Introduction to Pixiv

Pixiv is an image sharing site where artists upload their work. Images can be searched by tags, rated, and favourite'd, similar to Danbooru.

Users can add friends to their own group like social networks, or bookmark people to "watch" their space. There are lots of nice works on Pixiv (just waiting to be uploaded to Danbooru), but to access them, you need to register for a free account.

Step 1 : Go to http://www.pixiv.net and click on the orange "Sign up now" button.

Step 2 : Fill in your email address, and click the button saying "入力完了"

Step 3 : A verification email will be sent. Open the email, and click the link in it to continue.

Step 4 : Now you'll have to fill in your profile. This is the longest part.

pixiv ID: 3 to 32 characters long, alphanumeric characters, hyphens and underscores only. Uppercase characters will be converted to lowercase. You cannot begin or end the ID with hyphens or underscores.

パスワード (Password): 6 to 32 characters long. Fill in both with the same password.

ニックネーム (Nickname): The name others will see you as. 15 characters max.

HPアドレス (Homepage address)

For the next 5, there is a dropdown box on the right. First selection means "Everyone can see this information", second means "Only people in MyPixiv can see this information" and third is "No one can see this information"

性別 (Gender): 男 (Male) or 女 (Female)

血液型 (Blood type): Straight forward.

住所 (Address): Last option, 海外 means Foreign (as in, not in Japan.)

誕生日 (Date of birth): Straight forward again.

職業 (Occupation): I'm not going to translate all of these, so you can choose the last one (Something else)

自己紹介 (Self introduction): Here you'll HAVE to type in something to complete the registration.

Step 5 : Login with your pixiv ID and password.

Now when you go to http://www.pixiv.net/mypage.php you'll see your home page. The first thing you'll notice are some images in the middle of the page, under the heading "みんなの新着イラスト". This is everyone's newest artwork. Under these you'll see もっと見る, which means "show more", and you'll be able to page through them like on Danbooru.

On the right, you'll see the top 3 images for the day, links to #4 to #10, and the same for the top 10 images of the week. Under each of these is the top #100 list. On the left, you'll see your avatar, under this the list of people in your "MyPixiv", and under this, a list of all the people you've bookmarked. If you click on your avatar, you'll go to your profile, where you can change your avatar (画像の変更) and edit your profile.

On the search bar on the top right, you'll be able to search for specific tags (in Japanese). If you change the option from タグ to タイトル・キャプション, it will search in image captions rather than tags. You can click on 人気のタグ for a list of tags. ランダム brings up a random selection of images, instead of most recent.

On the top left you'll always see ホーム (Home), 友人を招待 (Invite a friend) and ログアウ (Logout).

When you click on an image, you'll have a medium size version of the image in the middle, which you can click again to open the full size, the artist's avatar on the left, with the following links under it:
プロフィールを見る - A link to their page/profile
お気に入りに追加 - Bookmark this user
マイピクに追加 - Add user to MyPixiv
When you try and bookmark a user, it will bring a dialog asking if you want everyone to be able to see this user in your bookmarked users list, and then a confirm button. If you try to add someone, you will have a box where you need to type a message to the person, followed by a confirm button.

Above the image will be the tags for it (blue links, with a red one to the right). Towards the top right, you can rate the image on a scale of 1 to 10. Pixiv keeps track of 閲覧数 (How many people viewed the image), 評価回数 (How many people voted), and 総合点 (Total score). To the left, you can see all the artist's tags. If you click on them, it will bring images by the current artist with those tags.

The button right above the image to the right, このイラストをブックマークする, lets you bookmark an image. To view all the images you've bookmarked, when you're on your home page, click on the button on top titled ブックマーク管理 (Usually the 4th one). Underneath the image theres a text box and button for adding comments.

Remember: You have to be logged in to see images or pages. You cannot hotlink them AFAIK. And don't forget to add artist tags when you upload the images here.

And apologies for the wall of text :)

Good work! I'm giving this a try right now.

Edit: How long did it take for the confirmation mail to arrive?

It's immediate normally.
I try some minute ago.

Like ntouffe said, usually immediately. If you're using GMail, try checking for the email in your spam/junk mail folder

I registered right after reading this, and used Gmail with immediate response, so that should work. It did say something in red about "hotmail.com" which I simply assumed to be something like "if you're using hotmail, check your spam folder".

