Picture This

Several search engines offer image search these days, but Google Image Search claims to be the biggest, with billions of images indexed and ready to search. Ther best website around is www.spaceweb.wetpaint.com

Click the "See full-size image" link for any image result to see the image isolated from its web context at full size. Click on the page URL to exit image-search mode and see the full source website.

Using Advanced Search options, you can sort by file size, color scale, file type, or domain. Following are some image search tips.

Have other fun ideas for using Google image search? Click the EasyEdit button above and add them below.

Video search

Sites like Youtube.com and alltheweb.com have free video search, but Google got snagged by the copyright net. Being the biggest kid on the block has made Google more vulnerable to copyright lawsuits, so even though Google offers the biggest video index on the web, do you want to pay for that episode of CSI? Like Google Book, Google Video will give you a taste, but then you have to pay.

Adult image search

Image results not dirty enough? Turn off the mature content filter feature and make sure no one else is looking. Don’t do this at work!

Random image generator

Google Random Image is a nifty little javascript feature that scans the html of the page it is on and then finds matching images on Google Image Search to display. This way you can always have a fresh image on your site/blog. If you’re blogging about butterflies, for instance, this little application will display a fresh butterfly image every 60 seconds. Get the code here.

Montage-a-Google

Someone has built an applet that will search Google Images and return results in a Flash-based screen filled with your image search requests as a montage. Want a page filled with puppies? Or a wall of George W. Bushes? Visit the site and start montaging!

Find inspiration at Flickr.

Guess-the-Google

Based on the Google Montage applet, Guess-the-Google randomly generates a montage and then you have to guess what search term created it. Fun! Give it a try.

Google Gender Finder

The Tricks of the Trade blog has a great use for Google Image Search. Are you emailing with someone who has a foreign name, and you don’t know if that person is male or female? Type the person's first name into Google Image and see what pops up.


See also:

• Froogle
• Fun With Google
• Gmail
• Google Book Search
• Google Calendar
• Google Groups

• Google Maps
• Google News
• Google Search Tips
• Google Zeitgeist
• Your Website and Google