11 ms·

Show HN: Free hi-resolution photos for your website. 10 new photos every 10 days

357 points by mikaelcho 13y ago

austengary 13y ago
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
adnam 13y ago
Why is this the top post on HN?
Aardwolf 13y ago
10 free photos, and it's all Apple fanboy photos? Thanks anyway I guess, don't look a gift horse in the mouth :)
yefim323 13y ago
The photos look amazing. May I ask what the license is on these photos?
- mikaelcho 13y ago
  Thanks. Everything is free for commercial and personal use.
  - angersock 13y ago
    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 13y ago
      Yup! Working on it now. Thanks for the comment.
  - Terretta 13y ago
    As others have said here, you should consider hosting these with great keywords with a Creative Commons license on Flickr, and/or contribute them to a few free stock photo sites, and link back to your new site consistently featuring new work. You'll get found more easily at the places most people are searching, and start to make a name for yourself through bringing them back here. At the same time, you should look into your technique if you'd like these to be usable for commercial print work. These likely cannot be used in print work as is; the photo quality is borderline. They likely wouldn't be chosen by art directors to use large (eg., background images) or on today's retina screens, for the same reason. If someone is reviewing the work, too many clients' eyes will jump to the problems. You may want to consider a better lens that doesn't exhibit the strong purple color fringing. You also need to reduce (or change methods of) the post processing that's causing severe fringing between the various subjects in the pictures, ringing on the out of focus elements, etc. These look and feel a lot like high end camera phone pics run through too much filter. In considering composition, watch out for elements like the errant finger on the left hand writing. Any element that's too unusual draws excess attention, detracting from stock photo value, unless of course that element is the featured element. Check out the quality standards guidelines at iStockPhotos: http://www.istockphoto.com/help/sell-stock/training-manuals/photography/quality-standards-what-were-looking-for http://www.istockphoto.com/help/sell-stock/training-manuals/... For example, they would have likely rejected these for chromatic aberration and maybe for over filtering: http://www.istockphoto.com/help/sell-stock/training-manuals/photography/quality-standards-chromatic-aberration http://www.istockphoto.com/help/sell-stock/training-manuals/... http://www.istockphoto.com/help/sell-stock/training-manuals/photography/quality-standards-overfiltering http://www.istockphoto.com/help/sell-stock/training-manuals/... Finally, as noted in other comments, generally company logos are not acceptable in stock photography: http://www.istockphoto.com/help/sell-stock/training-manuals/photography/legal-requirements-logos-trademarks-intellectual-property http://www.istockphoto.com/help/sell-stock/training-manuals/...
grimtrigger 13y ago
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".
- wisty 13y ago
  As does flickr.
- hadem 13y ago
  Example searches for both Google Images and Flickr. 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.google.com/search?as_st=y&tbm=isch&hl=en&... http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=venice&l=comm&ss=0&ct=0&mt=photos&w=all&adv=1 http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=venice&l=comm&ss=0&#...
  - hayksaakian 13y ago
    how do I even find that setting in a normal images search? I don't see it under search tools...
    - deefour 13y ago
      "Usage Rights" at the bottom of this page: http://www.google.com/advanced_image_search 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.
adventured 13y ago
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."
- polymatter 13y ago
  Please make that legally solid by going to (https://creativecommons.org/choose/ https://creativecommons.org/choose/) and making them the correct licence. Or state a legal licence under which they are distributed on your site as. Unfortunately we live in a legal environment where the author stating "free for commercial and personal use" is not a licence strong enough to hold up under law.
- mikaelcho 13y ago
  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 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.
  - angersock 13y ago
    Comedy option: WTFPL. (Use the CC stuff if you can.)
    - mr_luc 13y ago
      Or how about the IWSU license? https://github.com/mrluc/node-dbp-irctweet/blob/master/LICENSE.md https://github.com/mrluc/node-dbp-irctweet/blob/master/LICEN...
  - usea 13y ago
    There's also CC0 which puts the work into the public domain http://creativecommons.org/choose/zero/ http://creativecommons.org/choose/zero/
yoshyosh 13y ago
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 13y ago
  Awesome. We're looking for photos to add so when you're ready, you can submit them here: http://unsplash.com/submit http://unsplash.com/submit
footoverhand 13y ago
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 13y ago
  > 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 13y ago
    And color me unsurprised - of course there's a Moleskine notebook.
- slantyyz 13y ago
  >> Why do all of the photo's have Apple products in them? It's funny that this seems to be a big deal. The answer's simple -- many people just photograph the stuff they happen to own.
- bdcravens 13y ago
  I presume that each batch of photos will have a specific theme or a use case in mind. If I were looking for sharp photos for my web design consulting website, and I think Apple products are the standard for the industry, I might use these images. Conversely, if I were doing a basketball design, I might incorporate urban images (asphalt, chain link fence, generic graffiti) to invoke a particular mindset or attitude.
xauronx 13y ago
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)
jkuria 13y ago
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 13y ago
  Maybe a license-enforced watermark of the photographer's name.
  - BadCRC 13y ago
    but then it's crappy
mikkel 13y ago
I love stuff like this - super simple solution to a common pain point. http://placeit.breezi.com/ http://placeit.breezi.com/ is a very similar service with CC images.
- bridgpal 13y ago
  This site is great. Does the image placement, and blending correclty
HunterV 13y ago
Awesome, really excited about this. Just a thought: You should have a "tip jar" so people can show their appreciation where it counts.
- mikaelcho 13y ago
  Good idea. Thanks for the "tip."
ambiate 13y ago
You tread dangerous ground offering free images with logos and brands in them. Be careful in choosing a license.
- quanticle 13y ago
  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 13y ago
    "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/guidelinesfor3rdparties.html http://www.apple.com/legal/intellectual-property/guidelinesf... 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.
Nekorosu 13y ago
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).
elmuchoprez 13y ago
Nice idea, but without a search/tagging system, how is someone supposed to find relevant images?
corresation 13y ago
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.
- jaredmcateer 13y ago
