How to Find out the Actual Source of an Image?

By Ashutosh Jha → Last Updated on Wednesday, December 26, 2018
Searching for images is not a hard task at all. When you use a search engine to get images, several links would be displayed on your screen. These images would have different resolutions and colour quality. However, the best quality of image is attained from the actual source. If the same image is uploaded on multiple websites, determining the actual source would not be an easy task to accomplish.

How to Find out the Actual Source of an Image?
"Several websites upload the same image and locating the actual source is a challenge. It is obvious that you cannot go through each source and locate the website which owns the rights of the image. If the source which you are using to download the image is not the actual one, the quality would not be up to the mark. Thus, if you want to get a clear view of the image, locating the actual source is very important".

Why should you locate the actual source of the image?

A lot of users do not know why the actual source of the image should be located. To start with, creating an image is not easy to accomplish. It is a detailed process involving immense creativity, concept creation, technical skills and other key stages.

Hence, the actual owner of the image needs to be provided with the required credit if anyone is using it. This is done by providing a link to the actual source. In this way, it would be clarified to the people who visit your website that the image used on it does not belong to you.

"Not giving credit to the actual owner of the image is legal infringement and can result in a law suit as well"

Locating the actual source of the image

As it is mentioned above that if an image can be viewed on multiple websites, it is hard to check each one of them and determine the actual source. However, you can accomplish this task by following the steps given below.

1. The first step is that you should open Google Image Search and paste the URL of the image in the search box. If the image is offline, you can browse it from the computer and upload it.

2. Once you have uploaded the image or its online link, click the search button and all the websites on which the image has been uploaded would be displayed on your screen. A lot of these links would be of Photo Bucket, Pinterest and other similar websites. In most cases, these websites do not own the image.

3. The image owners have a proper copyright statement which mentions whether the image can be used by others or not. By going through this statement, you would know whether you can use the image or not. A lot of image owners do not permit the reuse of their images. Others may permit this but only if certain conditions are fulfilled. All these details are mentioned in the copyright statement.

Before you use any image, it is necessary that you go through the copyright statement in a proper manner. On the other hand, if the copyright statement is not mentioned or you fail to determine the actual source due to any reason, it is a better option to use any other image.

Quality Applications that can be used

With several websites using an image, it is simply impossible to go through each one of them and check the required conditions, there are few quality soft wares that can help you through a convenient process.

Using a Software

There is no doubt that reverse image search tool is one of the finest software for reverse image search. It identifies the actual owner of the image or the source that is the copyright owner. With this software, you can be sure that proper credit is being given to the image owner and no violation is being done. This is much easier that searching for copyright statements, looking for image owners and then using the image. Here is the simple method to use Tin Eye.

1. If you have an image offline, look for the upload button. Browse the image and upload it. Similarly, if the image is online, paste its URL in the required box. Similarly, you can also upload an image present in another browser window or Tab. No need to install a separate browser for reverse finding of image because it supports all major browsers including Opera and Safari.

2. Reverse image tool has a registration process through which the user can set up an account. However, you can also use this application as a guest user.

3. A lot of users using image search tool or any other similar application do fear about their images being saved or indexed. This does not happen and users can afford to relax. To start with. Tool does not index any of the images or exercises any right over them. If you upload an image, it would always belong to you.

Reasons for finding the actual image source How would you feel if someone has used something that actually belongs to you without informing or giving credit? It is obvious that this feeling would not be pleasant at all.

Here are some key reasons why you need to determine the actual source of an image before using it.

• As it is mentioned above, you should not use something that belongs to someone else without giving credit. Same is the case with images. Quality images do not suddenly get created and uploaded online. Whether it is a natural photograph or an image created though a software, the creator puts in immense effort to create quality images so giving due credit is necessary.

A lot of business owners use images without even trying to find the actual owner. A more ethical way is that you if you are using an image provide a link to the actual website. This is not only an ethical practice but also adds to the knowledge of the visitor.

Consider that one of your visitors sees an uploaded image and wants to know more about the actual creator. If you have not provided a link to the actual source, people visiting your website would think that you have created the image from the start.

• In legal terms, if an image does not belong to you, proper credit has to be given to the actual owner to provide law suits.

• Infringement of law can have a negative effect on your brand. For instance, if you are using images that belong to someone else and the actual owner uses legal options, your brand would be affected negatively.

With the advancement in software and technology, there has been introduction of a lot of new products and services. The same goes to web content creation industry. What this means is that there is an introduction of new features that help us become better and more efficient content creators. A little while back, Google introduced the feature of reverse image search. Let us see what it is and how it can help us in various ways.

How is reverse image search different from a typical Google search?

In a typical Google search, you type in the words that you want to find information for. If you want to learn about racing cars, you can simply search ‘racing cars’. The search results will show you websites that have text content on racing cars, images of racing cars, videos and more. This is a typical search. You use words to find information. Now reverse this process.

Instead of using words to search images, what if you could use images to search images?

This is exactly what reverse image search is. You have got a picture. You upload it in the search bar in Google and hit search. Google finds images that are similar to the image that you just added. This way you are able to make a Google image search except it is reversed.

In a nutshell

When you use a search engine to find images, several options would be displayed on your screen. Websites that have used the image but do not own it usually offer low resolution options. The best resolution is carried by the actual source. Thus, it is important to locate the actual source of the image before you use it.

It is simply not possible to check out each link on which the image has been uploaded. Search engines display several results for an image search. To determine the actual source, you can use various dependable applications including reverse image tool.

Certain image owners do not allow others to reuse their images. How can you determine when an image can be reused or not? This is done by reading through the copyright agreement.

This agreement can be found on the actual source. Go through each and every point of the agreement before you use the image. In addition to that, even if you use the image, make sure that a link to the actual source has been provided.

A lot of online visitors do like to check the actual source of images uploaded on websites. If a link is provided, visitors would be redirected to the actual source.
Ashutosh Jha

Ashutosh Jha is a professional blogger, Blog and IT Consultant. He writes about Blogging, SEO, Making Money, Internet Marketing and Web Design.
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