Engaging Pixabay…
as an open-source contributor to hone
digital image editing,
digital photography, and animation skills
Shalin Hai-Jew
Kansas State University

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Presentation Overview
• In the open-source affordances of the Social Web, we have many resources
that we can access for photos, videos, sound, animations, and other
content. Less common is engagement as a content creator contributing
original open-source resources for others’ usage. This approach, though,
stands to benefit an instructional designer who has to keep a complex
skillset as sharp as possible and to acquire new knowledge, skills, and
abilities (KSAs) all the time. Having a content “vacuum” and crowd-sourced
voting and tough visual standards are positive dynamics for keeping skills
fresh. This presentation introduces a 9-month experiment with two
accounts: https://pixabay.com/users/wavegenerics-29440244/ and
https://pixabay.com/users/sjjalinn-28605710/. One account “took off,” and
the other did not.
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Presentation Overview(cont.)
• “Using Pixabay to advance self-motivated learning in common art
creation (analog and digital”
• https://scalar.usc.edu/works/c2c-digital-magazine-fall-2022---winter-
2023/using-pixabay
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An Open-Source Contributor
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Open-Source Movements
• There are a range of open-source movements that enable the sharing
of software, books, learning materials, digital resources, and other
content online.
• Particular licensure releases (GNU, Creative Commons, and others)
enable the legal sharing of original works with others.
• Participants do not have to subscribe to any particular ideology or
movement.
• Some do. The ideas surround egalitarianism, community, groupness,
the pooling of mixed skillsets and talents, and others.
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Open-Source Movements (cont.)
• Some open-source movements are grant-funded, with the creatives
being able to use work-time to share the works. There are some
platforms that enable micropayments for work. Some social
platforms enable patrons to access unique contents from the talent
when they pay a monthly subscription. Some social shares are by
goodwill alone, without payments in most cases.
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Sharing Original Works (and Legal
Considerations)
• Works that are shared have to be those that are fully original.
• The sharer has to own full rights to the works.
• The works cannot contravene others’ privacy rights.
• The works cannot infringe on trademarks or brands or patents.
• The works cannot defame people.
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The Pixabay License
• This is in regards to users of the Pixabay platform:
• “All content (e.g. images, videos, music) on Pixabay can be used for free for
commercial and noncommercial use across print and digital, except in the
cases mentioned in "What is not allowed".
• “Attribution is not required. Giving credit to the artist or Pixabay is not
necessary but is always appreciated by our community.
• “You can make modifications to content from Pixabay.”
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The Pixabay License (cont.)
• Media users (but not the artists-contributors to Pixabay) are also
asked to abide by the following:
• “Don't redistribute or sell Pixabay content on other stock or wallpaper
platforms.
• “Don't sell unaltered copies of content, e.g. don't sell an exact copy of a stock
photo as a poster, print or on a physical product.
• “Don't portray identifiable people in a bad light or in a way that is offensive.
• Don't use content with identifiable persons or brands to create a misleading
association with a product or service.”
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An Open-Source Contributor…
• Creates an account on the Pixabay digital content sharing platform
• Uses their real name or handles (pseudonyms) [the latter is more
common]
• The “common artist” uploads photos, artworks, audio, video,
animations, and other such elements to defined size standards.
• The works are vetted by computational means for originality and for whether
it’s been uploaded on the site before.
• The submitted works are evaluated by the community who vote on the
proposed contributions. Those who vote opt in to the voting.
• There are weekly limits to uploads (7 per each seven days initially).
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Downloads, Social Comments, Heart-Likes
• The general public can download any of the resources and use them
as they wish (with the few exceptions listed in a prior slide).
• There are options to sign in if one wants to create an account, but that is not
technically required.
• The platform counts downloads, social commenting, heart-likes, on
the public side (and a lot more on the less-public and perhaps private
side).
• The platform has a sufficient global user base to provide attention to
artists for their accepted works.
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Coffee Button
• Some artists set up accounts on PayPal for “Coffee” donations by
users.
