
somewhere like imgur instead?

------
rangibaby
Thanks for these; iStockphoto has gotten really nasty lately (higher prices,
and restrictive licenses).

------
adnam
Why is this the top post on HN?

------
zapt02
Why not one photo a day?

~~~
tlongren
Because 10 photos in 10 days sounds like more? I dunno.

------
Lisa2000
Thank you for your generosity. Good luck with this project.

------
vanwilder77
wtf?

some1 snaps a few pics of his macbook air!

and boom is one top of the HN front page

~~~
xauronx
He created something that apparently a lot of people on HN find interesting
(it wouldn't be on the front page otherwise). Personally, I make iOS apps so
it could be useful in the future. On top of that, anyone who gives stuff away
for free that took them a measure of effort gets my attention.

Also, he had an idea and executed it and released it, so he gets points for
that as well.

------
corresation
So you took a couple of pictures (that appear to be Apple ads more than
anything, as an aside)? I'm sorry if this sounds negative, but I find it
completely disingenuous that you denigrate an entire industry and portray a
pittance of images as the salvation.

When you pay for a stock image, as an aside, a part of the value of paying is
economic scarcity: That the images that you choose aren't blanketing every
Wordpress site, etc.

~~~
dirtyaura
_"I find it completely disingenuous that you denigrate an entire industry and
portray a pittance of images as the salvation."_

Huh, where did he denigrate an entire industry?

Lots of hate in this thread, which I don't get. Granted, you can find a lot of
free stock photos on the internet, but I find the idea of curated list of
photos targeted for product landing pages valuable. This was clearly an MVP
and for some reason HN audience found it valuable and voted it to the front
page, but I don't see how it deserves all the negativity that is shown in many
comments.

~~~
scott_s
The original title said something negative about stock photos (but I can't
recall exactly what).

~~~
mikaelcho
I'm not sure how it got changed but this was the original title, "Hated
expensive, crappy stock photos so I made this."

~~~
scott_s
The guidelines ask submissions to use the page's title. Moderators often
change them to conform. <http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>

------
rorrr2
As somebody who did pro photography for a few years, these photos are a good
example of why you should never shoot JPG, but RAW instead, and process
everything in 16 bit per channel until you actually save the end result.

Your process resulted in absolutely horrible posterization, can be clearly
seen on this one (display of the laptop):

[https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/18793141/macbook-air-
all...](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/18793141/macbook-air-all-faded-
and-stuff.jpg)

~~~
kefs
:(

Error (509)

This account's public links are generating too much traffic and have been
temporarily disabled!

------
powertower
10 pictures of a macbook air gets you front-page top placement on HN.

Now that I know...

