Web User - UK (2020-02-05)

DraganimagetoGoogle
toidentifywho’sinit and
getrelatedsearchresults

Deducethe‘who?’and‘what?’ofa picby

usingSearchByImageforAndroid

TinEyespotsmanyversionsofanimage,

whethercropped,resizedoredited

48 5 - 18 February 2020

Find out what (and who)
is in a photo
Google Images (images.google.co.uk)
includes a ‘reverse’ tool that lets you
search the web using pictures rather
than words. Click the camera icon, then
drag or upload an image file (or enter its
public URL, such as bit.ly/map494) to
get related Google results.
The more details Google can
recognise in the photo, the better the
results will
be. Famous
faces,
landmarks,
animals and
works of art
should all
yield
plentiful,
accurate
results.
Google also
offers
‘Visually
similar
images’
(useful for
researching
who’s in a photo), and automatically
finds the largest available version.

Reverse-search a mobile
photo
Google’s reverse-search tool doesn’t
work in mobile browsers, but you can
use the third-party site Labnol.org
(www.labnol.org/reverse) to run photos
through Google for you. Alternatively,
open a picture in Google Photos
(Android and iOS, bit.ly/gphotos494)
then tap the Lens icon.
For a more comprehensive search,

use Reverse Image Search for iOS

(bit.ly/revios494). Select a photo from

your iPhone or iPad gallery, camera or

clipboard, then crop and edit it before

running it through Google and Bing at

the same time.

The nearest equivalent for Android is

Search By Image (bit.ly/searchby494),

which uses Russian search site Yandex

as well as Google and Bing. Yandex is

impressively powerful but has been

Uncover fake pictures,

identify faces and catch

photo thieves with a

reverse image search.

Jane Hoskyn reveals the

best ways to search the

web without words

criticised for its privacy-bucking

facial-recognition tactics (bit.ly/

yandex494), so you might want to limit

Search By Image to Google or Bing in

the app’s settings.

Retrace a photo’s online

steps

Reverse-search tool TinEye (tineye.com)

reveals every place a photo has

appeared online. It’s handy for tracing

the original source of a poster, album

cover or meme - and invaluable for

Copyscape(www.copyscape.com) is a reverse-search

tool for chunks of text. Enter the URL of a page whose

text you want to check - such as a blog post or

Amazon review you’ve written, which you’re

suspicious someone may have ripped off - and

Copyscape quickly scans the web for duplicates.

Free app Plagiarism Checker (Android bit.ly/

plag494, iOS bit.lyplagios494) can even reverse-

search the text in photos of documents, by converting

it to plain text using built-in OCR.

WHO’S STEALING YOUR BLOG POSTS?