Tags

How do you search a database of images? One solution would be to associate metadata with the image. Metadata is data(2) about data(1). In this case, data(1) would be a particular image, while data(2) might take the form of text based descriptive tags. For example, the following image may have the tags "ireland", "ocean", "landscape", "green", "photo", etc. associated with it.



Now when someone enters text "ireland" into an image search engine this image should come up as one of the results. Unfortunately, the search engine is only as good as the tags associated with the image. If the searcher entered "moher" into the engine, the image would not make the list even though it is a picture of the Cliffs of Moher.

Who tags all these images? Well... we, the users, tag the images.

My description of image searching is particularly simplified. I have no idea if this is how the photo site Flickr works. But it might...

Please note that I am not paid to promote Flickr. If you would like to change that, please contact my business department.