The xcavator Blog

xcavations and other musings from our team

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Tip: Our DEMO link is a valuable resource

Check out our DEMO - a video introduction of how to use the search tools at xcavator.net. You will hear our CEO Bryan Calkins walking you through a few interesting examples that show how to use Image Search, Color Search, and interactive Image Search. It also gives a few examples of how keywords interact with these tools (as discussed in our last posting). Just click on the DEMO link at the top of the site and click the PLAY button.

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Friday, May 16, 2008

Tip: Using keywords with a photo in the Image Search box

Keywords get you started on a search, but they can also be used to refine your search when you've added a photo to the Image Search box at the top left of the site. Here's how:

1. If you want to find more images that are pretty much EXACTLY like the photo in the Image Search box, clear all keywords and hit GO for a new search. Our search will combine the visual information and the tags from the photo and find very similar photos.

2. If you want to refine the image in a particular direction of subject matter, type a keyword in the text search box with the photo remaining in the Image Search box. For example, you could have a picture of a car in the Image Search box and could be looking at similar photos of other cars. Typing in 'sports car' in the text box will refine the search in that direction. 'Economy car' will refine it in a different direction. But in all cases the photos in the search results will have some visual similarity to the photo in the Image Search box.

3. You can also click on any of the tags associated with the photo in the Image Search box - they are presented below the text search box. This will pop them up to the text search box, and place more emphasis on this particular tag (or tags - you can use more than one).

Try it! It's fun.

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Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Subscribe! We've added an RSS feed to our blog

If you'd like to be automatically kept up to date on new blog entries at The Xcavator Blog, click on the orange Live Bookmarks link at the right and sign up. It's just a couple of easy steps.

Monday, May 05, 2008

Who's using xcavator.net?

Thanks for all your emails. We thought everyone would like to know who’s using xcavator.net. We’ve heard praise and love for our service from website and graphic designers, creative directors, banner ad designers, poster designers, editors, publishers, marketers, book and CD cover designers, people inside companies that that just do a lot of communications work, and more. We’ve cut the amount of time they need to find the perfect stock photo, and they love it!