Ask HN: Are there any good Image APIs out there?

[shafqat]

Looking for something where I can pass in some text or keywords, and get back images that are newsy. i.e. not a picture of your cat, but rather a picture of Barack Obama at a rally for example?

Been looking around the web, and the ones that do exist with the big vendors (like AP, Getty, Reuters) are expensive.

Thanks!

[brandnewlow]

Well, professional news images should be expensive. They're expensive as hell to create.

Are you looking for thumbnails or full shots?

[shafqat → brandnewlow]

Thanks for the reponse. I don't need professional news images. Just images that are 'newsy', and it could be crowdsourced content.

Also, thumbnails are OK but slightly higher resolution is obviously better.

[brandnewlow → shafqat]

This is going to sound crazy...but I've found Youtube to be a great source of low-res, relevant news thumbnails.

Run your keywords through their video search, pluck out the thumbnails for the top search results.

Remember, the AP and just about every other news organization is posting their footage to the site.

[luckyland]

http://nodebox.net/code/index.php/Percolator

[pclark]

have you looked at Daylife?

[shafqat → pclark]

I believe they require you to have licenses in place with Getty or Reuters etc. And that is expensive.