Internet News

Google's related image search

Google Images Related Searches Now More Visual, Barry Schwartz, Search Engine Land (Feb 23)

This change at Google images is neat -- "ou can now mouse over the related search phrase and Google will hover open an image preview of what the first three images look like for that image search query." Try with toronto - mouse over related searches.

All-in-one for Searching Creative Commons

Search Creative Commons offers an all-in-one place entry point to materials that may be under a creative commons usage license. Enter search terms, and select a service - images: Flickr, Fotopedia, Google Images, Open Clip Art Library; media: Europeana, SpinXpress, Wikimedia Commons; music - Jamendo; and Google Web. Examine the query it constructs on the service - you should see limitations according to license.

Very good place to start your search for material that is under CC License.

Changes at Flickr

Looking For Renewed Focus, Flickr Crops Out Picnik & Axes A Handful Of Features, Greg Finn, Marketing Land (Jan 15)

Flickr is rolling out some changes this year. "The current Flickr user tends to be skilled or professional photographers who take pride in photos instead of the casual majority who shoot on a smartphone."

Topictures.com

Topictures is a fun new meta search engine for images. The site combines search results from Google, Bing and Picasa, to display a variety of different images and photos. Shutterstock is there too - that would be the sales angle.

Anyway, it did a very nice job with john james audubon with pictures of him and of prints of birds from his books. I was also impressed with what came up for oliphant lake huron and the story one photo led too. Results were different from the two engines.

Topictures - very handy, could save you time, give you a quick first look - though, of course, it can't offer all the extra zoom-in, and find-like features that Google and Bing do at their sites. Try it - you might want to start with it on an image search.

Finding content licensed for re-use

Stephen Downes commented on Why Does Google Obscure Searches for Content Licensed for Re-use? Alan Levine, CogDogBlog, December 5, 2011.

He said - "I've been noticing Google beginning to act against the open web, and that means against open content licensing", Very interesting.

And be sure to look at Levine's search example of looking for an image of a horse that would be licensed for re-used.

PicsLikeThat for image search

PicsLikeThat helps you find more "like this" images. Enter keywords to a screenful of possible imates. Click on the ones you like to improve the selection. For example - tulips - click on images of fields of tulips, and gradually your screen will hold only those. PicsLikeThat uses images from fotolia.

Scout Report picked it up:

"16. PicsLikeThat
http://www.picslikethat.com/

"Scrambling through the Internet for a particular image can be time-consuming
and tedious. PicsLikeThat offers a visually delightful way to look for
images that will be most useful. Visitors just need to enter a search term
into their search engine, and they will have a grid display of relevant
images returned to their computer screen. Visitors can click on each result
to find out more information about each image, and they can also look for
additional images based on certain characteristics, such as color or shape.
The interface is quite intuitive, and it's also a bit fun. This version is
compatible with all operating systems. [KMG]" Source

New look to Yahoo Image Search

Yahoo! Image Search Boasts New Design, Galleries and Facebook Tab, Yahoo Search Blog (Aug 10)

Nice new look to Yahoo image search - handles beautifully.

"One of the most significant changes we’ve made to Yahoo! Image Search is the way images are displayed and navigated. By clicking on any image on the search results page, the image will appear on a fresh page allowing users to browse effortlessly through full-size images with a simple click on the desktop browser."

Images and Photos you can use

6 Free Websites For Public Domain Images & Free Stock Photos, Tina Sieber, Make Use Of (Jul 21)

Starter list of sites with links to more.

Google Images and Filters

Google Upgrades Image Search: New Recent Image Filter & Old Filters Return, Matt McGee, Search Engine Land (Jul 14)

Google Images restored two filters in image search - size, and any type (face, drawing etc); and added a new one for date added. to make it easier to pick up "fresh" images.

Search by Image

Up Close With Google’s Search By Image: Hits, Misses & More, Matt McGee, Search Engine Land (Jun 17)

Details on how Google's new search by image works - or doesn't. It doesn't do facial recognition. It claims to do "identifying “places, art and even mysterious creatures.” In these tests it did well with landmarks - buildings, famous scenery - and not so well with plants or a mysterious creature.

