- What features would you like to see in TinEye?
Howdy folks! We are furiously working on the next stage of development for TinEye which will include all sorts of wonderful things:
- Automated image monitoring and image alerts
- User-submitted contributions to the TinEye image database
- A bigger and better index as always
But besides these gems, what would you like to see?
Please answer in the comments–speak and be heard!
Image by Hans_van_Rijnberk
- Extension preferences here for Firefox and Chrome
When we announced our new Safari plugin, we mentioned that TinEye extension preferences were on their way for Firefox and Chrome. And now they’re here!
The new extension preferences allow you to:
- Show/hide TinEye icon in context menu (Firefox only)
- Set sort order preference as best match, most changed biggest image or last used*
- Open searches in background, foreground or current tab
TinEye extension preferences are easy to set!
In Firefox, go to Tools>Add-ons in the Firefox menu bar. Locate ‘TinEye Reverese Image search’ in the Add-ons window list and click the ‘Options’ button.
In Chrome, go to Tools>Extensions in the Chrome menu bar. Locate ‘TinEye Reverese Image search’ in the extensions list and click the ‘Options’ link.
We hope you enjoy! <3
* The sort order set in your extension preferences will take precedence over your browser’s last remembered sort order.
- Safari extension is here!
The TinEye extension is now available for Safari, allowing you to conveniently search for any web image straight from your browser.
Once installed, simply right-click on any web image and select either “Search Image on TinEye” or “Search Page on TinEye”. Results are displayed for you at tineye.com
We are also introducing preferences to our family of extensions, starting with Safari. Preferences allow you to:
- Set the default sort order for your search results
- Open searches in background, foreground or current tab
Firefox, Chrome and IE users: Don’t worry! Preferences are coming for you soon (keep an eye on our updates page).
Safari users: Get the new TinEye extension while it’s hot!
- Remember sorting preferences
They say a robot never forgets–or is that an elephant? Well in any case, TinEye has been doing his memory exercises because he now remembers your sorting preferences!Whether you’re logged in our out, and even if you’ve totally shut down your browser, TinEye will remember your last sorting preference. For example, if you searched for the biggest version of an image the last time you used TinEye, you will get the biggest results first the next time you use TinEye.
Enjoy, and happy searching!
Image by matsuyuki
- Unveiling our TinEye redesign
Hello folks! If you haven’t noticed, things are looking quite different over at TinEye. We have been working on the redesign with the great folks over at silverorange, and we’re sure they’re just as excited about the launch as we are!
Aside from a whole new look, the navigation and layout of the site has changed. And of course there is the addition of our new mascot! This robot-on-wheel will need a name soon… do I smell a contest?
Back to business. What exactly has changed? Well…
We’ve prettied-up the way results are displayed
The sort order is now clearly visible on the left side of your results, along with some easy ways to share your results with others. For image matches that appear on multiple domains, we’ve added a little orange count in the corner of the image thumbnail.
We’ve made it possible to share individual match results
Unlike the ‘Share Results’ column on the left side of the page which shares your entire set of search results, clicking ‘Link’ under an individual image match will allow you to view and share just that image match (anyone you share with will have the option to see the full set of results, as well). You have asked and we have delivered!
We remember what you were looking for
A small but important update! Now when you look for a web image, TinEye links back to that image in your search results so you don’t have to keep another browser window/tab open.
We’ve introduced badges
Share the love! Embed one of our cool new badges on your website and help get the word out about TinEye.
We’ve introduced content partner images
If you haven’t heard already, TinEye is officially accepting image submissions from online contributors. We have added a form to contact us if you manage a large online image collection and would like to submit them to the TinEye index. We have already indexed iStockphoto, Photoshelter and Clustershot and we have some further announcements to make very shortly.
We have also started identifying our various content partners in your search results. This makes it even easier to attribute the original author or source of an image. Just click on the URL in the ‘TinEye Contributor’ box to get to the official page for that image on our contributors’ website.
There’s plenty more to see on our new website, so do hop on over and have a look. Better yet, say hi and tell us what you think, or drop by our Facebook page. In the meantime, we are going back to work on the next update!
- TinEye API
We are excited to officially launch our TinEye Commercial API.
Since we launched TinEye, your most requested feature has been an API. For the non developer community: an API is an ‘application programming interface‘. It is a tool that allows you to access and interface with an existing web-based service, and enables you to develop programs that interact with this service. Our API allows you to develop programs that utilize the TinEye search engine.
We have seen great interest for the TinEye API from the user-generated and photography communities, developers, our clients and TinEye users. The API can be used in so many ways:
- Websites with user-generated content can check all incoming images against the TinEye index
- Content owners can queue up image batches to be searched automatically or at regular intervals
- Mobile applications can search incoming photos to identify content
- And lots of other solutions from copyright compliance to profile verification to brand monitoring!
Just remember: The TinEye API allows you to interact with TinEye the same way you are currently doing it via the web. You send TinEye a search request via the API and it provides you with a list of results. Our new API website provides complete documentation for everything you need to know about implementing the API. It provides pricing and allows you to make purchases online. There is an FAQ and a brand new TinEye forum for questions.
