Need advice on image sourcing

I've been uploading some character art assets from a game recently and I've been using a wiki that hosts them as the source for the images. However, I recently discovered another site that has the same images but of much better quality, though they're hosted in a google drive. I don't seem to be able to use that location as a source for uploading. I can upload the images directly, though it's my vague understanding that danbooru prefers an internet source over a direct image upload (am I misunderstanding that?). From now on, should I just upload the files directly? What would be the best approach here?

Also, for all my old uploads I suddenly have files with a much better resolution for them. Should I appeal to change their source... there are over a hundred...😬

I can't advise you on the second half of your question but uploading directly from your PC and linking to a google drive is totally fine as long as you don't save it in a lossy way.

1. Download the image from the google drive
2. Upload it
3. In the source box, link directly to the google drive where you got it from

See post #8990344 on my old account as an example.

Can you be more specific about how the images are of higher quality? Or show an example?

Blank_User said:

Can you be more specific about how the images are of higher quality? Or show an example?

Thanks for the responses. The newer images I found are of a greater size - the original ones were generally smaller than 1MB, but the new ones are 2-3MB. I've attached a couple of them as an example.

Original:

New:

Yes, those should be fine. They're more complete and don't seem to be upscaled. It's very likely these were ripped from the game without any additional modifications.

For these, you should upload them as the parent of the ones you already uploaded. The images are visibly different (the older one is cropped), so an image replacement request won't be accepted.

downtempo said:

I can't advise you on the second half of your question but uploading directly from your PC and linking to a google drive is totally fine as long as you don't save it in a lossy way.

1. Download the image from the google drive
2. Upload it
3. In the source box, link directly to the google drive where you got it from

See post #8990344 on my old account as an example.

Thanks, so in this case I would like to the portion of the drive with the specific file in it or the opening directory of the drive itself?

Blank_User said:

Yes, those should be fine. They're more complete and don't seem to be upscaled. It's very likely these were ripped from the game without any additional modifications.

For these, you should upload them as the parent of the ones you already uploaded. The images are visibly different (the older one is cropped), so an image replacement request won't be accepted.

Thanks, so a parent post for all the images would be appropriate? I'd be making over a hundred - which I don't mind doing, I just don't want anyone thinking I'm trying to pad my uploads with what's sort of the same image.

SirIdiot said:

Thanks, so in this case I would like to the portion of the drive with the specific file in it or the opening directory of the drive itself?

Can you post the link to the opening directory here?

SirIdiot said:

Thanks, so a parent post for all the images would be appropriate? I'd be making over a hundred - which I don't mind doing, I just don't want anyone thinking I'm trying to pad my uploads with what's sort of the same image.

I wouldn't worry about it. Our goal is to get the best-quality image that's closest to the original. For game assets you find online, it can be very easy to end up posting them without realizing better versions exist.

Blank_User said:

Can you post the link to the opening directory here?

I wouldn't worry about it. Our goal is to get the best-quality image that's closest to the original. For game assets you find online, it can be very easy to end up posting them without realizing better versions exist.

Sure, the direct link to the picture I posted is:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1zyrGPtPxeQfQOw5mrKovQnTsbUFxDyB6

and the overall directory is:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1FRiHJGhfUxyufg4eEAUCzQ6ltvJjEOYv

Why do you ask?

SirIdiot said:

Sure, the direct link to the picture I posted is:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1zyrGPtPxeQfQOw5mrKovQnTsbUFxDyB6

and the overall directory is:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1FRiHJGhfUxyufg4eEAUCzQ6ltvJjEOYv

Why do you ask?

What do you mean? You're the one asking which link to use. We can't determine what the ideal source to use would be if we don't know how the directory is structured. The reason I asked specifically for the opening directory (actually, root directory would be more accurate) is because you can't navigate to the parent directory from a direct link to a folder.

Also, that first link is not a direct link to the picture. It is a direct link to the folder that contains the picture.

There are many levels here, so I'm not sure which would be ideal to use as the source. But when deciding this, it's important to consider the trade-off between directness and accessibility.

At least now we have access to the root directory so we can more easily access the assets for future uploading. There are a few comics in there that look promising.

Blank_User said:

What do you mean? You're the one asking which link to use. We can't determine what the ideal source to use would be if we don't know how the directory is structured. The reason I asked specifically for the opening directory (actually, root directory would be more accurate) is because you can't navigate to the parent directory from a direct link to a folder.

Also, that first link is not a direct link to the picture. It is a direct link to the folder that contains the picture.

There are many levels here, so I'm not sure which would be ideal to use as the source. But when deciding this, it's important to consider the trade-off between directness and accessibility.

At least now we have access to the root directory so we can more easily access the assets for future uploading. There are a few comics in there that look promising.

