User:Bobogoobo/Sources

This page is intended to be an aid in finding image sources, better versions of existing files, etc. This isn't necessarily confined to the wiki, because many of these tips can be used for anything. Please contact me with any questions, suggestions, etc.

Wiki links:
 * Source
 * Category:Images missing source information
 * Category:Images

Image trickery
This section is for tips and tricks regarding finding image sources and higher quality versions. (I didn't want to make it a blog because it can change a lot, but I already have tons of user subpages, so unfortunately my sandbox has to get even bigger :P.) First and foremost, Google Image Search is essential (Firefox add-on). Note that you can use site:whatever.com in the search field that it sends you to, but this will only apply to the regular results list, not the "view all sizes" list.

Facebook images: when you have the file name with a bunch of numbers, take the middle one (the long one) and append it to this link: " https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid= ". Assuming you have permission to view it, this will show you where the image was posted on FB. Note that if the file name ends in "n", the image you're seeing may not be the full original size. To get the original, use the Download link. Alternatively, get the source URL of the displayed image on Facebook, remove the directory in the URL that contains dimensions, and go. This should take you to the full version. The "n" or "o" at the end of the file name probably doesn't matter in these cases.

deviantArt: there aren't really any tricks to this one, usually they come with the full name. You can't actually get the dA link from the file name, because the numbers at the end of the dA URL are missing but are required for recognition by the site. However, if the file has the "gibberish" after the author's name in the file name (e.g. "title by author-a1b2c3d.jpg"), you can use that on fav.me ( http://fav.me/ ), which will automatically redirect to the work on dA. I haven't found a correlation between the fav.me link and the numbers on dA.

Hot Topic: on the product page, view the source code. Find the part that has the code for the product image mouseover. Find a link that looks like this: " http://img.hottopic.com/is/image/HotTopic/10045414_hi?wid=1360 " (they may change this, and have once already; I found this trick with a version of the site that made it much more obvious). Add "&fmt=png" at the end; play with the "wid" value to make sure you're getting the biggest possible image (not including the whitespace).

Larry's Comics emails (linking to them): click the orange + icon, view the source of the page that opens. The full url is in a couple of the  tags.

Let me know if I missed any common sites (I probably did, because I've done things all over the place) or if I should investigate another common site. Or even some uncommon sites that may be helpful; I've done a lot with the comics, for example. I can usually figure something out by looking through the source code and such.

Missing sources
I'm planning to write a script that finds images on the wiki missing source information. I'll probably make it a gadget or something, that would be easiest. The results will be displayed below.