Notes from the Woods

seeing · environment · exploration · photography

A Photo Editor’s dream?

Written by Mark

Born and raised in Detroit, c. 323 ppm CO2, Mark Graf is a Michigan photographer, naturalist, and diver whose muse is summoned by exploring the endless connections in nature; land, sea, and sky.

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

I read this article recently about a new algorithm at Google that takes their image search capabilities a huge leap forward by enabling visual recognition    If you have ever tried to search for images on Google or any other search engine, you know of the huge variety that can come up as results   From what I understand, this new algorithm can tell the difference say between a dog and a fish without having any text to reference (the way images are found today).

If you have ever seen some requests that go out for images, they can be pretty darn specific – such as “A picture of a moose in a field of purple flowers with mountains in the backdrop on a sunny day.”   Type that into a search engine and see what comes up    I can imagine the frustration involved in such searches   One image came close on the first page, only no moose   The article noted that the new search routine returned 83% less irrelevant images   That is quite an improvement!

FL8808.jpgOnce a computer can tell the difference between such things, you have to wonder where it will lead – robots with greater visual capabilities – perhaps even cameras that can warn you of compositional distractions like “Are you sure you want that twig poking in the frame?” or “Did you see that Coke can?”    Imagine how it can simplify the laborious task of keywording if you can simply type “Red Trillium in bark” into your own database and have it find them without ever having to keyword the images.

It will be interesting to see how this develops. 

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this post is tagged with these subjects, you are invited to explore and wander …

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15 Comments

  1. ted pottel

    I wish I could have seen this first hand it’s remarkable and I looking at a photo

  2. ALison SHepherd

    beautiful image

  3. Nature

    This is a great news for all photo lovers.they can find more relevant pics.but this will definitely take some time to come out.

  4. Ken

    hey cool, this would be awesome technology to master! thanks for the info.

  5. Ron Niebrugge

    It will be interesting to see what Google will do.

    I almost missed the photo because of the article – what a perfectly balanced plant!

    Ron

  6. Richard Wong

    I think photographers are largely to blame for lackluster search results since many do not adequately caption for stock, but I too would be glad to see more relevant returns even if it means going away from the current system.

  7. Bo

    Thanks for the info in the article anfd the lovely purple trillium. It’s a wonderful composition.

  8. Photo Buffet

    Red Trillium in Bark. Which came first, the Google search or the photo? 🙂

    The info you shared was a combination of creepy and exciting. No turning back…guess we’ll see how they choose to use it. (I wouldn’t mind having my camera mention dust spots on the lens, though.)

  9. Scott Fillmer

    It is hard to keep up with the changes over there at Google. Their search functions for images have steadily increased in their importance. Thanks for the article, very nice image too!

  10. nouveaufauves

    Gasp! A red trillium! How fortunate for you!

  11. Mark

    Thanks Thomas – yes, it can be a little scary! You have to wonder if one of these small things is the first step in machines taking over! 🙂 Guess I have watched Terminator too many times!

    Cindy, Boyd – thanks. Boyd – correction made, thanks for the new link.

  12. Artist Boyd Greene

    I’ve been reading some on this subject from information Clint Watson sent me and it sounds really nice.

    Great photo. Very beautifully crafted.

  13. Cindy

    oooh i love those red trilliums, we dont see them this far north- beautiful image-

    interesting post- i know for myself when i did many searches on moths to id them, i usually got pest contol sites, even when searching google images.. it’s a jungle out there : )

  14. Thomas Folke Andersen

    Hi Mark, this does sound quite wild and, arguably, a little bit scary. Thanks for sharing it. The Trillium image is beautiful – I like how you have managed contrast here.