  Also having brand names in your stock photos have certain legal landmines, you should talk to your lawyer before using these photos.
  - mauricio-OH 13y ago
    I don't think apple will be upset in this case though...
    - jlarocco 13y ago
      But the value of stock images is to use them somewhere else. Lets say I write an article negatively portraying the electronics manufacturing industry and use these images along with the article. I'm pretty sure Apple wouldn't like it if they found out...
      - MartinCron 13y ago
        You are extending Apple way more rights than they actually have. Trademark and copyright don't exist to keep people from saying negative things about you.
        archangel_one 13y ago
        No, but libel and slander laws do exist to keep people from saying untrue negative things about you, so it still pays to be careful if that's what you intend to do.
sengstrom 13y ago
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 13y ago
  Thanks for the comment! Will add more (and different photos in the future). This was just the first batch.
omegote 13y ago
Stock photography is way more than Apple overpriced products and shot-at-f1.4 bokeh-powered pictures.
Ma8ee 13y ago
Absolutely, definitely not, hipsters!
- mikaelcho 13y ago
  Funny you mention. Our first idea for the domain was hipsterphotos.com
neovive 13y ago
You can still obtain some decent free stock photos on sxc.hu, although many of the searches are filled with links to premium photos.
utopkara 13y ago
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.
kghose 13y ago
Also, Flickr has lots and lots of good quality CC and other free to use licensed photos. http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons/ http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons/
Osiris 13y ago
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 13y ago
  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 13y ago
    >> 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.
azov 13y ago
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.
jjcm 13y ago
http://sxc.hu 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.
volaski 13y ago
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
mmahemoff 13y ago
I initially thought it was a service to embed your app's screenshot onto any device. Which, btw, would be awesome.
- monkey_slap 13y ago
  PlaceIt does just that and is awesome http://placeit.breezi.com/ http://placeit.breezi.com/
  - mmahemoff 13y ago
    I see. Cool idea, but would work nicer if done client-side so it could update all those images at once.
wyck 13y ago
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.
jlarocco 13y ago
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&mt=photos&w=all&adv=1 http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=&l=cc&ss=0&ct=0&...
- paulwithap 13y ago
  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?
  - obviouslygreen 13y ago
    Why go through the hassle of selling your photos and worrying about people stealing them when you can make money on ad revenue instead? Well, for a lot of reasons... if photography is what you're good at and what you enjoy, the make-money-on-ads model makes no sense unless you're also very good at generating traffic. It also at least partially removes your income from the quality and quantity of your output. Of course the latter will be one important factor in building and maintaining traffic, but the reality of your business then becomes driving traffic, with photography as an ancillary requirement. Plus you're now dependent not only on your ability to take good pictures and drive large amounts of traffic, you're also at the mercy of changing revenue. Great, you're making a living wage... but now suddenly your ad service isn't paying as much as it used to, so the same volume of traffic brings you less money. Oops. There are tradeoffs, but I would not say this is a viable alternative at all unless you're also doing other things and driving traffic is as much your primary skill as photography.
  - hnriot 13y ago
    "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.
kunai 13y ago
It's... just a bunch of photos of Apple products. Not even close to a full stock photo replacement.
- perryh2 13y ago
  And the phone's not even an iPhone 5. What is this, 2011?
romeonova 13y ago
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.
armandososa 13y ago
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.
growt 13y ago
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.
rorrr2 13y ago
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-faded-and-stuff.jpg https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/18793141/macbook-air-all...
- kefs 13y ago
  :( Error (509) This account's public links are generating too much traffic and have been temporarily disabled!
zapt02 13y ago
Why not one photo a day?
- tlongren 13y ago
  Because 10 photos in 10 days sounds like more? I dunno.
calinet6 13y ago
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 13y ago
  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 13y ago
    Technical issues are irrelevant if there are prohibitive legal issues at hand.
- ricardobeat 13y ago
  Some of the blur appears to have been added in post-processing.
  - calinet6 13y ago
    Agreed, also contributing to the low-quality feel of it.
powertower 13y ago
10 pictures of a macbook air gets you front-page top placement on HN. Now that I know...
instakill 13y ago
Another site with high quality public domain photography is http://www.pixabay.com http://www.pixabay.com
KVFinn 13y ago
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?
vanwilder77 13y ago
wtf? some1 snaps a few pics of his macbook air! and boom is one top of the HN front page
- xauronx 13y ago
  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.
jameswyse 13y ago
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.
b0z0 13y ago
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.
iTrollFreely 13y ago
amount of actual work done on this mac book air: 0. amount of time picking out wallpaper: 95%. source: hipster mac owner "coders" i see in starbucks.
_mpu 13y ago
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!
jroes 13y ago
Since Dropbox is 509'ing, can someone who's downloaded the photos mirror them somewhere like imgur instead?
bretthopper 13y ago
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 13y ago
  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.
- singlow 13y ago
  Actually - i would have been more pleased if I had clicked on the first title. The new one sounds like its trying to sell me something, the first one sounds like a pet project. Still - It is too general in both case and i can't seem to understand the use case.
callmeed 13y ago
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 http://cloud.bigfolio.com/unsplash-1.psd
ChrisNorstrom 13y ago
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 13y ago
  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.
rangibaby 13y ago
Thanks for these; iStockphoto has gotten really nasty lately (higher prices, and restrictive licenses).
DigitalSea 13y ago
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.
shayanjm 13y ago
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 13y ago
Nice idea (even similar to http://picturesdeal.com http://picturesdeal.com) and very good photos kudos mikaelcho.
Lisa2000 13y ago
Thank you for your generosity. Good luck with this project.

