Sometimes the need arises. For example, you have a photo and you need to find it in high resolution in order to print it or put it as wallpaper on your desktop. Without using special services, searching for similar images on the Internet is not at all an easy task. In this article we will look at several methods that will allow you to quickly search for similar photos on the Web.

Few people know, but the Google search engine allows you to search for similar images on the Internet. To do this, go to google.ru and go to the “Pictures” section. You can also access this page via this link.

Once you have visited the Google Images page, you can begin searching for similar images. In order to select an image to search, you need to click on the icon in the form of a camera.

In the window that opens, you can specify a direct link to the desired image or upload an image from your computer.

You can also simply drag the desired image into the browser from your desktop or any folder. When you start dragging the selected file, the browser will display a “Drag image here” message. The file with the desired image must be dragged directly onto this text.

After these manipulations, the search results will be loaded.

In order to view similar images found, you need to click on the corresponding link in the search results.

As a rule, there are a lot of similar images found. To find a suitable picture, use the sorting functions located on the left side of the page. You can sort pictures by publication date, size, color or type.

Using the tineye.com service

If searching for similar images in the Google search engine did not produce results, you can use other solutions. For example, the online service tineye.com.

As in the previous case, in order to find similar images you need to download the original image. To do this, you need to provide a direct link to the picture or upload a file from your computer. The simple drag-and-drop feature also works.

After the search image is loaded, the service displays search results for similar images. There are three ways to sort the results: Best Match, Most Changed, Biggest Image.

As well as photographs that you have on your computer. This issue deserves attention, if only because this search option works stably, but not all users of the World Wide Web know about it.

Introduction

Today the Internet has become a fixture in our lives. At the slightest need, we turn to him for help. It helps us find the information we need, communicate with people, get the latest news from the world, and even organize the work of highly specialized equipment and machines. We can communicate without leaving home with a person who lives on another continent, and this is fast, convenient and does not require any special expenses. Almost our entire life is closely connected with the World Wide Web, because today every person has a laptop or computer. Most of us are familiar with words such as "server", "site" or "browser". And most modern people no longer associate the word “surfing” with a board and rolling waves. This is the world of modern man. It has changed a lot over the past few decades, but it hasn’t gotten any worse, it’s just become a little different.

About Google

Surely every network user knows that the best search engine today is Google. Not a single modern person can do without it, and he really can find almost everything. - in fact, it is not always a simple task. Absolutely anyone can encounter difficulties in communicating with a computer. To avoid such troubles, a little is enough: possess certain knowledge and skillfully use it in practice. One of these overwhelming tasks for many is searching for a picture or image on the Internet. Not all users know how to search Google using images. For those who have not yet mastered this function, we will try to help.

Find by image in Google: with ut functions

Let's say you have a photo of a painting by an artist unknown to you, and you want to know whose creation you liked so much. Or you have an image in unclear quality and want to get it in a better or larger enlargement. Or maybe you came across a photo of a beautiful model girl and are eager to find out who she is. Or it’s a chic architectural monument, and you’re interested in its history. Whatever it is - Google to the rescue.

results

Just recently, such a possibility for search engines was not available, but the development of the capabilities of the Internet is moving forward by leaps and bounds. Today you can find not only identical pictures on the Internet. You can also search for similar images on Google. They may differ only slightly from your original request. Their theme may be the same, the color scheme or other aspects will be the same. So, let's take a closer look at how to search Google using images. There are several options that you will need to be aware of.

Search by image: "Google Chromium"

Almost all browsers that exist today in the nature of the modern Internet era can help you in your search. But the most popular and reliable today is Google Chrome. Its design already has the ability to find information from a Google image. But for convenience, you can install an additional extension in your existing browser by downloading it from the official website. For the convenience of using such a service, you will need to right-click on the context menu and select the “Search on Google with this image” section. A search tab will open in front of you, into which you will enter additional information. But this option is not the only one, and if you do not constantly engage in this type of search, there are much simpler and faster options.

In fact, the smart and all-knowing search engine already has a built-in Google function - “search by photo”. Nothing complicated here either. You need to open it and go to the “Pictures” service. You can do it this way: http://images.google.ru/‎. In this case, on the start page of the search engine you will see an image of a small camera. He is exactly what you need. By clicking on it, you can enter the Internet address of the image of the existing picture. To do this, right-click on the camera, select the “Specify link” line and enter the URL of the image. To begin with, you can practice on Google images itself. You will quickly understand how to do it quickly and correctly.