Until now, TinEye has been the main engine offering similar image search capabilities.

Google Image Search

Google Gives You More Images, If You Ask Nicely, Barry Schwartz, Search Engine Land (Jun 3)

Small but important improvements in Google Image Search - "Google has added a larger thumbnail image when you hover your cursor over image and Google will show more images when Google can detect your search intent asks for it."

Google image subject search

Google Image Search now lets you sort by subject, Lance Whitney, Digital Media (May 10)

First display of images on a search will be a jumble, but click on the sort by subject in the upper right corner to get rows of images organized by "subject' - as best Google can tell - then use "more like this" on a particular image to narrow further.

This will be most useful for words or phrases with multiple meanings.

Finding Photos

The Right Way to Use Others' Photos by Reid Goldsborough, LinkUp Digital (May 1)

Most photos on the web will not be public domain and we shouldn't use them without permission. But there are some sites that can help in finding the type of image you want and can use for a low price.

Royalty free images

Thirty Free Image Resources on the Web, Wendy Boswell, About.com (apr)

Directories are dying all around us and "content farms" are under attack, but About com and its editors are still providing good content and is a resource to check nearly whatever your question. This time - here are 30 sites where you can find images you can use for free in your work.

Filter for SVG at Google Images

Google Image Search Adds SVG Filter & Google Displays Satellite & Terrain Maps by Barry Schwarz, Search Engine Land (Feb 14)

Google Image Search added a filter for scalable vector graphics (SVG).

Image search at Science.gov

Science.gov Debuts Image Search, Newsbreaks (Dec 20)

Science.gov, gateway to more than 42 scientific databases, has added image search. At present Science.gov searches NBII Life, NIX NASA Exchange, NOAA Photo Library. More coming.

You have to look very carefully for it - "Select the Image Search link under Special Collections."

iStockPhoto adds faceted search and local results

iStockPhoto has long been a favourite place for finding royalty-free photos at micropayment prices. It also has video clips, audio, and flash files. It has announced some major improvements to its search facility to provide faceted search and to provide locally relevant results.

CALGARY, Alberta: Dec. 13, 2010 — As part of its comprehensive website overhaul, iStockphoto today announced a host of major search enhancements that make finding the perfect image, video or audio file easier than ever. New functionality includes locally relevant search results and the ability to more precisely navigate iStock’s library of more than seven million files.

The most noticeable change, which has already been implemented, is the wide array of faceted search tools available directly on the search results page. These advanced tools give customers the ability to start a query using a broad term then dynamically tailor and narrow the search while viewing the new results in real-time. Behind the scenes, a proprietary new algorithm will take into account the language and location of the user and prioritizes their results accordingly. This feature will be implemented in mid-January.

See full press release at iStockphoto Announces Sweeping Changes to Its Industry-Leading Search Technology, Providing Superior Results in a Fraction of the Time , Vancouver Sun (

“For the past several years there has been a lot of competition between leading stock providers over which one has the largest collection of files. We’ve chosen to ignore this fight and focus instead on what matters most – the best collection with the most relevant search results,” said Kelly Thompson, COO of iStockphoto. “Unless you can help customers find the needle, there’s no point in giving them a bigger haystack.”

Locally Relevant Search

iStockphoto serves a diverse international customer base of more than seven million people who purchase tens of thousands of files on any given day. While it is impossible to anticipate exactly what any of those customers might be looking for, there is one thing that can be reliably used to help narrow a search from the very beginning – location.

With localized search, users in one part of the world who do a search for “money,” will get the exact same number of images in their search results as users in every other part of the world, but the order in which those results are presented will be different. A user in the U.K., for example, might first see images of British pounds and euros, along with some universal representations of money like a bag of gold and international currency symbols. Someone in the U.S. could see images of dollars and cents as well as images that represent concepts that are culturally unique such as dollars growing on trees or pennies falling from the heavens.