357 points by mikaelcho 13y ago

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

adnam 13y ago

Why is this the top post on HN?

Aardwolf 13y ago

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

yefim323 13y ago

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

mikaelcho 13y ago
Thanks. Everything is free for commercial and personal use.
- angersock 13y ago
  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 13y ago
    Yup! Working on it now. Thanks for the comment.
- Terretta 13y ago
  As others have said here, you should consider hosting these with great keywords with a Creative Commons license on Flickr, and/or contribute them to a few free stock photo sites, and link back to your new site consistently featuring new work. You'll get found more easily at the places most people are searching, and start to make a name for yourself through bringing them back here. At the same time, you should look into your technique if you'd like these to be usable for commercial print work. These likely cannot be used in print work as is; the photo quality is borderline. They likely wouldn't be chosen by art directors to use large (eg., background images) or on today's retina screens, for the same reason. If someone is reviewing the work, too many clients' eyes will jump to the problems. You may want to consider a better lens that doesn't exhibit the strong purple color fringing. You also need to reduce (or change methods of) the post processing that's causing severe fringing between the various subjects in the pictures, ringing on the out of focus elements, etc. These look and feel a lot like high end camera phone pics run through too much filter. In considering composition, watch out for elements like the errant finger on the left hand writing. Any element that's too unusual draws excess attention, detracting from stock photo value, unless of course that element is the featured element. Check out the quality standards guidelines at iStockPhotos: http://www.istockphoto.com/help/sell-stock/training-manuals/photography/quality-standards-what-were-looking-for http://www.istockphoto.com/help/sell-stock/training-manuals/... For example, they would have likely rejected these for chromatic aberration and maybe for over filtering: http://www.istockphoto.com/help/sell-stock/training-manuals/photography/quality-standards-chromatic-aberration http://www.istockphoto.com/help/sell-stock/training-manuals/... http://www.istockphoto.com/help/sell-stock/training-manuals/photography/quality-standards-overfiltering http://www.istockphoto.com/help/sell-stock/training-manuals/... Finally, as noted in other comments, generally company logos are not acceptable in stock photography: http://www.istockphoto.com/help/sell-stock/training-manuals/photography/legal-requirements-logos-trademarks-intellectual-property http://www.istockphoto.com/help/sell-stock/training-manuals/...

