Tineye is an image search engine that uses an image as input for generating results.

Long story short, most SE (search engines) use keywords supplied by people for generating image results. The downside is that by using this technique, SE try to guess the content of an image by it’s file name, surrounding keywords, etc.

TinEye tries a different approach. It uses an image provided by you to search for similar images. Here are two advantages I can think of:

• You have a picture, but need a higher resolution. A regular SE won’t help you much.
• There is a watermark on your image. It is possible to find the original image, unedited.

But the major drawback is… you need the actual image to begin your search!

At this moment, TinEye is still in beta. You need an account to perform any searches, but obtaining one requires a few days (invitations are not given immediately). Fortunately it seems I have 3 invitations to send. So if you need any, drop a comment.

In the future I’m hoping they provide an API for their search service. Yep, I need it for LOLhome :)