[slugslugslug]

Hey, y'all, I need to find ~ 60 to 100 pictures of scary objects, like weapons or menacing animals, preferably with a white background. They'd be for display in a scientific experiment, and don't need to be very high resolution at all. I'm wondering if anyone knows any good places to find themed collections of royalty-free photos, wherein I could buy a whole set for < $100. Or if anyone has any great tips for finding stuff on the web, since searching google images and flickr (or even online stock-photo sites) tends to bring up few usable results per search..

Thanks in advance,
Y.

[Westbo]

Originally Posted by slugslugslug 

Hey, y'all, I need to find ~ 60 to 100 pictures of scary objects, like weapons or menacing animals, preferably with a white background. They'd be for display in a scientific experiment, and don't need to be very high resolution at all. I'm wondering if anyone knows any good places to find themed collections of royalty-free photos, wherein I could buy a whole set for < $100. Or if anyone has any great tips for finding stuff on the web, since searching google images and flickr (or even online stock-photo sites) tends to bring up few usable results per search..

Thanks in advance,
Y.

I don't know of any specific collections. Your best bet is to search low cost royalty-free sites, entering individual search terms i.e., fright, scare, threat, haunt, weapons, horror etc. Images cost aproximately $1- $3 per depending on file size. A few sites to try:

fotolia. com
bigstockphoto.com
istockphoto.com

Also try searching Google Images.

Good luck.

W2

[Thorzdad]

A simple Google search should bring you lots of images. The trick will be finding them with a solid white background. You might have to resort to a little Photoshop masking to get the look you want.

[slugslugslug]

Originally Posted by Thorzdad 

A simple Google search should bring you lots of images. The trick will be finding them with a solid white background. You might have to resort to a little Photoshop masking to get the look you want.

Yeah, the problem is that I'm a rank amateur with Photoshop and have no idea how to make a good mask, unless the background contrasts the main image enought that I can just magic wand it away.

And, for that matter, Google bringing lots of images is a problem as well. The vast majority of them are usually unrelated or essentially useless. Plus I have to think of lots of different search terms.. But that's what we're managing with so far. Thanks for the responses, though...

[Thorzdad]

What sort of terms are you using in your searches? What sort of weapons are you looking for?
Modern? Medieval? Torture? Bloody?

[slugslugslug]

I've used searches for specific things I can think of, like "shark", "lion", "gun", "sword"; adjectives like "scary", "dangerous", "gross"; and specific things like "vicious dog", "rattlesnake strike". Each of these occasionally turns up something. The problem is that I might get one or two useful images in pages of results, because some images are totally irrelevant (say, cartoons, or a guy whose nickname is Shark) and others are okay topic-wise but visually too complex. I'm wondering if I should just swing by Best Buy, pick up a handful of stock photo CDs, and hope that between 'em I can find a couple dozen more scary things.

I need non-scary images as well, but those are so easy to find via product shots on Amazon.com.