Google image search and a wake up call for photographers

Will you be left behind if Google Image search, or other Internet image search engines actually become proficient at helping people and businesses find the photos they need?

Google Image Search and The Future The new Google Image search gives us a glimpse of what might be. The new format allows for incredibly fast viewing of images and the relevancy appears to be improved as well. As Google zeroes in on relevancy I believe Google Image search will become a much more important tool for anyone looking for stock photography.

Funny Bloodhound Picture Searches

I just used the new Image search for the term “funny bloodhound pictures”. One of my images, three dogs looking perplexed (one of which is a bloodhound), came up about ten times earlier than it used to. And it is WAY faster to peruse through the images.

What Does Google Image Search Improvements Mean For Photographers?

As Google Image search brings up better and better imagery more and more quickly, then those who have done the work to get their images online will benefit…particularly those photographers who have the best and most relevant images for the people searching. A Wake Up Call The new Google Image search is a wake-up call to photographers and image creators. Look down the road five years from now and I believe image search might just offer an opportunity to tap in to the vast market of consumers and low-end stock photo users as well as the occasional higher-end art buyer who is looking beyond the traditional agency sources.

Add in technology such as PicScout’s and others that provide image tracking and licensing and the whole stock world might be turned upside down. By then perhaps most stock photo searches will be on Google…who knows! I wouldn’t bet against Google figuring it all out and eventually capturing the lion’s share of stock photo searches….

Check Out Google Image Search If you haven’t done so yet, check out the new Google Image Search. It has a long way to go, but you can see the potential. The question is, as photographers can we afford to gamble that Google Image search, or perhaps some other internet search engine, won’t become the de facto method for stock photo searches?

About the author

John Lund  has been shooting professionally for over 30 years.  John was an early adopter of Photoshop, first using version 1.0 in 1990.  He began using digital capture in 1994.  John has been active in the stock photography world as a founding member of BLEND IMAGES, and long time contributor to Getty Images, Corbis, and, more recently SuperStock.

John has lectured on digital imaging and stock photography, has been a columnist for PICTURE and DIGITAL IMAGING magazines, and written ADOBE MASTER CLASS, PHOTOSHOP COMPOSITING WITH JOHN LUND.  John has been a frequent speaker at Photo Plus and other venues and has taught workshops at Palm Beach Workshops and Santa Fe Workshops.  His work can be seen at www.johnlund.com