Luna Commons

February 20, 2010 5:57 PM

Luna Commons is a database of sixteen free digital image collections built using Luna Imaging's Insight software. And there's a lot of cool stuff, well over a hundred thousand images all available for download in good resolution. Here are some of the collections featured: Pratt Institute Fashion Plate Collection, The Farber Gravestones Collection, Maps of Africa, Cornell Political Americana Collection and the The Estate Collection of art by HIV+ artists. The advanced search allows you to search across all collection, for example seeing everything across all collections about animals or New York or your birthyear. Whatever you look for, it's gonna bring up a boatload of interesting images.
posted by Kattullus (4 comments total)

To download the images click 'export' in the top right corner.

When searching through all the collections, make sure to exclude The Amica Library and National Palace English, as these are permissions based collections and therefore only offer thumbnails.
posted by Kattullus at 5:59 PM on February 20, 2010

This is utterly cool! It is a simple and utter joy to find an image library that is export-friendly.

And one that has architectural ornament:
http://www.lunacommons.org/luna/servlet/view/search?q=plant-derived+motifs&sort=Name%2CDates%2CCity%2CStateOrProvince&search=Search
posted by sebastienbailard at 8:00 PM on February 20, 2010

Great stuff and I like a lot of the features, but I think it should have better built-in social networking for sharing images on fb, twitter, et al. I tried to post a link on fb, and it didn't give me a thumbnail.
posted by sswiller at 10:28 PM on February 20, 2010

Some great stuff here -- found high res images from Captain Vancouver's and La Perouse's voyages which I will post to my blog - these are in wide circulation but usually just as shitty grainy jpegs. Thanks Kattallus, I'll buy you a beer through paypal if that's possible!
posted by Rumple at 10:53 PM on February 20, 2010