• The platform itself does not offer payments for downloads.
• It may well be that such buttons do not result in much more than
pocket change, given the free focus of the site and the
micropayments (percentages of a cent for some online labor, for
example) conventions online.
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Two Creator Accounts on Pixabay
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Early Impressions of Pixabay as a User
• I originally went to Pixabay in search of copyright-free still images for
open-source publications, digital learning objects, educational
slideshows, and other projects.
• I used photos and clipart, mostly.
• Pixabay was founded Nov. 2010 in Ulm, Germany, but it was
purchased by Canva, an Australian company, in 2019. (“Pixabay,” Dec.
27, 2022)
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A Shift During the Pandemic
• Then, during the SARS-CoV-2 / COVID-19 pandemic (late 2019 to
2023), especially during the lockdowns, I decided to learn more about
common art.
• I worked on a book project around common art.
• I bought a load of art supplies and started experimenting. Foremost, I
started with alcohol inks and alcohol-ink painting papers (recyclable
plastic).
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A Shift During the Pandemic(cont.)
• I would scan analog paintings that were unsatisfactory (very many
early on), and I found I could improve the look-and-feel of the works. I
could also salve my lightly bruised egos when I saw the evidence of
the limits of my very early skills. (I learned an important lesson that
all draft artworks go through “ugly” phases just as part of the
evolution of the work. All new learning is awkward, and that’s fine
and awesome.)
• After several years of learning about analog art (continuing through
the present) and even more years with digital image editing and video
editing, and a few years with animations, I thought I should motivate
more learning in the digital space.
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Anti-Asian Sentiment (and Years of Work
Overloads) in the Workplace
• A direct supervisor at my university had loaded multiple (3-4) FTE of
work on me from 2020 onwards through to the present.
• He said he was working to fill positions to alleviate the extra
workloads for years without addressing the issue.
• Then he resorted to racial harassment (pulling “chink eyes” on me
during a Zoom meeting) and racist tropes when I politely asked him to
staff up the unfilled positions. He engaged in threats to my
employment…which ultimately came true.
• My return to the physical workplace in April 2021 (vs. telecommuting)
brought to the fore just how heavy the workload was without extra
compensation.
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Anti-Asian Sentiment (and Years of Work
Overloads) in the Workplace (cont.)
• Instead of addressing the workplace harassment or the workload
issues or the hostility in the office, the high administrator (the only
decision-maker in the silo) gave me a notice of non-renewal in August
2022 to actualize with my losing my job in August 2023 (after some
17 years of work at the university). I was told this was not “for
cause,” but he expressed anger that I had let others on campus know
about the harassment in ITS.
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Anti-Asian Sentiment (and Years of Work
Overloads) in the Workplace (cont.)
• The university bureaucracy itself failed to address the discriminant
treatment (even though some along the way expressed their
repugnance at the supervisor’s actions).
• I ended up taking this issue to a federal agency external to the
university. It is unclear if this will result in anything constructive.
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Upskilling and Reskilling (on my own time)
• The sorry episode at the university meant that regardless of how the
issue might resolve or not, I would need to maintain skills in complex
technologies…and ultimately upskill and re-skill.
• So, I thought I would use the “news hole” idea from my days in
journalism and advising journalism students. The idea is that at
regular publishing intervals, there would be gaps requiring
information to fill. Now, of course, there is a 24/7 cycle of news, from
professional organizations and citizen journalists.
• For me, if I committed to making works to share online, I would be forced (in
a positive way) to try new techniques and skills. I would better learn complex
technologies even though instructional design projects at work may not at the
moment require the skills.
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Personal- and Professional- Motivations
• Personally, my mother was what I would call a “common artist” after
a long commitment to homemaking and then some menial work.
• I have long been interested in art but have spent a professional career
in teaching, research, writing and publishing, editing, and other
works.
• I want to develop skills in drawing, sketching, painting, and other art
areas, mostly for my own fulfillment.
