Ever have a picture and you just can’t remember where you got it, or who’s (or what’s) in it? Well the internet can actually search more than just words. I know you’re saying I know I look for videos, music, and pictures all the time…but I am willing to bet you use words to do that. Here are a few helpful tips on how to search using pictures instead.
The great and powerful Google has a built in search by “Images” (image is the magic word to remember) feature even if it is kind of small and out of the way on the Google search screen.
Once you’ve clicked on the “Images” link in Google you will get a slightly different search box. This one will contain a tiny little camera just before the microphone.
Clicking on the little camera will give you the option to paste in the URL (aka: web address) for a picture you found online that you want to look up more info on, or find similar pictures. You can also upload a picture from your computer (or the device of your choice) and search using that.
You’ll get a Google worthy “Best Guess” at picture identification, and a link to search for visually similar Images. So this is cool bit of web search magic that can come in handy.
There is also a site called TinEye that has a very handy How To page right below the search box. Tin eye allows you to search using a picture and see what websites may be using it online. This is very helpful for artists keeping track of their digital work, and finding those who may be copying it without permission.
On a related note for those wanting to know which pictures shown in search results can be used freely (without violating copyright laws) Google has a feature for that on their standard search results page.
After you have done your keyword search knowing you wanted pictures, and have hit the “Images” (yes still the magic word) link option, just below the search bar on the right will be a “Tools” button (#1 in above image), this will bring up a ton of options to filter the search results by. We are focusing on “Usage Rights” for this post so you can click on that option (#2 in above image). Once you do this you will see a bunch of different options you can choose from. The default “Not Filtered by License” is not a safe to use option. I tend to choose either “Labeled for reuse” or “Labeled for reuse with modification”, (#3 in the above image), and yes both of those mean what they say…you can reuse…or modify (aka: edit) and reuse the pictures freely.
There are a lot of image search options online the above are just some of the more useful ones I have found (or read about). Feel free to comment with your favorites.
