Google adds search by color

Jake Widman
Thursday, 09 April 2009 02:12

Your IT - Home IT

Image searchers can now restrict the results of a Google Image Search to images of a particular color.

As described in the Official Google Blog , Google Image Search now has a new option in the blue bar. Next to the dropdown menus for selecting image size and type of content is an All Colors menu; click on it, and you get a choice of 12 colors to limit your results to: red, orange, yellow, green, teal, blue, purple, pink, white, gray, black, or brown.

The results work well in most cases, though the color selected won't always be the color of the item in the search box. For example, a search for "Iris" restricted to Green brings up fields of purple flowers amidst green stalks and grass -- as well as a selection of green eyes.

At the same time, it works for targets you might not think of restricting by color -- a search for Lily Allen restricted to Green, for example, brings up photos of the songstress in a green sweater. And restricting almost any search to Gray brings up lots of black and white photos. These options should make it easier for designers to find the right image to match their layouts or Web pages.