Using
Reverse Image Search
Reverse image search is used to search your photo collection for images similar or identical to given images. (This is not a facility for scouring your collection for all duplicates; there are plenty of good programs that do that.)
You may specify more than one image in the search (perhaps slightly different angles of the same scene) and all will be searched together. Specify the degree of similarity required. Start with 100 and then increase or decrease until you have useful results.
Searching for similar images is inexact but does a pretty good job in many cases. The search looks for similar color patterns. It looks at the entire image not just a part of the image you may be interested in and it does not search for subject matter. Two very different images can have the same color patterns, but this is fairly uncommon.
Selecting
the Best Image
Here is one methodology for selecting the best image from a set of similar images.
1. Press Program Settings / Other. Check Advance to next image after rating. Press OK.
2. Open the folder containing the images.
3. Double-click the first image in the set.
4. Type a rating for the image: 5, 4, 3, 2, or 1. (Perhaps 5=outstanding, 4=good, 3=maybe, 2=poor, 1=pathetic.) The next image will be displayed.
5. Repeat until all images have been rated.
6. Press Select / Filter. Check Select and 3, 4, 5 buttons. Press OK.
7. Press Compare Selected Photos.
8. Now you can use the comparison tools to view the images in detail. You may want to:
- view and zoom images side-by-side. (Up to 8 images at a time; large displays are better with more images than small displays).
- extract and compare faces in the images.
- lock down some images and scroll through others.
- sort the images by sharpness.
- refine the ratings for each image. You may also add a rating comment to each image.
- mark images for deletion.
9. Exit the Compare Selected Photos mode by closing one of its windows.
10. Now in the image browser you can:
- sort the images by rating: Program Settings / Sorting Method.
- move or delete the unwanted files: select files, right-click / Move to or right-click / Delete.
- rename the wanted files sequentially: select files, right-click / Rename.
A
Note About Your Photos
Your image files are never changed by this program except when: you rotate, delete, rename, move, or copy. Rating number and rating comment are stored in the program database, not in image metadata.
A
Note About Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Picsimilar uses artificial intelligence techniques for some of its functions. AI is still far from perfect so you shouldn't expect perfect results.
o Image search looks for color usage patterns over entire images. To a human, two images may look very different, but to an algorithm, color usage may be very close.
o Face detection is imperfect. Expect some faces to be missed and other faces to be imagined. Faces looking at the camera are more likely to be found.
o Some non-English text was produced by automated translation. (We know how bad that can be.) Please send corrections to the author.
Improve
Picsimilar
Comments, suggestions, and defect reports are always welcome. Send email to dennis508@yahoo.com.