Google Images Search Adds New Filtering Options

With the new Microsoft-Yahoo deal, the competition in the search market may be heating up even more, so it's no surprise that all of the players are continually introducing new features and improvements. Released a few months ago, Google's Search Options panel has proved a very helpful tool, so the logical step has been to introduce it to other areas, which is what the company has done with the new Search Options in Google Images.

“A few months ago when we announced the Search Options panel, we promised that you would soon see similar functionality across our other search properties. Today we are rolling out Search Options for Google Images,” Ken Dauber, software engineer, and Nate Smith, associate product manager, wrote. “The new layout makes it faster and easier to combine and toggle between options. It also makes it easier for us to add additional image search options in the future, so keep your eyes peeled. Just click ‘Show options’ in the blue bar on the search results page to try out any of these tools.“

Image Search is especially competitive, so the new features are a welcomed addition. The Search Options panel features some filters, specific to images, some of which were already available, but with a different layout or in advanced search. You can filter the images by size and there are more options now, including the possibility to specify an exact image size or filter images that are large than a selected size, up to 70 megapixels. Be sure your browser and computer can handle them, though, as images this big will bring to their knees all but the most powerful rigs.

Other options are more interesting, though not new, enabling you to narrow your search to just faces or line drawings and even specify the predominant color in the photo. While some of these features are unique to Google, many are available in Bing and Yahoo Search, with each search engine having certain things that set it apart, so choosing the best one isn't that easy.