Um, yeah I know about directory structure. I figured the appropriate source would be a link to the folder where the image was, as user downtempo provided earlier in the thread, which was why I curious about interest in the root directory.

For the first link I provided, I followed the example downtempo gave - in it, they link to the folder with the images instead of a direct link to the image. Would a direct link to the image be a better approach (in this case being: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tgP3VYt-4o-AG7nB256Mwt7YG3oKxBBZ/view)?

I'd been trawling around on a Chinese wiki for the images in my old uploads until I found this one; now that I know the proper protocol here (appreciate it) my intention is to start uploading those images.

SirIdiot said:

Um, yeah I know about directory structure. I figured the appropriate source would be a link to the folder where the image was, as user downtempo provided earlier in the thread, which was why I curious about interest in the root directory.

I wasn't talking about general directory structure. We needed to know the structure for that specific root directory before we could answer your question (and so others could upload the assets if you couldn't finish). Up until now, you were the only one who knew how it was structured, so anyone trying to answer would be making a lot of assumptions about how the files are organized.

For the first link I provided, I followed the example downtempo gave - in it, they link to the folder with the images instead of a direct link to the image. Would a direct link to the image be a better approach (in this case being: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tgP3VYt-4o-AG7nB256Mwt7YG3oKxBBZ/view)?

I don't think it would. You can still access the image URL from the folder link, but as I said before, you can't access the folder from a direct link to the image file.

We need people more experienced with sourcing Google Drive sources to weigh in. I don't know if there even is an agreed-upon practice for this. But if you want to start uploading now, just take your best guess as to which source would be most useful for Danbooru's purposes. Now that we have the root folder link, it won't be difficult to correct the sources later if necessary.

Blank_User said:

We need people more experienced with sourcing Google Drive sources to weigh in. I don't know if there even is an agreed-upon practice for this. But if you want to start uploading now, just take your best guess as to which source would be most useful for Danbooru's purposes. Now that we have the root folder link, it won't be difficult to correct the sources later if necessary.

I'll throw in my two cents, as someone with experience here. While I don't know if there's a hundred percent agreed upon sourcing method myself, how I was taught to source in this case is to use the specific folder you got the image from.

So for this example image, https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1zyrGPtPxeQfQOw5mrKovQnTsbUFxDyB6 would be what I put in the source link, operating under the assumption anyone who wants to see everything can just...Open the main folder from there. Admittedly, I'm not seeing any option to do so, but it's been a while since I handled anything more complex than Infinity Nikki community emotes (which come in one folder per pack).

...To be completely honest, I hate dealing with Google Drive as a source, as it feels like it's constantly shifting its layouts to be worse and worse. But it is a perfectly valid source, and one a lot of game RIPs can be found inside, and I do much more complicated sourcing work on a near daily basis, so this is just me bitching lol.

Knowledge_Seeker said:

So for this example image, https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1zyrGPtPxeQfQOw5mrKovQnTsbUFxDyB6 would be what I put in the source link, operating under the assumption anyone who wants to see everything can just...Open the main folder from there. Admittedly, I'm not seeing any option to do so, but it's been a while since I handled anything more complex than Infinity Nikki community emotes (which come in one folder per pack).

I should've mentioned before when I said you can't access the parent folder that this is the case if you're not signed in. If you are signed in, then you may have more options to navigate the folders depending on how they set their permissions. But I don't think we should base how we source things on the assumption that the user will have a Google account.

Blank_User said:

I should've mentioned before when I said you can't access the parent folder that this is the case if you're not signed in. If you are signed in, then you may have more options to navigate the folders depending on how they set their permissions. But I don't think we should base how we source things on the assumption that the user will have a Google account.

Yeah that's not a great idea, for a variety of reasons you probably already thought of lol. This is why I don't like Discord as a source for one. Like I said, been a while, and this is how I was taught to do it.

I guess an alternative is to link the parent repository and have people dig through it if they really want to? At the very least there, having a Google account won't be a problem, and the uploader can always leave a comment about the specifics. That or direct links (though direct links with Google Drive sound significantly more a headache than with wikis).

Knowledge_Seeker said:

I guess an alternative is to link the parent repository and have people dig through it if they really want to? At the very least there, having a Google account won't be a problem, and the uploader can always leave a comment about the specifics. That or direct links (though direct links with Google Drive sound significantly more a headache than with wikis).

Maybe the uploader can put the root in the source and list in a comment the folder hierarchy to get to the asset and a direct link to the image. For example:

Path to asset
"Google Drive Banner News/Heroes/SSR/Michelle/Skins/1/Michelle_Skin01_idle_Normal_default.png"

Image URL
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tgP3VYt-4o-AG7nB256Mwt7YG3oKxBBZ

That'd probably be the best sourcing method for this sort of Google Drive folder. Which still sounds like a pain in the ass, but honestly, I don't think you win with Google Drive, so I'll take it.