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Personal- and Professional- Motivations (cont.)
• Professionally, I am in constant need of copyright-free visuals. Many
require particular looks-and-feels, and there are not visuals that fulfill
those needs ever after I scrub through various platforms and
searches.
• The more efficiently I can make the works, the more smoothly the
work will go.
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Some Resources to Start
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Some Visual Resources to Start
• Before starting any journey, it helps to take stock of what resources
one has and perhaps what one needs.
• I had started the journey many years before I joined Pixabay.
• The near-journey probably started in the pandemic with the purchase
of the art supplies and wild experiments with art materials.
• I had an older DSLR. I had an older digital scanner. I had cutting-edge
commercial software for content creation. I had a cheap headset.
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Some Visual Resources to Start(cont.)
• In terms of various visuals, I had the following:
• Scans of my (analog) common art
• Digital photos
• Social media network graphs
• Processing® artworks,
• Digital doodles, and others
• Experience-wise, I had years of creating digital visuals for digital
learning objects, publication, and others.
• I had also made a variety of data visualizations over the years from data
analytics.
• I also consume online learning through the LinkedIn learning series.
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Real Costs
• If one were to tally up the invested learning, the invested time, the
tuitions, the materials, the travel, the equipment, and so on, the
“free” works become very expensive.
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About Costs
• So many variations never tried
• Like the lined colors
• Thinking of pixels as a material
• Browsing
• Travel, materials, time, the invested learning
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@Sjjalinn
@WaveGenerics
On Pixabay
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@Sjjalinn
• The presenter started the first account July 13, 2022.
• https://pixabay.com/users/sjjalinn-28605710/
• In the first 7 months, it racked up the following numbers:
• 1,341 Views
• 868 Downloads
• 201 Likes
• 9 Comments
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@WaveGenerics
• The presenter started the second account on Aug. 22, 2022.
• https://pixabay.com/users/wavegenerics-29440244/
• The first account was to focus on more personal art, and the second
was to focus on common shapes, animations, and more publicly
usable files.
• In the first 6 months for WaveGenerics, the account racked up the
following numbers:
• 10,878 Views
• 8,511 Downloads
• 362 Likes
• 18 Comments
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Appreciating the “Featured” Selections
Approach
• The works go through a Community Vote process, then a Quality
Review, and then some assessment to see if the works (if they pass
prior muster) should be Featured.
• Featured works are more searchably findable / discoverable on the
platform. (Non-featured works only exist on the artist’s profile page.)
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Appreciating the “Featured” Selections
Approach (cont.)
• At first, I was very befuddled by what might be featured. Works that I
thought were pretty pedestrian were sometimes selected.
• Then, there was a run of interest in some lined backgrounds I did that had
different colors for each line. I made a lot of these…because there seemed to
be a market for these, and indeed, they made most of these Featured works.
• At one point, the system window asked if the visuals were AI-generated.
Nope, absolutely not. There is a part of me that wants to keep methods
secret even as the outcomes of those methods are shared fairly broadly.
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Early Learning
• All the comments were positive on the public side.
• A lot of “likes” were from people with accounts that had no contents
in their portfolios. I read these accounts as those who make accounts
in order to engage socially with the artists and to access contents. [I
can’t complain as I make accounts on social media platforms in order
to access their public data via APIs. I do not generally share on social
media.]
• Some likes and comments were from artists with several million downloads
who will still engage with newbies.
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Early Learning (cont.)
• There were several queries on the private side for permissions to use
the artworks for t-shirts, which is against the advisement of the
Pixabay leadership in a sense.
• If works are upvoted by users and downloaded for use, the platform
enables more than the initial 7 images that may be uploaded every 7
days.
• More information is available in their FAQs.
• There is a dynamism in engaging the respective platforms. I try to
stay aware constantly and to readjust expectations as more data and
feedback come in.
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Early Learning (cont.)
• I have used reverse image search to track down some of the works
used on others’ sites.
• These are used without editing, for the few examples I looked for.
