Photo search

Google Image SearchI collect FAR too many photos from the web… stuff I find interesting or of my favorites topics like Bodie, Walt Disney’s apartment, the Disneyland Railroad, history or movie and TV filming locations. Sometimes I get an email or see a photo that has no description or information, which used to make it nearly impossible to figure out what the photo is, or where it was taken.

Well, Google has done it again. Their "Search by image" feature lets you find that image, or similar ones, without having to type in a huge description and guessing what might be useful in tracking down some information.

Here’s how it works:

  1. Save that amazing photo from your email or a website to your desktop. For this example, save the picture below (click the image so it opens the photo, then right-click and choose ‘Save picture/image as’).
    train                             Where was this train photo taken?!
  2. In your favorite browser, go to www.Google.com/images. You can also just go to Google and click the "Images" link in the top navigation.
  3. Move the browser window to the side so you can see the image icon that you saved on your desktop. Then, drag the image icon into the search field.
    The search field will change to a "Drop image here" box – just drop… drop the image there.
    Google Image Search
  4. Google will upload that image, analyze it and give you a best guess of what the original image was, as well as give you visually similar images.
    Google Image Search

From here, it makes things MUCH easier to figure out if that photo that claims a man eating shark was caught off the coast of Seattle is real, or where that spectacular photo of two steam locomotives crossing a trestle next to the ocean was taken.

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