user703: Does anyone know where it is possible to find a large number of chess positions in PNG, JPEG or any other image format? Quality, colour, size does not matter. The only thing that matters is that I'd prefer there to be some distortions in the image (like images scanned from books). Here is an example of a chess position such as I am looking for:

I am creating a tool which converts an image of a position to the board representation, and for this reason I need to collect a lot of different positions. Up till now I am getting them from PDF books I have.

user764: The easiest way I can think of is to write your own scraper (say) in Python.
I'd use beautifulsoup and aim at several sites, including Google Images (within whatever limits they impose)
If you are familiar with Python, this SO question is all you really need.
Start with Google Images, chessbase.com, and then make a round of the numerous chess websites that have tons of position images that you can scrape.

703: <p>Does anyone know where it is possible to find a large number of chess positions in PNG, JPEG or any other image format? Quality, colour, size does not matter. The only thing that matters is that I'd prefer there to be some distortions in the image (like images scanned from books). Here is an example of a chess position such as I am looking for:</p>

<p><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/VgO3l.png" alt="example of chess position"></p>

<p>I am creating a tool which converts an image of a position to the board representation, and for this reason I need to collect a lot of different positions. Up till now I am getting them from PDF books I have.</p>
 764: <p>The easiest way I can think of is to write your own scraper (say) in Python.
I'd use <code>beautifulsoup</code> and aim at several sites, including Google Images (within whatever limits they impose)</p>

<p>If you are familiar with Python, <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/257409/download-image-file-from-the-html-page-source-using-python">this SO question</a> is all you really need.</p>

<p>Start with Google Images, chessbase.com, and then make a round of the numerous chess websites that have tons of position images that you can scrape.</p>
