How to Find a Duplicate Picture on the Internet
The ability to find duplicate pictures online can be useful in a variety of circumstances. Photographers and graphics designers can look for stolen versions of their work, people can find higher resolution and better quality version of images they only have a thumbnail of and Internet sleuths can find original versions of pictures that have been edited or modified. TinEye, launched in 2008, is the first and---as of early 2010---the only application available online to find duplicate pictures.
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Instructions
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Paste the URL of an image file or html page containing the image into the TinEye search field and click "Search." TinEye will search a variety of image formats including the standard JPG, PNG and GIF images.
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Select the image from the choices provided if you have supplied a Web page that has more than one image. Proceed by clicking on the image you want to search for.
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Click the "Choose File" button to upload a copy of an image file from your hard drive to the TinEye database for search.
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Scroll the results page to find duplicate pictures. TinEye will produce a list of all similar images, including ones that have been cropped, resized or edited in any way. If your image has a very common design (like a simple star shape, for instance), TinEye may return a variety of similar but irrelevant results.
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Tips & Warnings
The TinEye database is regularly updated with images, but may not be as comprehensive as other search engines. It is possible that TinEye will return no results even if the image is used elsewhere. Do not rely solely on TinEye to protect the copyright of an image.