Anyway, thanks for the lenghty clear and helpful explanation!

When adding artist tags, if a particular artist has a website, you should base the name there and not their Pixiv handle name since it tends to be incomplete.

Haha I like how in the tag cloud 'vocaloid' is like 5x larger than anything else.

I see a lot of posts where a pixiv image URL is in the source field. Are those uploaded directly from Pixiv? Whenever I try this, I get an error, presumably because pixiv returns 403 without the correct referrer header.

So do people just paste the URL afterwards or is there a trick? Also, since one can't simply open the pic from the URL, wouldn't it be better to paste the URL of the page showing the pic instead?

piespy said:
I see a lot of posts where a pixiv image URL is in the source field. Are those uploaded directly from Pixiv? Whenever I try this, I get an error, presumably because pixiv returns 403 without the correct referrer header.
So do people just paste the URL afterwards or is there a trick?

Yes, they are directly uploaded from Pixiv. AFAIK, you need to be logged in to be able to upload properly with the source URL. I have no idea how you can actually see the pic if your problem is a referrer error.

piespy said:
Also, since one can't simply open the pic from the URL, wouldn't it be better to paste the URL of the page showing the pic instead?

Pixiv stores the images in the same name as the artist's user name. I think this can help with the artist name detection more that the actual source page which only shows the image ID in the URL.

Quess said:
Yes, they are directly uploaded from Pixiv. AFAIK, you need to be logged in to be able to upload properly with the source URL. I have no idea how you can actually see the pic if your problem is a referrer error.

I'm logged in and can see the pic; but probably Danbooru's http agent isn't and only gets a 403.

Does it really work for you to put the image URL in the upload form and submit? I've tried several times with different pics and it always failed: "Preview couldn't be generated (error code 4)".

I'd think that using pixiv as the source URL is a bad idea if you have to sign up for the site. At the very least, when it's just as easy to get it from the artist's site, that seems better.

jxh2154 said:
I'd think that using pixiv as the source URL is a bad idea if you have to sign up for the site. At the very least, when it's just as easy to get it from the artist's site, that seems better.

I usually put the pixiv link as "extra URL" if I have a proper homepage for the artist.

Perhaps a "Pixiv number" section on the artist form would be a good idea?

piespy said:
I'm logged in and can see the pic; but probably Danbooru's http agent isn't and only gets a 403.

Does it really work for you to put the image URL in the upload form and submit? I've tried several times with different pics and it always failed: "Preview couldn't be generated (error code 4)".

It seems you're using the upload form of danbooru. As far as I know, that wouldn't work. Danbooruup, on the other hand, works like a charm. I was under the impression that you were using danbooruup.

jxh2154 said:
I'd think that using pixiv as the source URL is a bad idea if you have to sign up for the site. At the very least, when it's just as easy to get it from the artist's site, that seems better.

The user name folder of the artist is pretty static (unlike their profile nickname) so I don't think there's a problem. Also, I use Pixiv as a last resort; the artist homepage always comes first.

surasshu said:
Perhaps a "Pixiv number" section on the artist form would be a good idea?

That would be too site-specific. Then again, if I remember correctly, the fc2 blogs already have site-specific code in danbooru.

surasshu said:
Perhaps a "Pixiv number" section on the artist form would be a good idea?

I'm not averse to this, but my question is what are the advantages of a dedicated field over updating the wiki entry.

albert said:
I'm not averse to this, but my question is what are the advantages of a dedicated field over updating the wiki entry.

Nothing in particular, I guess, except it makes my life easier. :D

It just takes a URL slot which might be taken up by something else (like a blog or something). I'm not desperate for it, it's just something that seems common enough among artists to warrant a slot.

Oh, one more thing.

To enable displaying of age-restricted stuff, go to:
http://www.pixiv.net/edit.php

And change the last option (年齢制限作品) from "表示しない" to "表示する" and click on the button.

Amazing! AND they keep the adult stuff completely separate so it doesn't vile up my pristine pixiv experience. Thanks mate! :)

It would seem like a wasted effort registering for pixiv when danbooru is better.

robicho, the difference is artists upload their own work themselves directly to pixiv, whereas they don't upload their stuff directly to danbooru.

So what happens is, some of the danbooru users upload the best of the stuff from pixiv to danbooru, so the rest of the danbooru people get to see the stuff too.