• I did get a kick out of seeing the works out in the wild in various
contexts (websites of various sorts).
• I am generally incurious about the fate of the various images because
that is in the hands of whomever is using the contents, not me. I just
think, “All power to you!” and let it go. [I have had this attitude for
decades, such as for my publications. I stand them up and let them
go.]
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Early Learning(cont.)
• Pixabay offers an updated list of wanted topics for both still images
and videos.
• Many of the topics have a “ripped-from-the-headlines” feel. If there are
popular global personalities, events, or other issues, those seem to rise to the
fore for illustrative images and videos (perhaps to illustrate podcasts, blogs,
articles, and other elements).
• There is a light whiff of “tasking” in the capturing of various interests, but the
platform is not insistent.
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Discrepant Popularity between my Two
Accounts
• The first account (Sjjalinn) has never been invited to submit more
than the 7 per week. It did not have sufficient “approvals” in
whatever ways these may be counted. Perhaps the account has not
gained traction or caught fire.
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Discrepant Popularity between my Two
Accounts(cont.)
• The second account (WaveGenerics) has achieved a “breakout”
capacity which enables the posting of a wide range of content. It
looks like popularity matters. Perhaps this account is more aligned
with user needs.
• Works are sometimes “isolates,” with alpha channel backgrounds, so they can
be used more easily in different contexts.
• And total originality is less important when one is creating works for others’
adoption and usage.
• Perhaps the submitted works have less “signature.”
• Perhaps the works convey more of a sense of “user-pleasing” vibes.
• There is also a snowball effect as the works gain more user attention.
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Discrepant Popularity between my Two
Accounts (cont.)
• I tried to treat the accounts differently initially based on the initial
plan (more original self-indulgent works in Sjjalinn, more generic
works in WaveGenerics), but when the system opened up more
upload possibilities in WaveGenerics, I simply went with what I had
and uploaded.
• Only some were “Featured” by editor selection, and some
rejected…and some shown only on the respective Profile page (for
those who explore further, not those who put in a search term and
call up images by tags and perhaps visual similarity).
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Socializing on Pixabay
• I like browsing the site and seeing what others are creating. I like
going into people’s profiles and looking at their collections.
• Some are very visually witty and humorous and creative. They will set up
scenes with various characters.
• Some specialize in macro photography images, of insects, of fruit, of plants,
and so many aspects of the world.
• I hope that the users can give the works a life beyond my personal
usage. I hope they’re global folks. I hope that my effort saves
people’s money and time. I hope this meets felt needs of the users.
• I hope my works are original(ish) but also relatable.
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Some “Follow-Back”-ness in Following and
Liking
• I’ve noticed though that some percentage of those whose pages I visit
will visit mine and return-like some of my works. It is like a form of
“follow-back” on social media, which is polite but maybe dilutes
people’s likes. If the motive is to garner followers and likes, then I can
see the rationale. I understand the human need to “return in kind.”
• I express likes of works that I actually like.
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Learning from Common Artists
Online
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Learning from Common Artists Online
• Many artists (from amateur to professional) share tutorials on
YouTube and other spaces. Many maintain various art portfolios of
their works online.
• It is possible to look at the works and ponder, “How did they do
that?”
• I can better learn, “What works, and what doesn’t work? Why?”
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Assessing the States of the Visual Fields
• I can also look at the states of the fields in common art, illustration,
animations, and others:
• What is going on in the world?
• What are the receding trends (diminishing)? What are the forthcoming
trends (arriving)? Why?
• What is causing the particular visual trends?
• Who are the major social influencers in particular aspects of the common art
space, and why?
• How is visual messaging advancing?
• How does visual messaging differ culturally? Geographically? Among
different user groups?
• How have digital image editing tools updated?
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Assessing the States of the Visual Fields (cont.)
• What are some “look-at-me” capabilities that people are sharing online in
terms of digital editing tools?
• How do various artists combine various sequences of physical and digital edits
to acquire particular effects?
