This guide is geared towards the private use of public domain or Creative Commons (CCO) Public Domain license free images or media, other copyright restrictions may apply for other uses.
Art Masterpieces in your home
In recent years, a number of open access initiatives have been under taken by organizations such as The Met, Riks Museum, Getty Museum and many more projects like Google Art Project and Wikimedia Commons have made it possible for to access high quality digital images of many famous and no so famous artworks that can be used with CURA to display in high quality on your screens at home or work. Additionally many commercial sites have combined both public domain downloads (still free) with other fee based images. I have found Rawpixel to be particularly useful as they also ensure that most of their down loads have appropriate meta data (Title and descriptions etc.) that can be used in CURA for display as captions or filters for curation.
In general, the process will be to download your desired image file(s) to your PC or phone and upload then using CURA into your media library or collections. Currently you can upload approx. 50-80 images at a time into CURA depending on the file sizes.
Image Size and Quality
In our tests with both the CURA Android TV or Apple TV applications that support 4K and FHD displays we have found that even resolutions as low as 1200 x 800 (about 180kb file size), optimally 2000 x 1100 (800kb) and above can look great on-screen sizes of 43 in and above. For screens at 7 in to 32 in resolutions such as 720 x500 (80kb) work well. Many art images will be provided with size download options. I you are indeed using an 4k or 8K screen choose something in the 4000 to 6000 (2-15MB) range, else the option close to 2000 pixels.
Here are a few examples:
Example 1 – A Van Gogh from the MET Collection
Van Gogh Irises
This can be done on a mobile device and /or a PC.
The MET has close to 500,000 art images in their Met Collection Online, not all have a CCO license, but tens of thousands do. Clicking on this link here will taking you to their catalog with an Open Access filter applied. Enter “Van Gogh” or in this case “ Van Gogh Irises”. This will bring you a thumbnail of the image if it is available in downable high resolution. Click on the image, and click on the ↓ download arrow to the right bottom of the larger image. This will open a large version of the image. Right click on your browser (or long press on mobile) , and “Save image as” into a local folder in this case the files is 4000×3172 at 4.98MB much larger than we need but there is no need to make any edits or adjustments.
Find and download more and the go to the Uploading to CURA section below.
Example 2 Claude Monet – Water Lillis (Nymphéas) from Wikimedia Commons
Claude Monet – Water Lillis (Nymphéas)
Click here to go to their media search page , they say they have over 85M items !!! Enter “Monet Water Lily” Pick your favorite, as he did paint a number versions I picked “Water-lily Pond by Claude Monet, 1917-1919, Art Institute of Chicago” on the right hand side your are given a quick summary of the available image.in this case its available as public domain at a max resolution of 4,409 x 2,796 (more than we need) , click on “More details”. Under the image it will give you a few resolution choices
Size of this preview: 800 × 508 pixels. Other resolutions: 320 × 203 pixels | 640 × 406 pixels | 1,024 × 650 pixels | 1,280 × 813 pixels | 2,560 × 1,625 pixels | 4,404 × 2,796 pixels.
I chose the 2,560 × 1,625 pixels option for 1.2MB file. It opens up the file and you can do a right click or long press and save the image onto your PC or phone. Find and download more and the go to the Uploading to CURA section below.
Go to the Uploading to CURA section below.
FYI listed below each image there is a summary of the image where it is from and what the details are for usage on the image, in this case “public domain”
Example 3 – Mona Lisa and the Kiss from Rawpixel
Go here to get to their search.
Mona Lisa
Enter ”Mona Lisa” click on the thumbnail it, you should see a Free Download button (you need to register on the site) ,I down loaded the 2355×3500 large version. In the metadata you can find info like this “Leonardo da Vinci’s Portrait of Mona Lisa del Giocondo (1503-1506) famous painting. Original from Wikimedia Commons. Digitally enhanced by rawpixel.” Which will be used later in CURA. The file will be downlead to your downloads folder for later uploading to CURA.
Enter ”The Kiss” click on the thumbnail it, you should see a Free Download button (you need to register on the site) ,I down loaded the 3488 x3500 Large version. Again info such as “ Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss (1907 – 1908) famous painting. Original from Wikimedia Commons. Digitally enhanced by rawpixel.” Is embedded.
Go to the Uploading to CURA section below.
These are just a few examples of how to obtain public domain high quality images for use in your personal display collections that can be used with the CURA system. Technically this method can be used to download almost any image from the web and can be used in CURA if the files have enough resolution. In most cases if these images are only being used for “personal use”, and noncommercial usage you in general will not be infringing on the originators copyright, (my non legal opinion) however you this may vary from country to country.
Uploading to CURA
Using your phone or PC browser log into your CURA account, go to “media” and click on “Upload”, if you wish to keep things organized and/or want to see your new art on a screen immediately, click on “To collection/Send to Display” where you can add the image into nd existing collection, create a new collection and add it and/or select a display to view the uploaded image on a display. Next drag and drop or select the image(s). Thumbnails of the images will be displayed, next press the “Upload Files” button. This will upload your image(s) into you own private space for display on your screens.
Note: CURA will analyze and save any metadata contained in the file(s) you upload as best it can, so in the case of the Rawpixels images (or others that have that information such as descriptions and keywords into your CURA library. You also have the ability to add on upload (or later) further information such tagging the images with content safety ratings (Child, Moderate or Adult) for later use as filters. Just in case your favorite artists are the like of Amedeo Modigliani, Paul Gauguin or Carl Newman
Reclining Nude by Amedeo Modigliani