Zach Bolinger
How do I find the profile that contains a flickr picture?
Flickr allows you to post pictures on the internet, like this one:
If you find a flickr hosted picture and want to see who posted it, that can be hard if the picture doesn't link back to that profile. Depending on how the poster put the picture up, the only information you may have to go on is the filename. In the above example, the filename is http://farm1.static.flickr.com/74/179367174_6e053bdddc_m.jpg
You can find this information by right clicking the picture and choosing "Properties." In Internet Explorer the filename will be listed as "Address (URL)" and in Firefox it is called "Location." Copy and paste that entire line.
What makes this trick work is that line contains the ID for that picture in flickr's database. Other pages use that ID number in their own URL address. One page that uses the ID number without the user number is the page that allows you to view the image at different resolutions. For the above example, that page is http://flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=179367174&size=o
Notice that the address of the image itself contains 179367174 before the first underscore in the filename (the filename is everything following the last forward slash). Notice also that the link to the zoom page has that same number after "id=" and before the next question mark. All you have to do is copy the id number from the photo properties and paste it over the photo ID in the link above. This will bring you into a page that allows you to browse to the user's account.
I am providing this tip for people who want to protect their copyrights against unlawful posting on flickr. It is my hope that copyright owners can politely contact posters of their material and request that it be removed.