Using information on the computer

How to search Google using images if they are on the desktop of your computer? This possibility also exists. You can upload a search image from a file on your PC. The steps are the same as in the first case. Click on the camera, select the line “Upload image” and indicate the path to the file. By the way, in the Chrome browser you just need to drag the image into the search bar with your mouse. It’s even easier here: just drag the image into the search bar with the mouse - and you’re done. Open the image and click on it while holding the mouse button. Drag it into the address bar of the search engine. Release the button when the image moves into the line. Wait for the Internet pages to load. It should be noted that for this method of searching the Internet, the image must be at least 20 bytes in size, otherwise difficulties will arise.

Photo

Once the image is uploaded, you will see all the possible options available online. The very first one will be exactly what you were looking for, in a large format and many similar miniatures. All images and photos can be completely different, these are both miniatures and similar images in style and color scheme. To make the search result as accurate as possible and meet your requirements more specifically, enter the information you have in the search bar. For example: “antique camera”, “Peter I” or others. Based on the results, you can not only search Google for a photo that is similar or in better quality, but also find links to pages with information you are interested in reading. All that remains is to follow them.

Now you know how to search Google images for the information you need. There are actually quite a lot of options for this type of search, and it is very popular. Google's ability to search by photo can not only give you information about the technical nature of a device, but also find a person you haven't seen since, for example, university years. If you're lucky, the photo you're looking for may well be stored in your friend's social media portfolio. Resources such as Odnoklassniki or VKontakte, for example, have many photographs of people whose names we do not remember due to the passage of time. But the main thing is desire, and everything will work out for you. Google will find everything and everyone.

Alternative

It must be said that there are separate services for searching for information of this kind on the Internet. One of these is TinEye.com. This site is also quite capable of helping you. You can work with it in the same way as with the Google search engine. Enter the address or the image itself - and get search results. If for some reason Google has provided you with incomplete information, use this resource, it may be of help. If the picture you are looking for is not the most popular image on the Internet, it is better to use several search options.

He who seeks will always find, the main thing is to have the desire and very little free time, and you already know how to do everything right. All that remains is to wish you successful and productive searches. Good luck!

Let's look at how to find a photo on the Internet using a photo.

Thanks to a few simple search techniques, you can always find the item of interest in the picture, the site or forum where it is posted.

Contents:

The function of analyzing similar or identical images can be useful in completely different situations.

Cases when you may need it:

Analysis of primary sources

Since the original source of the image is indexed by the system before the pages with the copied one, you can find it in Google and Yandex.

In the results, you should pay attention not to the “Similar Photos” category, but to the section "Mentions on the Internet".

Thanks to the ranking of pages in Google, you can easily find the real source of any picture, regardless of the social network or forum on which it is located.

Despite the huge number of banks and search engines for graphic content, we recommend choosing standard Google and . These systems implement the most accurate algorithms known today. In addition, they search for graphics not only in their own database, but also check all sites indexed in the system.

To use Google for this, just follow a few simple steps:

• In the field, select the camera icon and provide a direct link to it or select it from the memory of your device;
• Click on "Search";

• The Google search result will show similar photos, mentions on other sites and forums (here you can find the original source). If it depicted a public person, in 99% of cases he will recognize the correct first and last name, and will also offer to read short information;

To narrow the scope, you can set additional parameters. To do this, in the displayed results, click on the “Tools” button.

It is located at the top of the page, immediately below the text line.

Then select the period of mention of the picture on other sites and the preferred option (only similar images or a certain size of the graphic object).

It works the same way system from Yandex:

The updated Yandex algorithm offers the user several options for what is shown in the desired picture.

Also, you will be able to access all possible extensions of the object. Like Google, users have the opportunity to look at sites where the image appears.

Search for an item by photo

On the World Wide Web we often come across images of interesting gadgets and objects, however, it is not always possible to remember the name of the object.

To quickly find out the name of the item on it, just use the systems described above from or Yandex.

The image below shows a clear example of searching for an item using just one picture.

Google immediately identified the topic to which the object belonged and found an online store where you can buy such a product. The exact name of the item is also indicated on the results page.

If you find an unknown object not in the form, but in real life, you can simply photograph it and then analyze it based on the image.

It allows you to search for similar photos and pictures all over the Internet. Picture by picture, so to speak. You can do a lot of things using this site, it all depends only on your imagination. Personally, I use it for the following purposes:

1. I'm looking for a photo or picture in good quality, if I only have it in bad quality.
2. I find out which sites have the selected picture (allows me to find the original source)
3. Helps in finding images that are not damaged by watermarks.
4. Helps determine the place where the photo was taken (you can find other photos with similar content and description)
5. Search by photo on the Internet - you can recognize faces in photographs. Although TinEye does a poor job of searching for a person by photo, it is better to use the paid FindFace for this.