A few words about what the API is not: It is not installable software. It does not have a user interface. It will not do anything on its own, automatically. It will not make you breakfast (even though it would really like to, trust us). A knowledge of programming is required to implement the API. If you are not technical, maybe bake a batch of bribe-cookies for your programmer friends or co-workers?
Get started with the TinEye API today!
- Photoshelter partners with TinEye
What happens when you mix two really great things together? Generally, something super-great.And that’s why the TinEye team is excited to announce our partnership with the good folks over at Photoshelter, a leader in portfolio websites, photo sales and archiving tools for photographers.
In a couple of weeks, we’ll be adding the entire Photoshelter image collection to the TinEye search index, making it easy for TinEyers to find Photoshelter photographers as well as identify them as the original author of an image. Plus we’ll be keeping up to date by adding any new Photoshelter images to the TinEye index as they are introduced. Pretty neat, eh?
Check out Photoshelter’s TinEye announcement on their website, and stay tuned to TinEye for some lovely Photoshelter images coming soon!
Update: Check out Photoshelter’s recent blog post, explaining the partnership in more detail.
- Using TinEye on a mobile device
Attention iPhone, Blackberry and smartphone junkies! Did you know that you can easily use TinEye to search for images you come across while browsing the web on your phone? Yep, all you need to do is install the TinEye bookmarklet. A bookmarklet is a little script that can be saved as an ordinary bookmark. The TinEye bookmarklet scrapes all of the images from the page you are viewing and sends them to TinEye.
Below is a little walk-through on how to install and use the TinEye bookmarklet on a mobile device, using the iPhone as an example.
Installing the TinEye bookmarklet
The easiest way to install the bookmarklet on your phone, is to add it to your PC/Mac bookmarks first, and then sync your bookmarks to your mobile device. Bear with me, you will only have to do this once!
Start at the TinEye bookmarklet page. Add the bookmarklet by right-clicking the grey ‘TinEye Images’ button and selecting ‘Bookmark This Link’ or ‘Add to Favorites’. In Safari you can just drag the button into your bookmarks toolbar as below:
Here you can see that the bookmarklet has been successfully added to my browser’s bookmarks. It shows up as ‘TinEye images’:
Now sync your PC/Mac bookmarks to your mobile device using the sync software for your smartphone. For the iPhone, this is easily done in iTunes from the ‘Info’ tab for your device. You may sync your bookmarks independently of other data (contacts, music, email, etc.).
I’ve complete the sync, and the TinEye bookmarklet is now showing up in the Safari Bookmarks Bar on my iPhone. Success! Installation complete:
Using the TinEye bookmarklet
Now for the easy part. Using the TinEye bookmarklet is super-simple. Just browse over to a web page containing some images you would like to search. I’ll use the Picasso entry on Wikipedia as an example:
To search for any images on this page, just open up the bookmarks on your mobile device and select the TinEye Images bookmarklet. On the iPhone, your bookmarks are accessed using the icon circled in the screenshot above.
Once you select the TinEye images bookmarklet, all the images on the page you were just viewing will be scraped and sent to TinEye. To search for an image, just select the one you want and view your results:
Fun, no? Once you have your TinEye results you can sort them by size or closest match just as you normally would. See what sorts of interesting results you can find when you’re on the go with TinEye!
- Make search easier: Upload a set of images
Hey! You may not know this, but you can submit the URL of a page that contains many images to TinEye. What will happens is TinEye will scrape the page for images, and let you choose which ones to search for. If you take advantage of browser tabs, you can search for several images at once! Here’s a quick walk-through using some gorgeous photos from Flickr user wili as an example:
Start with a web page that contains several images which you would like to search. We used wili’s Explore! set on Flickr:
You’ll need the URL for this page to submit it to TinEye. Copy it from your browser’s navigation bar by selecting the full text, and then choosing ‘Copy’ from your right-click context menu or using the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+C:
Paste the URL into TinEye where it says ‘Paste URL here’, and click Search:
TinEye will go to that URL and scrape all the images visible on that page (up to 15 images at a time):
Clicking on an image will allow you to search for it. However if you take advantage of browser tabs you can search for several of the images at once. For example in Firefox this can be done by selecting ‘Open Link in New Tab’ from the right-click context menu, or by holding the Ctrl button as you click on the image.
TinEye conveniently displays a tiny thumbnail (favicon) of the image you selected as well as the number of results found on every new tab that is opened:
Those tabs will all load in the background as soon as you create them, so you can go from TinEye result to TinEye result seamlessly!
If you like this functionality, you may want to install the TinEye bookmarklet, which lets you skip having to cut and paste a URL into TinEye. Instead, when you’re on a page with lots of images, you just select the TinEye bookmarklet from your browser’s bookmarks and you’ll jump right to the ‘Select and image’ page on TinEye.
Give it a try and tell us what you think!
- Share TinEye search results with friends
Question: When you happen upon some really great TinEye search results, what do you do? Well you can selfishly keep that precious gem all to yourself (Scrooge), or you can spread the wealth!
We’ve just made it dead simple to share interesting TinEye search results with the internets. Click or hover over our new ‘Share’ button and pick your poison: Twitter, Facebook, Stumbleupon, Digg, email or your blog… admit it, you’re a social media butterfly.
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