It’s difficult to understand why Google didn’t develop an online photo editor: it would’ve integrated with Picasa Web Albums, Google Docs and other Google services. Right now, Picasa Web Albums is just an online extension of Picasa, a popular software that lets you manage your photos. Unlike Picasa Web Albums, most Google services work online and don’t require additional applications.
Instead of migrating Picasa online, Google acquired Picnik, an online photo editor that already integrates with Picasa Web Albums and many other photo services.
“Today, we’re excited to announce that Google has acquired Picnik, one of the first sites to bring photo editing to the cloud. Using Picnik, you can crop, do touch-ups and add cool effects to your photos, all without leaving your web browser,” mentions Google’s blog.
Picnik will not be discontinued and Google promises that the service will continue to support all the existing partners, but I suspect that Flickr will no longer use it as the default photo editor.
There’s something magical in the absence of color and there is something unbelievably inspiring in black and white photography. This is the oldest type of photography and still the most inspiring one.
Multicolr is a Flickr-based image search engine that allows you to search by color . To see only black and white photography, all you need is to pick colors from the last row:
Yahoo Image Search : Only few people know that Yahoo can be the best Flickr image search engine you’ve ever tried; mainly, because it has some useful search option that Flickr doesn’t. One of them is actually Black&Whit photos. Both options are accessed via Advanced search; there you can set the image color (black and white) and image source (check Flickr to only include photos from Flickr). Right there, you can also set the license filter to only search for images available for distribution:
Corbisimages is my preferred stock images search engine that both contains a high-quality selection of creative photography and offers a robust search feature with lots of features. I first learned about it from this image search engines overview by Edward Khoo and it has been my personal favorite since then.
Besides setting it to search through black and white images only, you can filter:
By Type (photography or illustration);
By distribution rights (royalty-free or “rights managed”);
By editorial type (current news, documentary, fine art; entertainment):;
By orientation (horizontal, vertical, panorama);
By date when the photo was created;
By photographer.
Bing Image Search : As an avid Googler, I feel bad listing both Yahoo and Bing and not mentioning Google; but here’s the truth: I love Google general search, I hate Google images search. It is both limited and irrelevant. I prefer Bing Image Search engine.
It has plenty of great search options (including a black and white filter):
Search by size (small, medium, large, wallpaper);
Search by layout (squire, tall, wide);
Search by style (photography or illustration);
Check special people search filters: just faces or including head and shoulders.
Besides, it offers a similar search option if you hover your mouse cursor over an image.
Picsearch is a good alternative image search engine to have by hand. It doesn’t have any extraordinary search options to mention. The only reason I use it from time to time is that it provides totally different search results – something I’d never be able to find using ordinary tools like Google or Yahoo.
“Picsearch uses its own technology to crawl the web and has created a searchable index of images…. Picsearch image search technology has three main features that make it unique. It has a relevancy unrivalled on the web due to its patent-pending indexing algorithms. Also, Picsearch has a family friendliness that allows children to surf in safety as all offensive material is filtered out by our advanced filtering systems. The site is also very user friendly as it’s designed to be simple, fast and accurate.”
Besides searching for black and white photography, the tool offers a few other nifty features like:
Filtering by size;
Filtering by type (landscape versus portrait for example);
A few months ago when we announced the Search Options panel, we promised that you would soon see similar functionality across our other search properties. Today we are rolling out Search Options for Google Images.
This new feature offers quick access to existing tools, including search by color and image type. Color search will find images that are only in color or only in black and white, or even images that contain a specific color, such as red, pink, or green. Type search is a great way to narrow down your results if you are looking for a specific kind of image, such as a photo, clip art, line drawing or face.
We’ve also revamped our size search. In addition to choosing from commonly searched-for sizes, now you can search for an exact image size or any image larger than a certain size. You can find images of practically any size, including 70 megapixels or more.
The new layout makes it faster and easier to combine and toggle between options. It also makes it easier for us to add additional image search options in the future, so keep your eyes peeled. Just click “Show options…” in the blue bar on the search results page to try out any of these tools.
Google’s image search engine constantly adds new features that help you filter search results. Here’s a list of some new options that aren’t yet available in the user interface:
1. New ways to specify image sizes
The current interface lets you find images that are small, medium, large or extra large, but you can’t find 2 MP photos. Now you can restrict results to 2 MP, 4 MP, 6 MP, 8 MP, 10 MP, 12 MP photos or larger photos:
This video introduces our new Similar Images feature. Similar Images allows you to search for images using pictures rather than words. With the similar images feature, most images have a link below them that lets you find other images like them. There’s no need for you to refine the text of your query. Your new results will be tailored based on whatever image you select.
Docs and other Google services. Right now, Picasa Web Albums is just an online extension of Picasa, a popular software that lets you manage your photos. Unlike Picasa Web Albums, most Google services work online and don’t require additional applications.
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