howto:upload
Danbooru Quality: Posting Guidelines
Thank you for donating your spare time to help us expand our image collection! While we need a constant supply of new images to keep our collection fresh and up to date, we must make it clear that Danbooru has stricter quality standards compared to most galleries of its kind.
Before you upload your first images, please familiarize yourself with our quality standards. While we understand that quality can be an extremely subjective measure, our stance in keeping our gallery top notch must stand.
Without further ado, we shall address quality issues from the least subjective to the most.
Copyright
Although not technically a quality issue, copyright is the most objective measure in determining if an upload will be permanently added to Danbooru or not. Copyright is a distinctly binary issue: an image is either accepted or rejected on grounds of copyright.
We are obliged to remove artists who have requested their works to be removed from our galleries. Uploads that bear copyright issues will be unconditionally removed from Danbooru.
- Generally Accepted
- Most art from most artists.
- Generally Rejected
- Manga from big-name international publishers.
- Publications licensed for worldwide distribution.
- Art from any artist who has issued orders against Danbooru.
Banned Artist List
These artists have the historical significance for being among the first to issue orders to have their works removed from Danbooru. Images by these artists will be unconditionally deleted without notice.See the full list here
Other banned artists can be looked up by searching for "no-post artist" in the Wiki.
Open Note to Artists From Us:
Danbooru is a strictly non-profit site. We believe in sharing, appreciation and preservation of your talents. Your exclusive right to profit from your works is assured. Please contact our staff if you have any further questions about our site.
Art Style
Danbooru is an Anime Art Gallery first, and a high-quality gallery second. Only anime-style art will be accepted. Art which is done in other styles is highly likely to be rejected.
- Generally Accepted
- Anime-style illustrations.
- Anime-style renditions of characters from Western animation or comics.
- Photography of Anime-themed papercraft. Examples: paper_child
- Conditionally Accepted
- Doujinshi (especially long doujins covering many pages), must be a high quality untranslated raw. Please make it clear that you are uploading a long series if you have a download limit by grouping the pages into a pool.
- Generally Rejected
- Most Photography.
- Western style illustrations (commonly known outside Danbooru as 'cartoons' or 'comics').
Image Quality
Perhaps the most objective of quality measures is the visual quality of an upload. Please ensure that images are crisp, clear and free of watermarks.
If you only have a low quality image e.g. from a third party page that contains watermarks or compression artifacts you should use a Reverse Image Search Engine to find the original image or at least a higher quality version.
- Generally Accepted
- Crisp, High quality images without compression artifacts.
- Efficiently compressed images. Generally this means images that are clear and yet have a small file size for their quality.
- High-resolution images. Stay with the times! You may have to lurk around to find out the minimum pixel size of the moment.
- Conditionally Accepted
- Third-party edits. For more information on what third-party edits are generally accepted, see help:third-party edit.
- Generally Rejected
- Images with needlessly invasive watermarks.
- Images defaced by compression artifacts. Such images suffer from blockiness, smudginess (mostly JPEGs), grains or banding (mostly GIFs and PNGs).
- Images with large file sizes without a good reason. When Danbooru receives a large file, we expect it to be a large print-quality poster-size illustration with hairline details. However, many images with large file sizes have been simply blurry scans saved in 24-bit PNG format.
- Low resolution images.
Anatomy and Perspective
Figure illustrations have always, and will always make up the vast majority of our collection. As a result, we have developed a fussy eye for drawn people. Danbooru is especially picky and can be especially harsh at times when it comes to judging an artist's execution of perspective and anatomy. A good example of how a professional quality illustration quickly falls under Danbooru's ultra-sensitive anatomy checker is post #190107.
- Generally Accepted
- Illustrations demonstrating correct execution of anatomy AND perspective. This is extremely important!
- Danbooru loves good anatomy and perspective. Pools have been created to celebrate excellence in illustrative anatomy:
- Subject to Contention
- Sometimes an illustration with some touchy issues but otherwise good anatomy shows up on Danbooru. Moderators debate to no end while these illustrations fall into the fires of deletion.
- High quality illustrations marred by glaring anatomical errors.
Such images still stand a high chance of being rejected. - High quality illustrations with mostly good anatomy, but feature grotesquely exaggerated breasts and genitals.
- Generally Rejected
- Images showing poor execution of human anatomy. Danbooru moderators are known to be repulsive of 'horrors' like poorly drawn hands and feet, disproportionate breasts, uneven eyes and deformed heads.
- Hallmarks of Danbooru deletions: post #266189, post #595403
Danbooru-specific Criteria
In addition to the basic quality requirements, there are things that push the buttons of our moderators, causing them to reject seemingly quality illustrations and accept seemingly poorly drawn art.
Quality Check Exceptions
You may find some images here which seem to patently violate our Quality guidelines. These are extremely rare cases in Danbooru history where moderators have given concession to specific posts, for these specific reasons:
- Photos of phenomena considered significant to Danbooru users
- Example: post #96470: Too Erotic
- Some photography of Anime-themed figurines or cosplayers
- A far more suitable place for cosplay photography would be 3dbooru.
- Animations considered immensely amusing which happen to capture the hearts of moderators at the time they are uploaded.
