help:image source
Sourcing images is important on Danbooru, for both archiving and tracking purposes. It's a simple task and in the case of uploads from the internet, will even save you a step. The source of an image can also provide information about whether it is a md5 mismatch (in which case a revision can be provided), image sample or has a bad id.
This wiki page describes how to source your uploads, in addition to listing helpful tools and methods that can be used to find the original and/or higher quality version of an image that you found (e.g. a third party site) or what to do if the image is a self scan.
Sourcing is NOT optional if your upload is not self-provided. Source your uploads as best as you can.
Sourcing your uploads
Using the danbooru bookmarklet for uploading will allow you to skip most of these steps, as the bookmarklet will automatically source your uploads for you.
Note that source URLs MUST point to the original image source or a perfectly identical image source with the same md5. Using a link to a more inferior source will confuse the automated processes that run on Danbooru and tag your posts incorrectly, most likely with md5 mismatch. If you wish to provide an alternate (and/or potentially inferior) source for any post tagged with bad id, use a comment.
See also: an admin's commentary on sources Basically, non-artist repost sites like gelbooru should be avoided as a source unless you can't find a closer source using saucenao, iqdb or google.
Danbooru can create automated direct source URL -> HTML post conversion from the following sites:
- Pixiv
- Nicoseiga
- Twitpic
- Twipple
- Karabako
- deviantArt
- Hentai-Foundry
For uploads from these sites, the Source field is simply the image URL of the picture.
For all other sites (e.g. Tumblr, blogs, twimg.com etc.), uploaders are asked to change the Source field (after uploading) to point to the HTML page URL instead of the direct image URL (e.g. twitter.com, not pbs.twimg.com). There's one exception - if the site doesn't provide HTML pages for the images themselves, you should use the direct image URL.
Site-specific howto's
There are specific instructions on how to source your image from the following sites:
Non-internet sources
Note that providing a URL for your uploads should be preferred over all else, especially if it did not come from yourself. However, for uploads from a non-internet source (self scan, fandisc, screencap, game rip, etc.), specify what material the image came from: the work title or the episode name, for example.
Special file considerations
Certain image files are not uploadable. Use the filetype specific guidelines for uploading them.
Reverse Image Search Engines
If you don't know the image's source anymore (e.g. it's a file you saved to your computer in the past), you can use a reverse image search engine to help look for a proper source.
The way reverse image search engines work is you give it an image (either upload one from your computer or give it a URL pointing to the image) and the search will look for images that are visually similar to your image and list the results, usually followed by a % similarity measure.
If a site blocks direct image grabs, such as Tinami, using the upload image option will always work when available.
Specialized Reverse Image Search Engines
These search engines search pixiv, other image boards, or other anime / manga related content.
- Danbooru "Find Similar"
- POST request to /iqdb_queries?url=IMAGEURL
- May require API key (see Help:API)
- SauceNAO
- searches pixiv and more
- Has browser extensions that supports SauceNao, IQDB, Google Image Search, ASCII2D, TinEye
- Also has an API to interface with directly
- IQDB
- searches several image boards, including Danbooru, that might contain a link to the original source
- ASCII2D
- searches twitter, 2chan archives, pixiv, getchu, danbooru, and more sites
- Browser extensions can be found on ツール on the top menu
- Doujinshi DB
- searches doujinshi cover pages
- http://iisearch.ddo.jp
- searches mainly game CGs
- E-Hentai (click on Show File Search)
- searches content on E-Hentai (mainly hentai doujinshi)
General Reverse Image Search Engines
These search engines search the whole web. Use them if the more specialized search engines above don't give any results.
- Google Image Search (click on the camera icon)
- TinEye
Reverse Image Search Tips
If you can't find matches anyway, try flipping the image left-to-right and searching on that, or rotating the image 90, 180 or 270 degrees. It's a pretty common manipulation but a lot of image searches don't catch it.