Faceted Search

The new search results page makes all the advanced search features that allow users to modify and refine their queries immediately available. These features include:

· File type and size

· Artist

· Orientation

· Collection

· Upload date

· Collection

· Music genre

· Audio mood/duration (coming soon)

As searches are modified, users will see the results change in real-time to help them decide whether or not additional modifications are needed. Recent searches are also being saved for users who frequently purchase the same type of images. In addition, the word suggestion and spelling correction features that have been a part of iStock’s search capabilities for many years are now easier to use than ever.

About iStockphoto

iStockphoto offers easy, affordable inspiration with millions of vetted, royalty-free photos, illustrations, video, audio and Flash® files. Using the most advanced search in the business, customers download a file every second from a collection of more than seven million files for business, marketing and personal projects. iStockphoto started in 2000, pioneering the micropayment photography business model, and has become one of the most successful and profitable user-generated content sites in the world. iStockphoto pays out more than $1.7 million weekly in artist royalties. iStockphoto is headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, and is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Getty Images.

PR Contact: Dean Rodgers

Vibrance Communications

dean@vibrance.com

503-699-7990

Google Image Search - 2 ways

Switch Back To The Old Google Image Design, Barry Schwartz, Search Engine Land (Nov 2)

I won't be switching but if you'd like to here are the instructions.

"Google is allowing searchers to go back to the classic Google Image search design. In July, Google revamped their Image Search design, which provided a “tiled” layout, infinite scroll, larger thumbnail images and a hover preview that offers more information about the image."

Finding Similar Images

Search For Similar Images Online Using Images Rather Than Keywords, Ann Smarty, Make Use Of (Oct 2)

Never mind looking for similar images at Bing and Google; look for images that are like a particular one you provide.

The BYO Image Search Lab from Toronto-based Idee is on the list - it has 3 million stock photos. Gazopa and TinEye are the other two mentioned in this post.

Yahoo's distinctive display

Yahoo Makes Its Search Results More Visual , Joseph Tartakoff, paidContent (Oct 7)

Yahoo hasn't completely given up on search with its conversion to the Bing database. It has been redesigning the display of results - as can been seen in this video on the latest changes.

The example shows results for searching on a movie to get summary, trailer, tweets, and connection to Netflix - all in a package - and then more about finding entertainment.

This "packaging" is seen on Yahoo Canada too - without the Netflix.

That's fine for the consumer searcher, what about something more serious? Because of the new news component that shows, a Yahoo search presents well for United Nations. - as one example.

Pandia reviews this new display too, describing it as an accordion module - Yahoo adds new display module to search results.

Greg Sterling at Search Engine Land showed the accordion module and the enhancements to image search - Yahoo Rolling out new "accordion" search and other features.

"Image pages get a new more visually engaging and “immersive” environment. Yahoo is putting more slideshows (from Flickr and other Yahoo sites) in image search results that then lead to pages that look like this:" - screenshot of very colourful page.

Google's new image search

On the new Google Image search engine, Pandia (Aug 1)

Pandia examines the differences between Google's old and new versions of image search. The new is much better - larger images, easier handling - very much like Bing's image search.

"Bing has one very useful feature that Google is lacking: It has a row of buttons that lets you select the sizes of the thumbnails. There is even an option where you can get the file information under each image, as in the old version of Google images."

Improved Google Image Search

Ooh! Ahh! Google Images presents a nicer way to surf the visual web, Google Blog (July 20)

Changes to Google Image search - better scrolling, larger previews, tiled layout, better navigation. Cheers.

Also - Google revamps Google Images Search, Tom Krazit, Relevant Results (Jul 20)

"Around 10 percent of Google Images Search users are seeing the new interface at the moment, and it will roll out for the rest of its users over the coming week."

New Yahoo Image Search interface

Yahoo Redesigns Image & Video Search Pages To Show Trending Results, Barry Schwartz, Search Engine Land (May 26)

Trends and more trends - now Yahoo shows trends for what people are searching for at Yahoo Images and Yahoo Video.

Want to guess what trends are likely to show at Yahoo Image Search? Celebrities from sports and entertainment, movies, and some political figure.

