It has been said that a picture is worth a thousand words, so trying to search for pictures on the Internet by looking for text-based web pages that they might be on usually isn’t the fastest or most efficient method. Fortunately, Google Search — like most other search engines — can do this background work for you, finding pictures based on their name or their surrounding text on the web page that they’re on.
How to do a Google Image Search
- Click in your web browser’s address bar and type in www.google.com.
- In the top-right corner, click Images.
- Click in the search box and type in what you’re looking for. As you do so, Google Search will give you suggestions on what you might be looking for. You can click one of the suggestions to search using those terms, or click the search button (
) to search for exactly what you typed in.
- Underneath the search box on the results page, you can easily switch to searching for another type of content by clicking Web, Shopping, Maps, Videos, etc. You can also click Search Tools and use the drop-down menus to filter your search results by:- The size of the image
– The general colour of the image
– The type of image it is (photo, profile picture, drawing, animation, etc.)
– When the image was created (a month ago, a year ago, 3 years ago, etc.)
– How you’re allowed to use the image (copy it, edit it, not use it to make money, etc.)You can also click the search terms above the actual results to add those terms to your search.
- Unlike the regular version of Google Search, Google Image Search displays all of your results on the same page. If you get to the bottom of the page and still haven’t found quite what you’re looking for, click Show More Results to see more pictures.
- Click an image to select it and bring up a screen with options on what you can do with it. The numbered explanations below the screenshot will be your guide.
1. Deselect – Click the “X” here to deselect this image and go back to your search results.
2. Origin Website – Click here to go to the main page of the website that this image comes from.
3. Image Size – Click here to see other versions of this image that are a different size.
4. Search by Image – Click here to have Google Search guess what this image is most related to, and then search for other related content (websites, videos, news stories, etc.).
5. Visit Page – Click here to go to the exact web page that the image is on.
6. View Image – Click here to look at the image file itself, without any outside distractions.
7. Previous Image – Click here to quickly look at the previous search result.
8. Next Image – Click here to quickly look at the next search result.
9. Related Images – Here, you’ll see thumbnail versions of images that Google Search thinks are similar to the one you are looking at now. Click one to quickly look at it.
And those are the basics of how to perform a Google Image Search!
