16 Image Search

We discuss and explore the variety of image resources and search tools available.

Class held on 10/29/2008. Student notes are available on this page. Possible questions are available on this page.

Class structure

1. Go through “At beginning of class” information
2. Go through diagram explaining page monitors & RSS filters
3. Work on exercises

At beginning of class

1. No new grades.
2. The exam is one week from Monday (i.e., November 10).
   • You should review the questions that have been posted so far, add to them as necessary, revise them as you see fit, and add pages for questions from days that don't have questions. (Do this by clicking on the link for the appropriate day.) Your motivation for this is that more questions that you have seen before might be on the exam. All of this posting of/revising questions must be done by midnight at the end of a week from this Friday.
   • The exam will be multiple choice, true/false, short answer, and essay.
   • You will be responsible for my lectures, for my in-class demonstrations, for your exercises, for student industry/company updates, and for anything that I have written on the Web site.
   • Post any questions you might have about the exam on the class forum under “Assignments.”
3. Check the class notes page to see who is taking notes today and who is coming up with questions.
4. Go over any other announcements you might have missed since last class.
5. Check the start page for any blogs you might be interested in that you might have missed.
6. There are four more opportunities to write a blog entry.
7. Again: I have arranged the Yahoo visit for early December. Don't miss that class!
8. Let's look over the upcoming industry updates.
   • For this class:
     • Search industry update: Eric Brackmann (Eric Brackmann)
   • For next class:
     • Google update: Caitlin (Caitd)

My notes

1. Diversity of image search tools
   • Search the Web
   • Search public, site-specific images
   • Search for-pay or for-free images
   • Search for facial images
   • Use images to find other images
   • Search news sites for images
2. General search
   1. Google Images — "Ann Arbor" example, only photos of Ann Arbor
      • Can search by size, filetype, color, domain (and description, of course)
      • Can limit your search results to newscontent, faces, or photo content (under advanced search)
   2. Ask Images — example
      • Can search by size, filetype, color
   3. Yahoo Images — example
      • Can search by size, color, domain
   4. Exalead Images — example
      • Be sure to hover a cursor over any image in the results page.
      • Under “advanced search”, can narrow your search by size, orientation, and color (search help)
3. Image-focused search engines
   1. TinEye
      • Search for this photo: http://etc.usf.edu/clipart/3700/3758/eiffel-tower_1_lg.gif
   2. PicSearch (and advanced search page)
      • "ann arbor" "michigan theater"
      • Can search for animations separately; also search by color and size
   3. Pixolu — search for [eiffel tower]
      • Searches Google, Flickr, and Yahoo
4. Face search
   1. Exalead
      • Search for Gerald Ford
      • Only face shots of Gerald Ford
   2. Picitup
      • Search for "Gerald Ford"
      • Only facial shots of Gerald Ford
      • Search from Yahoo, Flickr, or Picasa
      • Search filters based on size, layout, faces, landscapes
   3. FaceSaerch
      • Search for Gerald Ford
   4. Google Images
      • Search for "Gerald R. Ford"
      • Using the advanced search page, search for facial shots of Gerald Ford
5. Image-specific search engines for their private database of images
   1. Flickr
      • Can search by full text or tags
      • Explore flickr
      • Explore the world with flickr
   2. Compfight: a flickr search tool
      • Search for [eiffel tower]
      • Notice difference in searching "Tags only" vs. "All text"
6. Searching the news sites for images
   1. Images at Yahoo News — you can't specify to search for images but they appear at the top of the results page
      • This works as a direct link — just replace the “carbon+trading” with your own search term
   2. Images at Google News — again, you can't specify to search for images directly
      • This works as a direct link — just replace the ``detroit+lions with your own search term
7. Stock photography (recommended by Presentation Zen)
   • Inexpensive (but good)
     1. iStockPhoto
     2. Getty Images
     3. DreamsTime
     4. Fotolia
     5. StockXpert
   • Free (but not bad)
     1. MorgueFile
     2. Flickr's Creative Commons images
     3. ImageAfter
     4. StockXchng
     5. EveryStockPhoto
     6. FreePixels
8. US Library of Congress images

Blog ideas

• Compare your results (related to efforts for your term project) using Google Images compared with one of PicSearch, Exalead Image, Compfight, Picitup, Flickr, Compfight
• Compare the effectiveness (related to efforts for your term project) of the two news image search tools (Google News, Yahoo News)

Resources

1. Where to find free images and visuals...