Flower Power

Image search engine GazoPa is Blooming!, Charles Knight, The Next Web (Mar 29)

Features a image search engine that will help flower lovers find images similar to the bloom they love. There will be sharing of flower knowledge too.

Find it at http://bloom.gazopa.com/beta. This is in private beta - but you can apply to be an early user.

There is a video demo to watch. looks like a marvellous site for people new to gardening and for experienced gardeners keen to share blooms.

Library and Archives Canada Photos

Library and Archives Canada Releases New Photo Album on Flickr, Library and Archives Canada (Feb 25)

LAC has a Flickr Channel.
"Library and Archives Canada (LAC) has released a new photo album on Flickr entitled Framing Canada. These images highlight aspects of Canadian heritage and history as portrayed through photographs and artworks. Organized into thematic albums, the LAC images they contain are easy to browse and make lesser-known representations of Canada's history available."

TinEye for Reverse Image Search

TinEye does reverse image search - submit an image and it will "find out where it came from, how it is being used, if modified versions of the image exist, or to find higher resolution versions." This is about exact (or nearly exact) matches - not similar search.

TinEye lists some applications.

* Find out where an image came from, or get more information about it
* Research or track the appearance of an image online
* Find higher resolution versions of an image
* Locate web pages that make use of an image you have created
* Discover modified or edited versions of an image

TinEye was developed by Idée Inc of Toronto.

There is a short demo at TinEye – The Reverse Image Search Engine, Altsearchengines (Jan 1)

Sprixi for image search

Search Engine for Creative Commons and Public Domain Images, ResearchBuzz (Dec 28)

Sprixi wins a favourable review for presentation, search, and content. It searches for public domain images or images that have generous licences under Creative Commons. Sources at present are Flickr and OpenClipArt.

Free Photos at Fotoglif

Search millions of free, fully licensed, high resolution images, Altsearchengines (Dec 24)

Fotoglif - free images - really? Yes - but with a catch - ads accompany the photo.

From About Us:
" We created fotoglif to give bloggers and web publishers an easy way to access and use great images online. Our service provides powerful photographs from breaking news, professional stock and editorial imagery collections absolutely free and fully licensed."

Google Goggles Images

At a loss for words? Google offers search by sight, Stephen Shankland, Webware (Dec 7)

Google Goggles - a way to find out what something is based on a picture. Shoot a picture, upload the file, and let Google match to its database of billions of images and respond. At present, can use this for landmarks, book covers, artwork, wine labels, logos.

But there is more for the mobile user - Google Mobile Gets “What’s Nearby,” Voice Search Expands & “Goggles” Search By Snapping Pictures, Greg Sterling, Search Engine Land (Dec 7)

+ voice search
+ instant translation
+ what's nearby - will appear both on the Google mobile homepage and Google Maps on Android devices.
+ Goggles - taking a picture with the picture phone to get information on the place or thing.

Google Goggles: Bad for Business?, Ian Lamont, PC WOrld (Dec 10)

Points out that the Goggle's visual search could shake up some businesses - especially retail shopping.

"While Google Goggles promises to bring convenience and coolness to owners of Android phones, I am convinced there will be a disruptive impact on certain types of businesses and organizations, especially as Google improves the recognition algorithms and ports the technology to other mobile platforms. This futuristic technology has really arrived, and IT and business managers will need to evaluate it as their customers, employees and competitors start to use it."

Reverse image search

A Look into Reverse Image Search Tools by Ann Smarty, Search Engine Journal (Nov 18)

Reverse image is "find more images like this one". This article looks at Tin Eye, Byo, and Gazopa.

Swirling Google Images

Google Image Swirl: A New Way To Browse For Similar Images by Chris Sherman, Search Engine Land (Nov 17)

Google Image Swirl is fun - mashes together Google Images, Similar Images, and the linking we see in Google Wonder Wheel - but you have to use the demo searches.

Finding Similar Images

Finding Your Photos Online by Dave Johnson, PC World (Nov 9)

Dave Johnson has some suggestions on how to find if anyone is using photographs that you put at a photo-sharing site. The premise is to look for similar photos. TinEye and Bing Image search are two places where you might try. Still the caution is - "Don't post anything you aren't willing to give away."