grimtrigger 13y ago

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".

wisty 13y ago
As does flickr.
hadem 13y ago
Example searches for both Google Images and Flickr. 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.google.com/search?as_st=y&tbm=isch&hl=en&... http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=venice&l=comm&ss=0&ct=0&mt=photos&w=all&adv=1 http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=venice&l=comm&ss=0&#...
- hayksaakian 13y ago
  how do I even find that setting in a normal images search? I don't see it under search tools...
  - deefour 13y ago
    "Usage Rights" at the bottom of this page: http://www.google.com/advanced_image_search 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.

adventured 13y ago

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."

polymatter 13y ago
Please make that legally solid by going to (https://creativecommons.org/choose/ https://creativecommons.org/choose/) and making them the correct licence. Or state a legal licence under which they are distributed on your site as. Unfortunately we live in a legal environment where the author stating "free for commercial and personal use" is not a licence strong enough to hold up under law.
mikaelcho 13y ago
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 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.
- angersock 13y ago
  Comedy option: WTFPL. (Use the CC stuff if you can.)
  - mr_luc 13y ago
    Or how about the IWSU license? https://github.com/mrluc/node-dbp-irctweet/blob/master/LICENSE.md https://github.com/mrluc/node-dbp-irctweet/blob/master/LICEN...
- usea 13y ago
  There's also CC0 which puts the work into the public domain http://creativecommons.org/choose/zero/ http://creativecommons.org/choose/zero/

yoshyosh 13y ago

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 13y ago
Awesome. We're looking for photos to add so when you're ready, you can submit them here: http://unsplash.com/submit http://unsplash.com/submit

footoverhand 13y ago

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 13y ago
> 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 13y ago
  And color me unsurprised - of course there's a Moleskine notebook.
slantyyz 13y ago
>> Why do all of the photo's have Apple products in them? It's funny that this seems to be a big deal. The answer's simple -- many people just photograph the stuff they happen to own.
bdcravens 13y ago
I presume that each batch of photos will have a specific theme or a use case in mind. If I were looking for sharp photos for my web design consulting website, and I think Apple products are the standard for the industry, I might use these images. Conversely, if I were doing a basketball design, I might incorporate urban images (asphalt, chain link fence, generic graffiti) to invoke a particular mindset or attitude.

xauronx 13y ago

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)

jkuria 13y ago

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 13y ago
Maybe a license-enforced watermark of the photographer's name.
- BadCRC 13y ago
  but then it's crappy

mikkel 13y ago

I love stuff like this - super simple solution to a common pain point. http://placeit.breezi.com/ http://placeit.breezi.com/ is a very similar service with CC images.

bridgpal 13y ago
This site is great. Does the image placement, and blending correclty

HunterV 13y ago

Awesome, really excited about this. Just a thought: You should have a "tip jar" so people can show their appreciation where it counts.

mikaelcho 13y ago
Good idea. Thanks for the "tip."

ambiate 13y ago

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

quanticle 13y ago
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 13y ago
  "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/guidelinesfor3rdparties.html http://www.apple.com/legal/intellectual-property/guidelinesf... 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.