To search, just go to the above-mentioned site, click the “Select file” button and specify the photo file. Or indicate the address of the photo if it is on the Internet. There is only one result - by clicking the “Search” button, a list of found pictures will be displayed: At the very top there is a photo in the best quality. There is nothing more to say about the site itself. Next I will talk about two useful additions to this service.

TinEye Reverse Image Search is an add-on for Google Chrome. Adds an item to the context menu of images Search Image on TinEye:

For example, in this way I found a photo of a dog and a kitten in the best quality without any inscriptions:

But there is no point in using it, because... Opening a window, clicking the “From file...” button, and selecting a photo takes significantly more time than if it were spent simply opening a folder, clicking on a photo, and selecting the “TinEye” line. Result: The TinEye website is definitely useful. It allows you to solve a number of problems that a conventional search engine can cope with poorly.

By the way, the Google Images search service has similar functionality:

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Let's look for a higher resolution option. Open Google Images and click the inconspicuous button in the line:

We will have a choice - provide a link to the photo or upload it from your computer. I have a picture on my hard drive, so I click Upload file - Select file - Open. After some time (the image should be uploaded to Google’s servers), a page with search results will appear:

To filter pictures by quality, there are two links - “Small” and “Large”. Naturally, I will choose " Large" to see the best quality:

The picture resolution is very good - 1920 by 1080 pixels. So you can follow the link and download it for yourself.

So, to find a picture in better quality than it is, you need to specify its address or download it from disk, then click the “Large” link.

Searching for a person on the Internet by photo

A rather unobvious way to use the image search service. Let's say we have a photograph of a person. If the same photo or a very similar one is posted somewhere on social networks, there is a chance that a Google search engine will find it. For example, this is what will happen if you upload one of my photos:

Google decided that my photo was similar to photos of Japanese athletes. This is funny and not true, but the search was successful - we saw a link to my VKontakte page, where there is this photo, and also found out my first and last name.

Of course, such luck does not always occur. Google Images can't find photos from private albums. Otherwise, this is a great way to determine the authenticity of a photo and/or determine who is in it.

Find out the name of a thing or landscape from a photograph

There is a program called Google Goggles for iPhone and Android phones. It allows you to translate photographed text or determine the name, find information about a photographed object or landmark. Really great stuff, but there is no version for computers. This can be partially compensated for using the same Google image search.

Example: we have a photo of a landscape, but we don’t know what kind of beautiful place it is:

As in the previous options, click the button in the form of a camera in the search bar, upload a photo and get the result:

I warn you - this doesn't always work. For the correct result, this photo or a very similar one must already be in the Google image search database, i.e. be on the Internet, there should also be a description next to the picture on the page. If sights can be easily recognized (since a famous place is “known” on the Internet), then with objects the chance of finding a description is almost zero.

If there is no information about the place, we will see a page with similar photos, similar to the following example.

Previously, the TinEye search engine was strong in this, as I said earlier. But Google Images is also not perfect.

And click the link “ Similar images". Let me remind you: you can not upload a photo, but indicate its address on the Internet, or simply enter the query “red kitten” into the search, hover your mouse over the photo and click “ Similar«.

In any case, these actions will lead to a search for similar photos:

Pay attention to the inscription “Similar” above the pictures. This means that this mode is working now. Clicking the cross on the right will turn it off. Clicking on the picture will open, as it should, an enlarged copy in the background of the site where this picture is located.

Conclusion

Google Image Search always works the same way. Depending on what was found, the search page changes. If the result is very successful, when it is possible to accurately identify the name of the photo and find information on it, we are redirected to a text search page (as in the case of searching for a landmark).

In fact, the search site is trying to predict what we really need. Sometimes successful, sometimes not. There is virtually no difference between the examples above. The search always happens the same way, we just look in different search places and click the links we need. I only gave the most “contrasting” examples, so you should not look for the “Search for similar photos” or “Search for a person by photo” button. There is none of them. The search is always the same. It all depends on what we are looking for.

Google Image Search is a very powerful tool with many settings and features. Finding a similar picture or page on a social network from a person’s photo is possible. Of course, there are many “buts” here, because the search is carried out by complex but predictable algorithms, and not by real intelligence. In any case, the ability to use image search is a useful skill that everyone who uses the Internet should master.