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Reverse Searching with Images

tin robot

Image credit: Tineye

A new resource added to our Images page is Tineye, a "reverse search engine" that allows you to input an image and find out "where an image came from, how it is being used, if modified versions of the image exist, or if there is a higher resolution version." Using image identification technology, Tineye finds results from a database of over a billion images and includes the URL from which they originated so that the user can track the life of the image and, in some cases, determine its origin. 

It is important to note that Tineye cannot search for similar images; rather, it finds the same image in various locations and incarnations. It is thus useful for tracing one's own work (commercial accounts are available for companies who want to do this) or any image of interest, but it will not find different images that contain, for example, the same person.

To give you an idea of what Tineye can do, here are a couple of examples of search results.

man aims gas pump at head

Original Image, via Tineye

man with gas pump

One search result, via Baltgames.lv

 Oh really owl

Original Image, via Tineye

Oh really owl tweets 

One search result, from Tweetlol

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