Google Image Search Results

Google makes Similar Images part of image search by Josh Lowensohn, Webware (Oct 27)

Google made its similar-images feature standard in image search. Similar images shows as a link under the image.

"The feature was originally launched in late April, alongside the visual-news timeline, as a way for users to find images that share certain visual similarities with those in Google Images search results. "

While we're at it - Google has also changed the results page on an image search considerably.

+ Show options - with easy controls on size, type and color.
+ Related searches
+ number of images shown
+ size of thumbnail (maybe)

Tips on Image Search

Three ways to do an advanced image search, by Wendy Boswell, Websearch.about.com (Oct 5)

Short descriptions for Yahoo, Google and Bing image search. Links to several other articles on image search and sources of free images.

Behold for searching Flickr

Behold! A Search Engine for Flickr, Alexei Yavlinsky, Altsearchengines (Sept 30)

Creator Alexei Yavlinsky describes the Behold search engine for images at Flickr.

"Behold is capable of recognizing a number of visual concepts in pictures. You can ask Behold to return images that look like one of these concepts. This new type of search can be flexibly combined with regular text-based search. For example you can ask Behold to return images tagged with the word ‘London’ that look like pictures of buildings (try it!). You can also filter text-based image search results based on what the images actually look like."

Do this in two stages - first the tag(s), and then filter those results by what the picture should look like. Search on Toronto as the tag, and then "that look like a picture of a tower" - there will be 100s of CN Tower pictures and some others that have tower qualities.

BioMed Image Search

Search over 1 million images with BioMed Search, Altsearchengines (Sep 22)

BioMed Search searches images from biomedical articles - also figures and schema.

"Over 1 Million images have been indexed and more is on its way. BioMed Seach indexes image captions along with the citations to these images. BioMed Search has been created by Alex Ksikes. Alex Ksikes is currently a Ph.D. student at the University of Cambridge.""

Supports some syntax in the query,

Future of Image Search

It’s semantic – easier solution to annotate and search images , ICT Results (Aug 27)

Indicates the direction of image search - a mix of text mining (surrounding text and name), object identification and face identification - plus semantic annotation or additional assigned terms.

Springer Images

If you work in science and need images, SpringerImages will be a must-have resource.

"SpringerImages is a growing collection of scientific images that spans the scientific, technical and medical fields, including high-quality clinical images from images.MD. The continually updated collection – currently over 1.5 million images – gathers photos, graphs, histograms, figures, and tables, and is available to libraries and their patrons via a searchable online database. The SpringerImages interface enables users to search faster, more broadly and more accurately, through captions, keywords, context and more, even jumping from the image to the source article. Users can create personalized image “sets,” and can easily export images for use in their own presentations or lectures."

Requires paid subscription.

Multimedia Search Tools

Finding Videos, Audio and Images on the Web: Search Tools by Cindy Shamel, FUMSI (May 2009)

Looks at sources that can help in finding "videos, audio and images for competitive intelligence and general business applications."

Article has good real-life examples, such as this one.

"The goal was to develop insights into the business strategy of a privately held non-US company known for keeping a low profile. Neither the website nor the news or trade literature yielded anything of substance. A search of video sources through YouTube uncovered a 30-minute interview with the CEO conducted at a large financial investment conference."

Mentions:

+ Samepoint -- "images, video, and podcasts across tens of thousands of social media sites. "

+ Tubesurf - for video - "searches YouTube, MySpace Videos, Google Video, and Yahoo! Video." Much to my amazement this tool found videos on information governance

+ Searchvideo.org - videos galore and can refine to heart's delight. Has channels that includes Reuters and Forbes. Try information governance.

+ blinkx - known for having 35 million hours of video. Enormous number of sources and good for browsing - I always find it difficult to search well.

+ Yidio - has TV, songs, movies, but also news. It really is geared to entertainment and you must login to this community (can do with Facebook). I did find a TV Show on the Canadian Arctic (Pond Inlet to be specific), and news items on Prime Minister Harper's current tour.

