We used to pay money for this. 555,000 images on CDs

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Spiritual-Advice8138@reddit

we still do, but now its all subscription based. To bad the resolutions will be to small to use on modern projects.

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Don't underestimate such collections. The intended output format for such collections was print, meaning 150dpi or better. Much of the line art was in vector formats and scales perfectly. Even photographs were often 150-300dpi TIFFs. You'd have zero problems in terms of fidelity on modern HiDPI screens.

The collections with low resolution artwork will be the early collections of "web" graphics. Like the CDs with thousands of GIFs for web pages. Those were low resolution and meant to be used on the web which in the 90s and 00s meant 72-96ppi and relatively low resolution displays.

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VandyMarine@reddit (OP)

I suppose if you own this physical media - you have the rights to use the images. Curious how well that would work out today with say AI checkers on Youtube, etc.

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Comfortable_Pen_4170@reddit

It's an issue when companies buy each other. The new owners of this database can sue you for improper licensing. Obviously you have the disks, but are you willing to fight a cease and desist? Something similar happened to a filmmaker friend on his documentary.

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VandyMarine@reddit (OP)

Man that kind of sucks about your friend.

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eaglebtc@reddit

Not if they were vector-based! Infinite scalability. Too bad the vectors often looked like ass.

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LocalH@reddit

The collection as found on IA has eight discs labeled "Vector" that appear to have WMF format images

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echocomplex@reddit

That's part of the charm to blow up a low resolution image so it's all pixely. Very much "I am in charge of the church newsletter but just got my first computer 6 months ago" vibes circa mid 90s.

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RFC793@reddit

I remember buying a CD of TrueType fonts, and I was in like 8th grade or something -- but that was important to me apparently.

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imdrake100@reddit

if it's not on the internet archive, it would be super cool if you could dump the CDs and upload them

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cdtoad@reddit

and bad ones at that

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The_Jizzard_Of_Oz@reddit

Yes. I remember these. And they all sucked 🤣🤣

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GeordieAl@reddit

I bought a load of these types of collections back in the early 2000s when I was launching my web design studio. Most of the ones I bought were by Hemera - The Big Box of Art series and Photo Objects. I still have them all!

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retardedboi1991@reddit

Is this archived anywhere? Would love to have a flick through.

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ILikeBumblebees@reddit

https://archive.org/details/ImagineIt555K

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scruss@reddit

It was quite the job uploading that to Internet Archive. As it hadn't been opened in 28 years, the CDs and vinyl sleeves were busy fusing together. Reading and verifying the data was no fun.

It would be more useful to have the thick catalogue book scanned with it, but I don't have the equipment for that.

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retardedboi1991@reddit

Thank you! I probably should've just googled it.

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start_run_cmd@reddit

I recall 54,975 of the images were usually awful as well. ;)

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AllReflection@reddit

I worked in marketing and remember buying one of those that had like 30 CDs…one was the index and it would prompt you to put in disk 23 or whatever

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VirtualShrimp3D@reddit

Love downloading these from the internet archive. Found one pack recently that was hundreds of non animated .gif files from the early 1990's. The images were all pretty much trash but it was like a little time capsule.

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Witty_Sea5066@reddit

I love this stuff, and would still pay money for a package like that. Gorgeous

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newsflashjackass@reddit

https://archive.org/details/Imagine_It_Sci-Fi_Premium_Graphic_Images_MacMillan_Publishing_1998

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Inevitable_Yak_3975@reddit

Pretty sure a lot of HL1 textures were made from this sort of thing

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Sinaaaa@reddit

If you can use all images commercially, then it's a bargain, maybe even now.

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Shamanjoe@reddit

I love stuff like this. Back in the day Sam’s Club had a pack of stuff like this along with some shareware games, utilities, etc. It was basically a cardboard tray with the CDs stuck in at a 45 degree angle and spread out, so it was almost 18” long and shrink-wrapped. I bought that thing so fast. I spent the next week playing with all the stuff, and one of the discs ended up giving my computer a virus.

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TheMemo@reddit

Is this the only clip-art pack in existence that didn't come with Paint Shop Pro (shareware version) bundled?

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brianswedehanson@reddit

I remember paying for ‘true-type fonts’

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ILikeBumblebees@reddit

This one? https://archive.org/details/ImagineIt555K

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Much_Cardiologist180@reddit

Always wanted these collections, intending to use them one day...and then barely used anything they had.

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tasulife@reddit

I read about these because I have no life. This exists because at one time royalty free and clip art cds were profitable. This product is a shovelware heap of images that along with other products caused a market saturation and crash in this industry.

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blinkyknilb@reddit

For me it was typeface collections.

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thedangerman007@reddit

I remember getting these with certain software bundles.

The numbers were typically inflated because with the fonts they considered italic, bold, underlined, etc. of the same typeface as a different font.

Same with the images. The same picture of a clown with white, blue, red, green or a black background would count as 5 images.

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j-random@reddit

The saving grace of church bulletins and small-town newsletters

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wthulhu@reddit

I used it a lot for school work