Forum for finding a picture

January 18, 2011 11:56 AM

Is there a forum out there where I can post a "query" (for example, "dramatic painting of an old wise man pointing to the heavens") and crowd-source the results? I'd like to be on both sides of that game!
posted by oneous to computers & internet (4 answers total)

Sort of.
posted by novalis_dt at 12:02 PM on January 18, 2011 [1 favorite]

Yes; sort of.

http://www.etsy.com/alchemy/
posted by felix at 1:26 PM on January 18, 2011

Also:

Amazon Mechanical Turk
posted by felix at 1:27 PM on January 18, 2011

I have to admit that I don't quite understand your question - are you saying "I remember having seen a dramatic painting of an old man pointing to the heavens - does anyone know what painting that might have been?" or are you saying "I have a need for a painting of an old man... - would someone like to create one for me?"

If you remember something about a painting and want to see if anyone can name it:
AskMetafilter can often help.
There is a forum on Reddit called TOMT (Tip of My Tongue).
Artconversation.com is a forum where you can ask questions about art.
Wetcanvas.com also has forums where people can ask questions.

If you HAVE an image and need help to figure out more about it:
IDThis.org uses humans to look at photos and identify them
Tineye.com uses computers to search for similar images on the web
GoogleGoggles (for various brands of smartphones) allows you to take a picture of a thing and it will search for the origin of it.

If you want to post a request and have someone CREATE a painting based on your criteria...
I don't know about paintings, but for photoshop-version of this same type of thing, look at the contests in Worth1000.com or fark.com
posted by CathyG at 10:33 AM on January 19, 2011