6 great dedicated image search engines to find that perfect picture

Here are some great dedicated image search engines to help you find that perfect picture. Don’t just limit yourself to Google image search! Some of these search engines use complex algorithms to analyze and recognize the visual content (as opposed to just reading meta data or embedded keywords) of images making search far more accurate.

PicSearch

The interface is similar to Google image search. You search for images and results show up as thumbnails. Clicking on a thumbnail will take you to the source page with a frame at the top of the window displaying image properties (color, size, type) and an option to go to the image URL. Visit the site

Imagery

Great search engine that lets you display from 20 to 100 image results per page. Hovering over each image you are given the option either to see the full size image in a dedicated window or just go to the source page. You can also search for black & white or grey scale images only, search by image format (JPG, GIF, PNG etc) and also by image size.  A cool tabbed interface allows you to start new image searches on the site in a new tab so you can revert back to previous searches easily. Visit the site

PhotoBucket

This is a very popular site to find images and videos, boasting billions of searchable pictures that people have uploaded. After you specify a search term there is a variety of way to view the results. For example you can choose to order the results from newest to oldest or view the most commented (you can give comments to images on the site) posts. You can also see what the most popular images and most searched for categories of images on the site are. Visit the site

Flickr

Flickr is another very popular image and video sharing site. You can search for images by date (look for photos taken after or before a certain date etc.), search only photos or only illustrations and more. You can also see the image search terms or “tags” that are most popular among other people.  The site lists all time popular image tags and most searched image tags in the past week and month.  Another great tool is the ability to search for images by location. For example you can search for photos from only Hawaii etc. Visit the site

Imense

Imense is a very clever image search engine that recognizes features and the visual content of images so you can get more accurate results.  The engine is able to match your queries by analyzing images themselves and not just related meta data or keywords. There are a host of advanced options for you to tweak. You can specify the colour of the desired image (black & white etc.), the number of people in it, gender of subjects in the picture, ethnic origin of image subjects,  subject age and even the pose (left facing, right facing etc.) of people in the picture.  Once results show up there is also an option to search for images that are visually similar. Visit the site

Piccolator

This is an innovative image search engine that recognizes content in images and allows you to find them through text and image based queries. You can upload pictures and Piccolator will search for images that are visually similar. At the moment the image based query only works for faces. For example you can upload your photo and find other photos across the internet that are similar. Visit the site