Tech Tips

Reverse image searches can uncover crucial information about relatives, says Nick Peers

Solve your photo mysteries with online image tools

There’s nothing more frustrating than images that can’t be identified. There are plenty of things you can try, from enlisting the help of other family members to performing detective work using other photos and drawing logical conclusions with the help of your tree (“If Gran is in the photo with three people roughly her own age, could they be her cousins? And if so, didn’t one of her aunts have three kids who would match the ages of the trio in the picture?”).

Another technique that can be used to help glean more information – or even fresh material and new leads – is the reverse image search. This involves uploading one of your photos to the search engines Google or Bing using your web browser. The website then searches the web for other instances of your photo (unlikely, but possible), as well as visually similar images and web pages containing the photo or a similar variant. Although not all photos on the web will be found here – some may be hidden behind paywalls, or not shared publicly with search engines – it’s still a powerful tool to have in your armoury. Who knows, with the help of our tips and a fair wind, you might uncover exciting information about your family that you never knew existed, as well as putting a name to a face (or vice versa).

1Prepare Your Image(s) Make sure your images are at least 1,024 x 768 pixels in size (if they’re smaller, follow the advice in last month’s Tech Tips column to rescan them at a higher resolution – 300 dpi for normal-sized photos, 600–1,200 dpi if they’re smaller). Save as high-quality JPEG files to reduce upload times.

3Upload Photo Open your web browser and navigate to images. google.co.uk. Click the camera icon in the page’s search box to bring up the ‘Search by image’ dialog. Select ‘Upload an image’ and click ‘Browse’ (‘Choose File’ on a Mac) to select the photo you wish to perform a reverse image search on. Click ‘Open’ and it will upload.

2Consider Cropping If you’re trying to identify a specific part of a photograph – a person or landmark, for example – then it might be worth rescanning the image, cropping into the area of interest. Be prepared to increase the resolution of your scan to compensate for the smaller area being scanned.