TinEye - image search service

TinEye opened their service as public beta a few days ago. This is very long waited service that will be very useful for photographers.

Basically it searches the a picture in the internet, but the trick is that it looks for image itself, not text description or file name. Alterations of the image can be found too. When text, logos or other pictures are added on top of my picture, TinEye is still capable to find it. When I am looking for a logo, TinEye will find all pictures where logo is clearly visible.

This is one of my best selling stock pictures:

TinEye was able to find a heavily altered version:

and even a version with ad picture and text added on top:


This is great tool for authors to find their pictures in use and also to trace copyright violations. I am already impressed with the result - although the number of images that the system has indexed so far is quite low and very many pictures can not be found yet.

The service isn't opened publicly - you need to be registered to use it. In order to get registered you either need to get an invitation from them; or apply at their home page (they accepted my request in the same day).


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