How to perform Google Image Search

There must be a lot of situations when you might have seen an unknown (or new) dress, appliance or any other thing and wondered what it is.

Google has come up with a solution for such situations, popularly known as Google Image Search or Google Lens which is evolving very fast to cope with the needs of the modern world.

You can perform Google Image Search using either your desktop or phone, whichever suits you best.

In this article, I am going to discuss how to perform Google Image Search using your phone or desktop.

What is Google Image Search

Just like you perform a normal search on Google, Image Search also works in the same way.

The only difference between them is that in normal Google Search you use text as the search term or terms but in the case of Image Search you use an image as a search term.

You can use any image as a search term. It can be a food dish, a dress, a flower or any other image you want to know about.

Google will then try to find similar images on the Internet and if it finds that image or images resembling it, it will then show those pages of the respective websites containing the image.

Also, it will try to look for any text present in the image and search using it.

How to perform Google Image Search

You can perform Google Image Search using your phone as well as your desktop.

For desktop method we'll be using Google Chrome with Google as the default Search Engine. If you're using any other browser, then you'll need to head over to Google.com to use this method.

For the phone method, we'll be using Google Lens for the Image Search.

Google Image Search Using Desktop:

For this method you'll need a desktop and a web browser.

1. Open Google Chrome on your desktop. If you are using any other browser then you'll need to head over to Google.com.
2. Now click on the Images link located on the top-right corner of your window.
   
3. Now on this page you'll need to click on the Camera icon present within the serach bar.
   
4. After clicking on the icon you'll get two options to upload the image you want to search. You can either use the Paste image URL or Upload an image option to select your desired image.
   
5. Here I will select an image from my desktop.
6. After the image is successfully uploaded, your Image Search will start and within seconds you'll get the relevant search results.
   

Alternative Method:

There's one more method that you can use for performing Google Image Search on your desktop. You can use this method when you want to search for an image found while surfing the Internet.

1. Open the page on which the image, you want to search about, is present.
2. Now, right-click on the image you want to search.
   
3. Now from the drop-down menu select the Search image with Google Lens to search that image on Google.
   

Google Image Search Using Phone:

For this method you'll only need Google Search installed on your phone.

1. Tap on the Google Lens icon present on the right-side of the Google Search shortcut, which will open it on your phone.
   Note: If you don't have the extended shortcut of Google Search on your home screen, then you can simply open the Google app and tap on the Google Lens icon located on the right-side of the search bar.
   
2. Now, you can capture a photo from your camera or select a photo from your gallery, which you want to search.(Here I will select a photo from my phone Gallery)
   
3. As soon as you select the image, within seceonds Google will start showing you relevant results.
   

In some Android phones, Google Lens is integrated within the Camera app of the phone. Therefore, you can use Lens after opening the Camera app, for clicking the photos, you want to search right now.

If you aren't able to find Google Lens within the Google app, then you can download the Google Lens app directly from the Play Store.

How does Google Image Search work

Google Image Search works based on a large number of algorithms or factors to provide the most relevant search results.

The list of results and the order in which they appear is also largely influenced by these algorithms.

Some common factors on which Google Image Search largely depends is your location or region, things you've been searching about, resemblance percentage, text within the image, etc.

For example, if you search using an image of the Statue of Liberty clicked from any angle and you are residing in the United States even if the image is not clear enough to exactly match the image of the statue, also then Google would make out that the image would be of Statue of Liberty and not of Unity.

These algorithms are more than a million in number. But Google filters out the results using these algorithms so fast that it's difficult to get an idea of the number of algorithms it's using.

Probably, that's the reason Google is so widely used :) Also, when Google discovers that your image is similar to two objects and it resembles the first object 95% and the second one as 5% then in most cases it leaves out second objects and does not contain it in the results page to avoid confusion.

Many times the image you search about would get several resembling images from around the Internet while the other times it may also return a single image result which Google has found as almost identical to yours.

The homework section in Google Lens, most of the time tries to read the text with the image and searches using that question as a query.

What is Google Reverse Image Search

Google Reverse Image Search technique is widely used to locate the source website of an image or to search for similar sites.

This technique is mostly used by web developers to prevent unlicensed use of their images and also for link building.

How to Perform Google Reverse Image Search

Google Reverse Image Search is performed in the same way as the normal search.

Just take the image from the Internet you want to reverse search and upload it on Google in the same way as mentioned above, to search for it.

FAQs About Google Image Search

Ques: Is Google Image Search Free ?
Ans: Yes, ofcoarse just like the normal query search on Google.

Ques: How to perform Google Image Search from gallery?
Ans: For this, open the image you want to search, in your gallery. Now tap on the share button and from the list of sharing apps tap on the Google icon labelled as Search Image.

Ques: How to search about an image found on another app?
Ans: For that, you can download that image or take a screenshot of the same and follow the above steps to search that image.

Ques: What is the difference between Google Lens and Google Image Search?
Ans: They both are almost the same but have slight difference. Google Lens has more categorised searching feature (eg- Homework, Food, etc.) than Google Image Search which carries out search on a broader basis.

Conclusion

Altogether, Google Image Search or Lens is a really useful tool for saving time and getting the desired result.

Whether for personal or professional needs, Google Image Search has reduced the amount of effort that you needed to put in to get the same result.

If you have any questions, you can always ask me in the comments section. I'll be happy to help.