TinEye is a popular reverse image search engine. It lets users to search for similar image across the web. So basically, user needs to upload an image and then it will search across the web for the same image and user will be able to find out how it is being used, where it came from, if modified versions of the image exist or to find higher resolution versions.
This is very useful in finding out who is using your copyrighted image. TinEye uses image identification technology rather than metadata, keywords, or watermarks. You can find similar images by visiting tineye.com but if this is something that you keep on doing regularly, then here’s a TinEye client for Windows that can integrate with Windows Explorer context menu. This windows extension enables users to upload images to TinEye right from the desktop and there’s no need to visit the site for this task.
How TinEye Client Works
This unofficial client for TinEye works by looking for similar images on TinEye directly from Windows Explorer and it integrates to right click menu. This is how this client exactly works.
Step1: Install the TinEye client and it supports shell-integration that means it will integrate to context menu for Windows Explorer. Right click on the image file for which you want to start searching for similar images. Now click on TinEye.
Step2: The client will upload a compressed version of the image to TinEye. Wait till this process completes.
Step3: The final step. You will now be redirected to the TinEye results page using default web browser. From here you can see how many websites are using the same image. It will also show image name, format, resolution and size.
Sort results can also be changed from left side – sort by best match, most changed and biggest image.
If you don’t want to right click an image from local hard drive, you can also open TinEye client shortcut from desktop.
You can see two options: “From File” and “Paste Image”. “From file” option will prompt you to browse and select an image file and the second option “Paste image” will copy the image which is in your clipboard and uploads it the site. There is also a one click option to enable/disable TinEye option in context menu, just in case you want to disable the default behavior. The program is compatible with all versions of Windows.
If you’re using Google Chrome, then here’s TinEye extension for this browser.
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