+ Videosurf - video meta-searcher - after first search you can narrow by category, sources, type, shows. Fantastic results for canadian arctic.

More in the article about audio search, image search, and places to look for even more.

One to watch if you are really interested in online video business is ReelSeo - "online video marketing guide".

More Search Tools for Flickr Images

Seven alternative Flickr search engines by Don Reisinger, Webware (Aug 6)

There are other tools to use to search Flickr:

+ Bubbir - but it's really for creating a comic strip with the photos

+ Compfight - search by tag or text

+ Findr - tags

+ Flickr Related Tag browser - shows a wheel of tags

+ FlickrStorm - Creative Commons images

+ Multicolr Search Lab from Idee (Canadian company) - search by colour - finds images offered under a Creative Commons license. For web designers. Uses visual similarity technology.

+ PiciShare - has some sort options (interesting, dates, relevance)

Searching Flickr

Flickr's new search tool puts details into focus, Josh Lowensohn, Webcrawler blog (Aug 4)

Flickr has upgraded its search results page.

"Similar to the way most search engines display an array of thumbnails, users can now parse through small or medium size previews of photos, and view detailed information about the shot without even having to visit its photo page"

Image Search

Google Image Search - Second Only To Web Search In Size by Ravi Venkatesan , Natural Search Blog (Jul 19)

How image search works at Google.

"This post is based on the interview between Eric Enge and Peter Linsley, Google’s Product Manager for Image Search. It reveals some interesting aspects of image search which is growing at an accelerated pace."

Usage Rights at Google Images

Google image search gets usage rights filtering by Josh Lowensohn, Webware (July 9)

Google Images - "Users can now filter photos by whether they're available for reuse, commercial reuse, reuse with modification, or commercial use with modification."

Multimedia Search for Business Purposes

Finding Videos, Audio and Images on the Web: Search Tools by Cindy Shamel, Fumsi (May 2009)

There are business uses for searching multimedia for information, as this article shows.

"For this article we tested dozens of search engines and have elected to describe those that appeared most suited to business searches. As a result, many perfectly good search tools generally focused on music, television shows and movies are not included here."

Blinkx is on this list, but so are are the newer ones: TubeSurf, Searchvideo.org (powered by AOL), and Videosurf.

Icerocket is mentioned for image search as is Flickr (of course), Picsearch. and Tineye.

A few are mentioned for audio also - a diminishing choice since Yahoo dropped its audio search.

Creative Commons Image Search

Using Google and Yahoo! for finding free images by Pandia (June 4)

Yahoo and Google Image search support "creative commons" search.

"The fact is that nearly all images found on the web is the property of the photographer. You are not allowed to use them without his or her permission, unless the images are very old or there is a licence that allows for this kind of use."

Free clip art

Open Clip Art Library - recommended by ResearchBuzz

"The Open Clip Art Library is a collection of clip art that’s been placed in the public domain and is free to use"

Image Search at Picasa

Advanced Search Options in Picasa Web Albums, Google Operating System (June 11)

Describes search options at Picasa Web - not as big as Flickr but worth checking. Can also view files licensed under Creative Commons.

Google's Image Serach by Similarity

Google Adds Search By Similarity To Image Search by CHris Sherman, Search Engine Land (Apr 20)

Live Image Search added a similarity search a few months ago - now Google Labs.

"Google has introduced a new experimental refinement tool that lets you click a “similar images” link beneath image search results and see a new screen of images with similar color, shape and other visual elements. The new tool has been released in Google Labs and isn’t yet available in standard image search results."

Colour Picker at Google

Google Image Search Adds Color Picker by Barry Schwartz, Search Engine Land (Apr 8)

You could hack this 2 weeks ago, but Google has made it real. Run a search at Google Images, and from the results page in the top bar you can limit the search to show one particular colour.

Yahoo Image Search Improved

Image Search Preview Page Overhaul, Yahoo Search Blog (Apr 3)

"Now, when you click on an image from the image search results page, the top bar opens to reveal a richer and sleeker interface that displays a larger view of the image, more search results, and popular related searches."

