diff --git a/filesystem/File.php b/filesystem/File.php
index 6712ee6f4..d8846fe7f 100644
--- a/filesystem/File.php
+++ b/filesystem/File.php
@@ -393,7 +393,6 @@ class File extends DataObject {
 		return $fields;
 	}
 
-	
 	/**
 	 * Returns a category based on the file extension.
 	 * This can be useful when grouping files by type,
@@ -402,13 +401,22 @@ class File extends DataObject {
 	 * 
 	 * @return String
 	 */
-	public function appCategory() {
-		$ext = strtolower($this->Extension);
+	public static function get_app_category($ext) {
+		$ext = strtolower($ext);
 		foreach(self::$app_categories as $category => $exts) {
 			if(in_array($ext, $exts)) return $category;
 		}
 		return false;
 	}
+	
+	/**
+	 * Returns a category based on the file extension.
+	 * 
+	 * @return String
+	 */
+	public function appCategory() {
+		return self::get_app_category($this->Extension);
+	}
 
 	function CMSThumbnail() {
 		return '<img src="' . $this->Icon() . '" />';
diff --git a/forms/HtmlEditorField.php b/forms/HtmlEditorField.php
index 45a56d9f1..3afcaef81 100644
--- a/forms/HtmlEditorField.php
+++ b/forms/HtmlEditorField.php
@@ -515,7 +515,8 @@ class HtmlEditorField_Toolbar extends RequestHandler {
 		}
 
 		// Instanciate file wrapper and get fields based on its type
-		if($file && $file->appCategory() == 'image') {
+		// Check if appCategory is an image and exists on the local system, otherwise use oEmbed to refference a remote image
+		if($file && $file->appCategory() == 'image' && Director::is_site_url($url)) {
 			$fileWrapper = new HtmlEditorField_Image($url, $file);
 		} elseif(!Director::is_site_url($url)) {
 			$fileWrapper = new HtmlEditorField_Embed($url, $file);
diff --git a/oembed/Oembed.php b/oembed/Oembed.php
index 7017a3d24..bdca6ac50 100644
--- a/oembed/Oembed.php
+++ b/oembed/Oembed.php
@@ -131,6 +131,13 @@ class Oembed {
 			// Build the url manually - we gave all needed information.
 			$oembedUrl = Controller::join_links($endpoint, '?format=json&url=' . rawurlencode($url));
 		}
+		
+		// If autodescovery failed the resource might be a direct link to a file
+		if(!$oembedUrl) {
+			if(File::get_app_category(File::get_file_extension($url)) == "image") {
+				return new Oembed_Result($url, $url, $type, $options);
+			}
+		}
 
 		if($oembedUrl) {
 			// Inject the options into the Oembed URL.
@@ -233,7 +240,20 @@ class Oembed_Result extends ViewableData {
 		$body = $body->getBody();
 		$data = json_decode($body, true);
 		if(!$data) {
+			// if the response is no valid JSON we might have received a binary stream to an image
 			$data = array();
+			$image = @imagecreatefromstring($body);
+			if($image !== FALSE) {
+				preg_match("/^(http:\/\/)?([^\/]+)/i", $this->url, $matches);
+				$protocoll = $matches[1];
+				$host = $matches[2];
+				$data['type'] = "photo";
+				$data['title'] = basename($this->url) . " ($host)";
+				$data['url'] = $this->url;
+				$data['provider_url'] = $protocoll.$host;
+				$data['width'] = imagesx($image);
+				$data['height'] = imagesy($image);
+			}
 		}
 
 		// Convert all keys to lowercase