How do I download zoomable image off a website?
December 10, 2012 3:19 AM

How do I download zoomable image off a website?

I want to download images off a website for my own personal use. Specifically I want to keep a copy of the zoomable image from The Christies auction website.

Here is an example. I want a copy of the higher resolution picture you get when you zoom. Is it downloadable? Is it already in my cache and recoverable?
posted by priorpark17 to Computers & Internet (6 answers total) 4 users marked this as a favorite
The viewer is in flash and there doesn't seem to be an obvious image location in the source. Your best bet is probably to take a screenshot.
posted by Vectorcon Systems at 3:54 AM on December 10, 2012


The reason why people put zoomable images on their website is because they don't want people to take their images. About the best you can do is to take screenshots and if you want a larger resolution then zoom in, take multiple screenshots and combine them in Photoshop. This is what I do with Google News Archive newspaper articles. It takes some extra work but is worth it.
posted by JJ86 at 4:14 AM on December 10, 2012


You aren't downloading a single image, when you are zoomed in and panning around you are getting hundreds of image tiles. Looking at the page source code they are using Zoomify, so this de-zoomify may do it for you. Other websites may use other formats, such as MS Zoomit.
posted by Sophont at 4:15 AM on December 10, 2012


Using wireshark, the tiles are loaded from: 
http://www.christies.com/lotfinderimages/d56380/d5638064/TileGroup0/4-0-0.jpg
http://www.christies.com/lotfinderimages/d56380/d5638064/TileGroup0/4-1-0.jpg
... etc up to ...
http://www.christies.com/lotfinderimages/d56380/d5638064/TileGroup0/4-9-12.jpg
130 images total, so finding a tool like Sophont suggests is your best bet.
posted by samj at 5:02 AM on December 10, 2012


A screen-capture tool, such as the Snipping Tool built into Windows 7 should be able to snag it for you. Just grab it then crop as needed.
posted by NoAccount at 7:13 AM on December 10, 2012


You can often right-click to Inspect Elements, which, depending on your web browser, may allow you to see the 'hidden' URL the zoomed image is being pulled from. You can copy out that url and paste it into a new window to get the image, zoom-free.
posted by Aquaman at 7:38 AM on December 10, 2012


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