I have taken pictures of several items while hiking that I have no idea what they are.  Mainly they are weird-looking things I find growing on trees.  Sometimes I take the picture because I think it looks cool, and other times it is so I can look up what it is when I get home. The problem I have found is that it takes forever to find what I am looking for and often I can’t get the answer at all.  This frustration led me to wonder if there was a site (or if I had the next great million dollar idea for a site) that would “read” a photograph I uploaded and refer me to sites with similar pictures.  I discovered two such sites TinEye (in Beta) and Google Images photo search.  So much for my dreams of becoming a millionaire off the idea…but great that I potentially found what I was needing!  But not so fast…

TinEye did not produce results on any of the photos I uploaded.  Looks like they have some kinks to work out in the Beta phase.

Google Images Photo Search provided mixed results. You go to the regular Google Images tab and click on the photo icon in the search field.  This allows you to upload or link to a photo.

Much like their app Google Goggles, this feature works great if you upload any photo that has some sort of logo.  For example when I loaded this picture, it gave me the result that it was most likely the Jim Beam distillery – but I already knew that didn’t I?

For pictures like this one with an obvious large object in the frame it did what I wanted…gave me a similar picture with a link that named the object in question. I now know I have a nice photo of a tiger swallowtail and better still I could sell it as a poster for $29.95. 🙂

This picture produced results of numerous photos of purple and pink wildflowers, none of which were the same as the one I uploaded, and a host of purple and pink items that weren’t even flowers (My Little Ponies, etc.)

I can’t even begin to wonder what might show up when I upload this one!

So in the mean time, I will continue my fruitless searches and hopefully rely on your expertise out there to help me out!  What kinds of strange things have you discovered on your adventures?