Ever wanted to find every photo you’ve ever uploaded that contains a certain person, place or object? Google has quietly introduced an amazing feature called Photo Search to Google+ that allows you to do just that, and it’s mind blowing.
Google introduced a whole host of new features to Google+ recently at its I/O developer conference, including things like Auto Backup and Auto Enhance. Somehow Photo Search snuck under the radar, but we’re here to show you how awesome it is.
You can now do a photo search on Google+ and thanks to visual recognition technology, Google’s social network will bring up any photos containing a match of your search terms – either photos from your own library or ones uploaded by those in your circles. For example, search ‘food’ and Google+ will recognise food – of any type – in any picture you or your friends have uploaded, and bring it to you as a search result.
This works both on the website and on the Google+ apps, with the new Search photos option now available in the Photos section.
We’ve given it a try and the results are very impressive. A couple of occasions have resulted in some images missing, so it’s not quite perfect – but then again, what technology is? Here’s an example of one of our searches where we asked Google+ to find all our dog pictures.
As you can see, Google’s photo search function can recognise what’s in your photos and match that to search queries. We tested searches for ‘food’ and ‘rugby’, although for some reason the numerous pics taken at a rugby match didn’t shown up – perhaps the subject wasn’t obvious enough.
Check out Google’s nifty new photo search tool for yourself next time you’re using Google+ online or on mobile and try it for yourself!