The Eternal Quest for Images

By bryblumbryblum (1225305416|%a, %b %e at %I:%M%p)

I'll admit it. Like most people, I am "Google Image Loyal" when it comes to searching for images. Why shouldn't I be? It's fast, it's easy, it's well laid-out, and I can always find the picture I'm looking for. So when Professor Moore suggested alternative means of picture searching today in class, I was definitely skeptical. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it," I thought.

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However, I was pretty impressed with some one the capabilities of some image search alternatives. Some of my favorites included:

  • TinEye, where you can search for an image within another image, by using image identification technology.
  • PicSearch, where you can search by animation
  • Pixolu, a developing German site which generates image results from popular image search engines, allows you to choose ones that are of most interest to you, and then generates a new, more specific list of results
  • PicItUp, which allows you to search for ONLY headshots

All of these capabilities are great for very specific situations, and can be used as great supplements to Google Image Search.

Surprisingly, the most useful image searching tool taught in class has always been right under my nose. I had no idea that you were able to search for images through Google news. Here, you search only for images from news sources such as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, etc. I found that the images found through Google news image search were newer, more current events-focused, better quality, and from reputable sources.

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I have recently been in the process of creating an "on-going events and news" section for my term project on the Investment Banking world. I was looking for pictures that were new, relevant to the various news topics, and were good quality. I initially began to use regular Google image search to find my photos, but found that the resulting images were repetitive, outdated, irrelevant, and of poor quality. In contrast, the images I found on Google new image search were perfect. I could sort them by date, and find images from the time period of any specified news story.

Google news image search was extremely helpful in this situation, and I will definitely continue to use it in the future. The only request I would make to Google, would be to enable immediate news image searching, as opposed to only being able to view the news image results AFTER searching for pure news results.

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