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Photo
search or image search is now big business on the Internet.
Most of the major search engines now have photo search capabilities.
Google, AllTheWeb, Lycos and AltaVista all have photo search
engines integrated into their sites.
There are also
a few search engines devoted entirely to photo search such
as Ditto.com and Picsearch.com. Ditto offers suggestions
for related searches on the left panel along with the photo
search results. Picsearch has a simpler interface offering
a clean page full of images for each photo search.
Sometimes the
photo search engines refer to the major search engines or
meta search engines such as Dogpile with image search capabilities.
Other time the photo search is confined to smaller databases
of images such as those found in online libraries, collections
or within commercial stock photo agencies. In addition,
newspapers have also developed photo search capabilities.
Government,
public and university libraries are all getting in on the
photo search craze with their own specialized collections.
Also stock photo agencies selling images online or on CD
find that the Internet with photo search capabilities are
helping their businesses more than just print advertising.
Newspapers now have another medium in which to advertise
their photo reprints opening a new avenue for revenue for
both online and brick and motor companies.
Photo search
results conducted in an online library, stock photo agency
or newspaper will seldom show up when searching a major
search engine, photo search engine or meta search engine.
This is due to the fact that these photos are usually stored
in databases, which are inaccessible to the search engine
robots rather than web pages that are accessible.
Photo search
engines are based on textual searches that based on the
words that are associated with the images. There have been
some experimental attempts to create content-based photo
search engines that take image size and color into account,
but these are still in development.
A photo search
engine usually indexes the photo's file name and/or alt
text associated with the image. Some other information that
may be taken into account is meta tag information and other
supporting text and captions on the same web page as the
photo. This information can also be used to exclude images
from a photo search such as images with adult content.
On many photo
search engines an advanced query can be made for specific
file types. These types include .jpg, .gif and even .png
photos, which are the standards for the Internet. On rare
occasions you may be able to also find .tif and .bmp photos
as well.
In addition,
on some photo search engines you will be able to conduct
Boolean, wildcard or truncated searches.
Many users believe
that images they find while doing a photo search are free
and for the most part this is incorrect. User's need to
check the photo usage rights information associated with
the images. This information is usually found on the same
website as the photo. Even if a website says its photos
are free, it is best to check with the photo's creator for
permission to use it.
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