Nekorosu 13y ago

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).

elmuchoprez 13y ago

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

corresation 13y ago

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.

jaredmcateer 13y ago
Also having brand names in your stock photos have certain legal landmines, you should talk to your lawyer before using these photos.
- mauricio-OH 13y ago
  I don't think apple will be upset in this case though...
  - jlarocco 13y ago
    But the value of stock images is to use them somewhere else. Lets say I write an article negatively portraying the electronics manufacturing industry and use these images along with the article. I'm pretty sure Apple wouldn't like it if they found out...
    - MartinCron 13y ago
      You are extending Apple way more rights than they actually have. Trademark and copyright don't exist to keep people from saying negative things about you.
      - archangel_one 13y ago
        No, but libel and slander laws do exist to keep people from saying untrue negative things about you, so it still pays to be careful if that's what you intend to do.

sengstrom 13y ago

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 13y ago
Thanks for the comment! Will add more (and different photos in the future). This was just the first batch.

omegote 13y ago

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

Ma8ee 13y ago

Absolutely, definitely not, hipsters!

mikaelcho 13y ago
Funny you mention. Our first idea for the domain was hipsterphotos.com

neovive 13y ago

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

utopkara 13y ago

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.

kghose 13y ago

Also, Flickr has lots and lots of good quality CC and other free to use licensed photos. http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons/ http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons/

Osiris 13y ago

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 13y ago
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 13y ago
  >> 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.

azov 13y ago

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.

jjcm 13y ago

http://sxc.hu 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.

volaski 13y ago

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

mmahemoff 13y ago

I initially thought it was a service to embed your app's screenshot onto any device. Which, btw, would be awesome.

monkey_slap 13y ago
PlaceIt does just that and is awesome http://placeit.breezi.com/ http://placeit.breezi.com/
- mmahemoff 13y ago
  I see. Cool idea, but would work nicer if done client-side so it could update all those images at once.

wyck 13y ago

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.

jlarocco 13y ago

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

paulwithap 13y ago
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?
- obviouslygreen 13y ago
  Why go through the hassle of selling your photos and worrying about people stealing them when you can make money on ad revenue instead? Well, for a lot of reasons... if photography is what you're good at and what you enjoy, the make-money-on-ads model makes no sense unless you're also very good at generating traffic. It also at least partially removes your income from the quality and quantity of your output. Of course the latter will be one important factor in building and maintaining traffic, but the reality of your business then becomes driving traffic, with photography as an ancillary requirement. Plus you're now dependent not only on your ability to take good pictures and drive large amounts of traffic, you're also at the mercy of changing revenue. Great, you're making a living wage... but now suddenly your ad service isn't paying as much as it used to, so the same volume of traffic brings you less money. Oops. There are tradeoffs, but I would not say this is a viable alternative at all unless you're also doing other things and driving traffic is as much your primary skill as photography.
- hnriot 13y ago
  "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.

kunai 13y ago

It's... just a bunch of photos of Apple products. Not even close to a full stock photo replacement.

perryh2 13y ago
And the phone's not even an iPhone 5. What is this, 2011?

romeonova 13y ago

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.

armandososa 13y ago

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.

growt 13y ago

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.

rorrr2 13y ago

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

kefs 13y ago
:( Error (509) This account's public links are generating too much traffic and have been temporarily disabled!

zapt02 13y ago

Why not one photo a day?

tlongren 13y ago
Because 10 photos in 10 days sounds like more? I dunno.

calinet6 13y ago

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 13y ago
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 13y ago
  Technical issues are irrelevant if there are prohibitive legal issues at hand.
ricardobeat 13y ago
Some of the blur appears to have been added in post-processing.
- calinet6 13y ago
  Agreed, also contributing to the low-quality feel of it.

powertower 13y ago

10 pictures of a macbook air gets you front-page top placement on HN. Now that I know...

instakill 13y ago

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

KVFinn 13y ago

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?

vanwilder77 13y ago

wtf? some1 snaps a few pics of his macbook air! and boom is one top of the HN front page

xauronx 13y ago
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.

jameswyse 13y ago

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.

b0z0 13y ago

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.

iTrollFreely 13y ago

amount of actual work done on this mac book air: 0. amount of time picking out wallpaper: 95%. source: hipster mac owner "coders" i see in starbucks.

_mpu 13y ago

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!

jroes 13y ago

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

bretthopper 13y ago

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 13y ago
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.
singlow 13y ago
Actually - i would have been more pleased if I had clicked on the first title. The new one sounds like its trying to sell me something, the first one sounds like a pet project. Still - It is too general in both case and i can't seem to understand the use case.

callmeed 13y ago

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

ChrisNorstrom 13y ago

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 13y ago
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.

rangibaby 13y ago

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

DigitalSea 13y ago

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.

shayanjm 13y ago

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 13y ago

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

Lisa2000 13y ago

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