- Example: post #99772: Kuso Miso Nurse
A Footnote on Historical Images
You may notice a number of comparatively low quality art in Danbooru's permanent collection. While current upload standards would preclude similar images being uploaded today, we have neither the manpower nor a compelling reason to re-review many tens of thousands of historical images in bulk. Older images are not immune to re-consideration in the moderation queue (that is, there is no official "grandfather clause" anymore), but there will be no large-scale purge of the backlog either.
The Creed of the Danbooru Contributor
Now that you have learned about what Danbooru likes and dislikes, it is time to learn the Creed which we all follow. Swear by these rules, and you will be more than welcome to stay.
Danbooru is not a Hentai Board
Danbooru is a high-quality anime-illustration gallery that tolerates sexual content. We are NOT a repository for anime porn. We accept sexual content because the talented artists out there, especially from Japan, happen to draw a lot of good smut. There is no preferential treatment for erotic art. All uploads, erotic or not, are subject to Danbooru Quality guidelines.
Uploading One's Own Art is Sacrilege
Posting one's own art is severely frowned upon, and there are two reasons behind this:
- Firstly, artists tend to be biased when it comes to judging the quality of their own work. What looks good to you may be regarded as mediocre to Danbooru moderators.
- Secondly, allowing posting of own work (self-posting) will cause a sudden spike of sub-par uploads as users mistake us for another Pixiv or Deviantart, far beyond the scope and capacity of Danbooru.
More suitable sites to upload your own art to include Deviantart and Pixiv.
Admins and moderators are especially harsh on self-posting artists, lashing out penalties without remorse. The one and only way to feature your art on Danbooru is to show immense talent and skill elsewhere, and with that, captivate some fans on the other side of the Internet into uploading your art.
Err on The Side of Caution
You are likely to hear this phrase repeated throughout your stay in Danbooru. To oversimplify things a bit, if you are unsure if you have to do something or not, it is better that you don't. The best examples of this creed in practice are:
- Posting: If unsure about an image meeting the Rejection Criteria (see above), keep it off our server.
- Translating: If unsure about what is going on in a conversation, ask first.
Danbooru is Subjective
We know that it can seem unfair at times that we judge images on quality, which is of course a subjective value. But we do this because this method works for Danbooru and pleases the majority of the userbase. Don't take it personal if one or more of your uploads don't get approved. We've all been there, just live and learn. Details on how to appeal deletions that you see as unfair are on the Deletion Appeals page.
Uploading
Now that you've read the guidelines and criteria for uploading, it's important to know how to upload correctly. There are special instructions for uploading from a number of popular sites:
Try not to upload images from sources that aren't from the original artist or copyright, and always look for an original source whenever possible. Sites such as 4chan, Reddit, or Facebook are not ideal places to source your image, unless the artist has long deleted their original post.
Note: Use of the bookmarklet is highly encouraged (See help:bookmarklet).
Aftercare for Uploads
Danbooru is happy when contributors upload high-quality images. Danbooru is even happier when contributors help out in making their uploads easy to catalog. Care for your uploads and it will go much further in capturing our appreciation. Neglect your uploads, and it may end up getting deleted for the following reasons: Unapproved in three days.
Source Your Upload
See help:image_source for a complete help page on how to source your uploads. Sourcing images is especially important on Danbooru for both archiving and tracking purposes.
Sourcing is NOT optional if your upload is not self-provided. Source your uploads as best as you can.
Minimal Tagging Criteria
Comprehensive tagging is of the essence on Danbooru, its body and its blood. However, in cases where it is not yet possible to comprehensively tag an image as we would like, we have a minimum criteria for tagging new posts:
- Characters must be identified by name in the tags.
- Use the original tag if it's an original character.
- Place a character_request if you aren't sure where a character comes from.
- Artists must be credited.
- Uploads must have at least an artist: tag
- If the artist is an Anonymous, please refer to the Special Procedures for Anonymous artists. (coming soon)
- Copyrights which a character is from must be identified.
- Major body characteristics of characters must be identified. Be sure to include:
- If you are not sure if an image is tagged completely enough, always place a tagme tag, and another contributor will review your tags, adding and making corrections as necessary.
For Tagging Guidelines in greater detail, please see howto:tag.
Make Use of Comments and the Forum
Most of the time, a cursory trip to Google will help you accomplish most things such as finding out which copyright a character comes from. If you have an issue that where Google research just wouldn't do, please leave a comment on the image about the issue you want to clarify.
Harder issues may be resolved with a forum post. Please be sure to reference your post when using the forum.
Also, please read the Commenting Guidelines to get an understanding about commenting on Danbooru.
Check for Duplicates
Be sure that your post has not been uploaded by someone else. When uploading an image, use the find similar button to find images which are visually identical to your upload.
If your image has already been uploaded, only upload if you have a higher quality copy. Once you have uploaded your higher quality copy, set all existing copies of the image as child posts of your copy.
For more information on setting Parent and Child Posts, refer to the chapter on Managing Parent and Child Posts in the Contributor's Guide.
See Also
References, Resources, Further Reading
- 3dbooru, Independently run site for posting high-quality cosplay photography.
- Gelbooru, Independently run Image Board/Gallery system like Danbooru, but far less strict about their content.
- Deviantart, English language gallery for posting your own art.
- Pixiv, Japanese website for posting your own art.
Return to the Contributor Guide
Return to the Table of Contents
Return to the Wiki Help Home Page