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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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