Reverse Image Search

by mindhacker on May 6, 2009

Recently I was faced with an unusual task of finding the source of an image on my hard drive. Firing up google I found that there are many ways of doing this.

Tineye is a fast and accurate image source finder

Tineye is a fast and accurate image source finder

The best site I came across was tineye.com. What you do is upload a image from you hard drive (or you can search for one), and then it  analyzes the image and searches for similar images across the internet. In the above picture it searched and compared over 1 billion images in just over 1 second which is amazing to say the least. This image recognition technology has really developed fast. I remember a couple of years ago there was a similar service which took ages to search and the results were buggy. It also gives  you the metadata of the images and the level of similarity.

Using Google Images:

If however you came across a image using a search engine,  say google images, you can search for similar images using Google lab’s ‘similar images’ feature. Just go here , search for image and having found it click on  ‘Similar Images’. This is a new beta feature in google images, which has the drawback that you can’t use an image you already have. Live image search also has a similar feature.

Search For a Image in Google Images

Search For a Image in Google Images

Now after clicking on Similar images for the second image google gives us:

After Similar Images Filter

After Similar Images Filter

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  • Antony

    There is also RevIMG, is a reverse image search engine

  • Antony

    I forgot the address: http://www.revimg.net

  • Julia Istomina Oden

    it is amazing that in this day and age we still don't have any reverse image search engines that are comprehensive. have been trying to find out information on something based on the picture of it – i cannot!

  • theking2

    from school we should be able to get on myspace

  • davea0511

    ?
    Please stick to the topic at hand, theking2. Also, when you find the right forum for your rant, a bit of advice: support your cause with convincing arguments, else risk sounding like an ungrateful spoiled brat and you'll do your cause a disservice. Good luck,

  • davea0511isgay

    COOL, somebody hasn't gotten laid in a LONGGG time and is clearly taking it out on people on the internet they will never meet, because they are to much of a pussy to take it out on anyone they actually know.

  • Will S.

    Tin Eye however does not always work, in the past couple of months there have been many images that I know exactly where I got them from and have tested Tin Eye with them, and the results come out to zero. How does that happen. I’ve tested this with several pics that I know the source from, get zero from Tin Eye, then go back to the site where I got the pic from only to confirm that the pic is actually there still on the site, but Tin Eye can’t seem to find it.

  • http://profiles.google.com/jooonfree joonx loop

    Nice post! Very comprehensive and provides a ton of information.Thanks!!Bilgibank
    Fashion

  • Effeson

    Says you

  • bill

    tineye is not working!

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