Have you ever been just a bit nervous about putting an image online, not sure who’s going to copy it and claim it for their own? You can head over to Google and search for the file name to find out if anyone has duplicated it. But what about finding an exact match for your images?

Enter reverse image searches. Upload your image into the search tools, and it will scour the web looking for matches without worrying about keywords, copy, or file names.

TinEye is a new entry into the world of reverse image searches, and is by far coming out as the leader in this category.

TinEye allows you to submit an image and find out where it came from, how it is being used, if modified versions of the image exist, or find higher resolution versions. The technology is pretty cool. When you submit an image, it creates a “fingerprint” and then compares that fingerprint to every other image it retrieves through searches. It won’t find similar images – only things that are an exact match, even if its been cropped, resized or adjusted.

TinEye offers a free account, which allows you to run 100 searches per day. Or upgrade for large volume  – 1000 searches for $70, 5000 searches for $300, or 30,000 searches for $1500. 

TinEye is by far the best tool that I could find for reverse images, yet there are numerous tools that allow you to search for similarities.

GazoPa

BYO Image Search

Tiltomo

What am I missing?