How To Properly Source Images

[Urahra 5777]

How to properly source images!

 

Hello, everyone! I spend a good amount of time on the forums and I see a lot of you using some nice art for your lore posts, your RP posts, your stories, your avatars, and your signatures.

 

Now, I know it’s fun to look up images for your characters. And I love having visual aids when I RP with people. It brings the words to life! However, there is a great sin that I see many of your committing on here. You are not giving proper credit to the people who drew the lovely images you are using. 

 

Why is this bad?

 

As an artist, I spend countless hours working on images for display. It takes an extremely long time to sketch, line, and color all the things I draw. A single piece of can take upwards of six hours for me. Some artists take even longer. A piece with multiple characters or a complex background can takes hundreds upon hundreds of hours of intense focus and dedication. That is real life time that I could be using for lots of different things. Images don’t simply appear out of thin air, people! There is an artist behind every work of art – an artist who spent precious hours of their life working laboriously on an image that you are carelessly taking and using without giving proper credit. 

 

If you spent hundreds upon hundreds of hours working on something, I'm sure you'd want to get credit for it! 

 

How would you feel if someone took your hard work and displayed it without your knowledge, without even saying who it was done by?

 

I’m sure you love the pretty art that you’re using as your avatar or using in your story. I’m sure you’re very grateful to the artist for making and sharing their art on the internet. The best way to thank them for their hard work is to source them!

 

But Urara, how do I find the source for an image? This picture could have been done by anyone!

 

Good question, my friend! First off, take a good long look at the image you are using. I’ll use my avatar as an example. It’s a lovely picture I commissioned to display my character, Tanith. Do you see a signature on it? Possibly a URL?

 

 

Ah, there we go!

 

 

It becomes clear to us that this image was done by an artist with the username “Xenthyl.” That’s a fairly unique name. In that case, it might be easy simply to google the name.

 

Looks like it’s her! Wasn’t that easy? We now have links to both her deviantart and her art tumblr. It’s easy to link back to her and provide some credit for the lovely art she made.

 

 

But Urara! The signature on my image is missing / hard to read!

 

Oh no! D: That’s a problem. Here’s a picture I commissioned of Tanith and her husband, Baldir. I’ll use this as an example.

 

 

Dang…that signature is really faint. I can’t quite make it out. Is it Layla? Leila? Leela? Shoot! How will I google the person’s name and find out how to credit them now?

 

Have no fear, Google image search is here!

 

 

Google has an awesome feature that allows you to search the url of an image. Simply right click the image, click ‘Copy Image URL’ and off to Google you go!

 

 

See that little camera icon in the search box? That’s not just for show. You can click on that little fellow to search for an image by URL. So let’s click on our little camera friend and put the URL in the search box…

 

Once you get some results similar to the signature, you can determine who drew it!

 

 

Here’s our URL! http://lelia.deviantart.com/art/Commission-Baldir-x-Tanith-350940995

Now we have a link to the artist’s deviantart page, which we can use as a source for her art! Wonderful! :D

 

See? Properly sourcing and crediting art is VERY easy, so you have no excuse not to do it. You can source art in a few easy steps that take only a few minutes! Please be sure to properly credit the art you’ve chosen to use!

 

You can also occasionally find the artists' name in the URL!

 

Every day, we use images that artists have slaved over for hours. Please be kind and courteous and SOURCE YOUR IMAGES.

[Lym 849]

This is a pretty bamf guide, if I may say so.

[Lark 2227]

Next up, MLA Formatting with Urara. But great guide btw. :D

[Urahra 5777]

Friend, I am an English major. Do not get me STARTED on MLA sourcing.

[Aptrotta 162]

MLA format please!

[Gunner 775]

sue me #cantcatchme

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Moved to the Archive. It shall be sorted into the appropriate category shortly.