What is a reverse image search? Google Images

By Vince

There is a image search feature that can be incredibly useful. It is called a reverse image search, and its is scarily accurate. Basically you can upload a photo or give Google the URL (a link) to a photo online and it will search for images that are the same or similar.

  1. To use it, goto: https://images.google.com
  2. Click the camera icon at the far right of the search box. Your options are Paste the URL (if you can find the picture link directly online) or upload a local picture.     Click This:
    Reverse Image Search Screencapture

An easy way to get the URL (link) to a picture online with Firefox is to right click on the image, and select “copy image location”. This will copy the direct URL into your clipboard, then you can paste it directly.

Some great uses for this are:

  • If you are looking for a location on a photo, it is very good at finding out where it was taken. If you forgot where it was taken or doing some research to find a building, landmark, etc.
  • If you want to see if an image is being used somewhere else on the web for possible copyright issues.
  • If you want to find more information out about someone, search for their picture. You can see all the websites they have used the same photo at (job sites, personal, dating, etc).
    • This also applies to searching for yourself, I am always surprised at how far information gets copied and leaked on the ’net. Someone might be using your photo for something you do not really appreciate.
  • What if you have a nice photo of a landmark or nature, but it has people in it? You can do a search and find other photos that are from the same place then use photoshop to fix it. There are many tutorials out there on this, but check this one out: http://www.jnack.com/adobe/photoshop/fountain/