Yahoo Image Search - New Filters

Yahoo Search Adds Additional Image Filter Options by Barry Schwartz, Search Engine Land (Mar 19)

"You can now filter Yahoo Images by size, color, specific dimensions and even if it is from Flickr or not."

Image Search Ripper

Search Google Images Fast with Google Image Ripper Rick Broida, PCWorld (Mar 25)

Google Image Ripper could be useful - it searches Google Images but shows the images on one page and without all the extra stuff.

Search by Color at Google Images

Search Google Images By Color, Blogscoped (Mar 21)

Can restrict a Google image search to a colour by tacking on imgcolor to the url.

For yellow flowers - http://images.google.com/images?imgcolor=yellow&hl=en&q=flowers

Put the imgcolor=yellow& right after the ?

Note: March 30 - was a great idea but doesn't work now.

Specify the size of the image

Google Image Search Adds “Exact Size” Advanced Search Option by Gary Schwartz, Search Engine Land (Mar 9)

On the Advanced Search in Google Image Search you can now specify the exact size of the sought-after image. I don't see how this might be used. How do you know what size you want? Size choices for small, medium, large, and extra large were fine. Although, 50X50 is a good size when looking for a small icon.

Live Image Search

Stefan Weitz on Image Search, Live Search blog (Feb 18)

Live Search Director, the young and lively Stefan Weitz, shows how to use Live's Image search - not that it's difficult but it helps to know what is possible. This is 8 minutes - but the substance doesn't start until 3 minutes. Main points are to: remember to scroll (beats Google's short pages), and use Find Similar Images.

Multicolor Search for Images

Find free images with visual Flickr search Pandia (Jan 28)

New from Toronto-based Idée Inc. -- "Multicolor Search Lab is a free tool with easy to use visual interface that lets you browse the best free photos on Flickr and find the one you want." Photos are tagged with Creative Commons (CC).

Google Image Search

Find Images that Have a Certain Size at Google Operating System (Jan 28)

"Google Image Search has an undocumented parameter that lets you specify the exact dimension of the results: imagesize:WIDTHxHEIGHT."

Posting has examples.

Image Search Based on Likeness

7 Similarity Based Image Search Engines, by Ann Smarty, Search Engine Journal (Jan 14)

Names 7 search engines that can match on images based on color, theme, texture. Commenters added another couple.

Google Earth with Imagery

Google Earth gets ultra-high-resolution artwork, by Rafe Needleman, Webware (Jan 13)

"The digital globe app Google Earth (download) is getting new imagery from inside buildings. One, at least: a new layer gives viewers gigapixel (ultra-high-resolution) photos of artwork from inside the Prado Museum in Madrid, Spain. The Prado project also includes detailed exterior views of the museum's buildings. See Google's blog post on the new layer. "

Use Images to find Images at Live

Search Pictures With Pictures At Live Search by Barry Schwartz, Search Engine Land (Dec 2)

"Live Search announced you can now use images to find similar images in Live Image Search. To use this feature, you go to Live Image Search, search for an image, hover over an image, and click on “show similar images.”"

Interesting - for this search for blue vase , click on one image to bring it forward ( I picked the vase with the flowers) and then click on "show similar images". the results should all be blue vases with flowers.

While you are there, notice all the other refinements you can do.

Yahoo Image Search with Search Assist

Yahoo Launches Search Assist For Image Search by Barry Schwartz, Search Engine Land (Dec 3)

Yahoo is like the last rose of summer, throwing out blooms as the days get shorter. Now - "Yahoo has rolled out the Search Assist feature to Image Search. For example, a search for images on barack obama will return images within the actual Search Assist bar."

Life Magazine Archive in Google Images

LIFE Photo Archive available on Google Image Search, Paco Galanes, Google Blog (Nov 18)

Google announces - "availability of never-before-seen images from the LIFE photo archive. This effort to bring offline images online was inspired by our mission to organize all the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. This collection of newly-digitized images includes photos and etchings produced and owned by LIFE dating all the way back to the 1750s."