Where to get bad photos?

[PatrickB]

Hm, I don't know if this is the right forum, please forgive me

I am about to start a portfolio about my retouching skills. The problem is: I have done retouching jobs for clients, but I don't want to use those photos for obvious reasons. Don't want to have a bunch of people with hay-forks at the front door for showing off their pictures

So my question is: Can somebody tell me where to find high-resolution BAD images on the web? Y'know, bad lighting conditions, severe color cast and so on. And maybe ugly people I could improve a little

Thanks in advance

Patrick

[philbach]

Well this is the place. Go to the challanges section and look at the original photos for each challange. I believe you will find most of them "Challenging."

[Jeff L]

Heh heh.....Have a look around my site!

Seriously though...there are some good images to work on here on a very regular basis. Look around and I'm sure you'll see something.

[Kraellin]

i used to use the google image search also. in fact, i still do for some things. just pick a word, pick 'image' for the search criteria and hit enter. depending on the word, you'll get all sorts of images to play with. older relatives are also often a good source for older pics to work on. my mother has pictures going back to before photography

K.

[Lampy]

Check out antique stores and flea markets. I have collected a number of photographs this way.

A couple of things to keep in mind, first you can pick them up cheap because they are damaged and second you have an original to compare to the retouched print.

This isn't going to make any difference if your clients are via internet but if you deal with people in person it can be a selling point. It also allows them to see the difference they can expect in the surface quality of the print (resin coated vs. the fiber base original so they aren't surprised when it looks like a new print).

Just my thoughts,

Heather

[Doug Nelson]

Check out our archives here, as well.

[rnbluvva]

Hey Patrick,

Not sure of the legalities involved, but if you want a lot of bad images, just visit places like MySpace.com and Netfriendships.com and grab images. Not sure what sort of retouching/restoration you are doing but these images are good for glamour retouching practice. I have also been practicing on images I have found from various Plastic Surgery sites for things like noses, chins, cellulite etc. I just use the before images.

I don't think you could use these for your actual portfolio, since I am sure copyright would be infringed, but they are good sources for practice images.

If you are looking to do glamour, basic color correction work, image manipulation etc., I know a lot of independent bands and artists would love to have some retouching work done for free and in exchange you could use those images in your portfolio. If you want a listing of some sites where you can get in touch with Indie artists, just PM me.

[Manjumena]

Originally Posted by rnbluvva

Hey Patrick,

Not sure of the legalities involved, but if you want a lot of bad images, just visit places like MySpace.com and Netfriendships.com and grab images.

Sadly both sites are blocked. (I live in middle East)
Manju

[rnbluvva]

Manju,

Sorry to hear that they are blocked. Do all of your ISP's there block what they think may be "questionable" content? The sites are those "friendship, networking, dating" type sites and some of the pictures can be errrr, emmm... 'questionable'! LOL

That's a real bummer.

[byRo]

OK, not bad photos...

But if you want to show off your talents of taking a pretty good photo and turning it into a "Wow", this (http://gal.mvc.ru/, people, +/- page 50) is a good place.

You`ll recognize quite a few of them!

Rô

[CJ Max]

...eBay, and very inexpensive. If you get the older tintypes or whatever, you won't have a worry in the world about model releases. Just a thought. Flea markets work too sometimes.

[Nanls]

Some of the photos on http://morguefile.com/ could be useful.
~Nancy~

[frostburn]

id look through deviantart.com they have a ton of stock photos that are free of people...

[mfgriggs]

I can give you all you want....Just look at my posts.

[bart_hickman]

Basically perform simulations of stupid photo tricks. Eg:

-Go to the drug store and get a disposable film camera and take some nice noisy, poorly colored, photos. A polaroid would be ideal if you can find one.
-Spill some spaghetti sauce on an otherwise good photo and fix the stain.
-Dip a photo in water and fix the bleeding.
-Put a photo in the sun for a few days and fix the fading
-Fold a photo in several places and fix the creases.
-Shoot a person with the sun at their back--intentionally underexpose them and recover the shadow details.
-Overexpose a face and recover the blown highlights.
-Take a picture of someone with an out-of-style hat so you can remove it in PP.
-Take an ordinary photo of a sunset or clouds and give it some punch.
-Take a color photo and partially desaturate it.
-Use the flash improperly and cause reflections in someone's glasses and remove the reflections.
-Take a "vacation" shot posing next to some monument, and have somebody else stand behind and make a funny face--you then remove this mischevious tourist.

Do all of these with the highest ISO setting on your camera so they're nice and noisy.

...I also once saw a photo of some poor chap in this forum who's face was sort of elephant-like. Maybe you can ask him permission to fix his face?

Bart

[biskit27]

what you can also try is celebrity gossip websites, many of them routinely post high res red carpet, or sighting, event etc etc etc pics that have no retouching.

http://www.socialitelife.com
they regularly have photos you can use for retouch practice,


you can kind of click around and find other sites they link to, I've found a lot of photos that way.

[mistermonday]

Patrick, Photosig.com has a section titled Neglected Photos. There you will find a wide spectrum of poor photography, some of which is compositional and subject interest, but there is a lot of images which just need correction and retouching. Often by supplying a critique to the photographer, you can obtain permission to use their images.

http://www.photosig.com/go/photos/neglected

Regards, Murray

[daveinnola]

hi i,m new to this site but i,v been doing this for awhile , and i found a couple of sites that are online and copywrite free , the us libary of congress is a great site to start , a full range of pictures from tintypes to panoramas , and more ,they even have ansell adams pictures of japanese inturnment camps , ( yes i did retouch some of the great mans work lol ) try the american memory section too, most of these are by pro picture takers and high res, but for a real challenge try , the search term vietnam vets , this will take you to personal pages of vietnam vets , and a tresure trove of bad pictures , lots of color pictures gone bad due to poor workmanship , cracks rips ,tears , ect ect , and my guess is that it will be a major market in the future (thank you kodak brownie ) the upside of it is that the guys are real greatful when you send them a copy of thier picture back ,

[Godmother]

http://belle2005.blogspot.com/