• What are the many ways that I can improve my skills?
• How does generative AI fit into this common art space? How is generative AI
that generates art being received?
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Appreciating Others’ Works
• I can go into artist portfolios and look at a collection of their work.
• What inspires them?
• How unique is their vision? How much risk-taking do they engage in (How far
do they move from conventional works to unconventional ones?)?
• What art mediums do they use? Why? What features of the mediums make
them desirable perhaps to this artist for the particular outputs?
• What skills do they wield?
• What aesthetic sensibilities do they display?
• What art conventions do they draw from?
• What is of visual interest to them? Where do the patterns come from?
Nature? Art conventions? Historical practices?
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Appreciating Others’ Works (cont.)
• What stories do they tell (with the visuals)? What parts of these stories are
personal to the artist? What parts of these stories are public to the artist?
And why?
• What are their expressed senses of the world? Are there overarching (or
macro) narratives?
• Where might they take their talent and knowledge and skills?
• How do the artists commercialize their work?
• How do they cater to particular audiences?
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Appreciating Others’ Works (cont.)
• In written and videoed narratives, what do the artists say about their
experiences in creating art? What do they say about inspiration,
discipline, creativity, and methods? (How much of these are
transferable to me?)
• What do they say about surviving as an artist in tough markets?
• What do they say about using particular materials (like gouache, like
watercolor, like alcohol inks, and others)? What do they say about
using particular technologies (like pen-and-tablet setups, like
particular software programs, like particular plug-ins, and others)?
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Appreciating Others’ Works (cont.)
• Along the way, I want to pick up concepts and practices. For example,
recently, presenters have talked about “liquid graphite” and “color-
fastness”/”archival” ratings of various art products. There is just a lot
to learn.
• In the art space, there is an infinitude of possible practices and paths.
I can learn some from others, but I have to put in a lot of my own
work to achieve progress.
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A Briefcase of “KSAs”
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A Briefcase of “KSAs”
• KSAs are “knowledge, skills, and abilities / attitudes” for the
workplace.
• My hope is that I will walk away from this experience after a year of
engagement with a briefcase of KSAs I can take with me.
• I hope to use analog and digital and analog-digital materials in more
inspired ways.
• I need to improve on compositing, on shapes, on animating, and so
much more.
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Some Skills Learned / Practiced So Far
• I took stock of some of my learning in the past Pixabay period:
• I’ve learned about color blend mode in Adobe Illustrator.
• I made a Mobius strip (illusion).
• I have innovated a wide range of digital image editing sequences using
CrAIyon images as reference images.
• I have strengthened my skills in using layers.
• I have experimented more with Neural Filters in Adobe Photoshop.
• I’ve used trace more creatively in Adobe Illustrator.
• I finally learned how to use Adjustment Layers more effectively in Photoshop.
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Some Skills Learned / Practiced So Far (cont.)
• I have engaged in some more 3d experimentation.
• I have experimented with some wireframing effects of 3d objects.
• I can better understand what outcomes I will achieve based on a seeding scan
or photo or image and the sequence of digital image editing applications I will
be making.
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Some of Many Extant Learning Needs
• I need to work more with digital paintbrushes.
• I need to work more with my pen and tablet.
• I need to do more with all things analog in terms of art.
• I need to learn how to use generative AI more effectively.
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And Yet
• I have also realized that unless there is a live work project demanding
some types of work—like animation, like augmented reality (AR)—
participation in a social sharing platform for digital contents is not
enough motivation to engage…because some expenses (of effort) are
just too high.
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Future Plans
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Future Plans
• My plans are to wrap up contributions to both accounts in the next
six months.
• The various grant funding projects I am involved with and other
projects will provide work practice, perhaps in some other directions.
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Conclusion and Contact
• Dr. Shalin Hai-Jew
• Instructional Design
• ITS
• Kansas State University
• 785-532-5262
• shalin@ksu.edu
• None of the images here were shared in Pixabay. They are similar to
some of the images shared just to give a sense of it.
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