Photography website 500px has launched a new type of search engine, called Splash, that allows users to search by colors or by drawing rudimentary sketches.
If you’re in need of an image with an exact color you can search by swatches to pull up an entire gallery of images containing that color. Alternatively, if you had an idea in mind of a more specific image, you could draw a rough sketch in box provided. 500px will then deliver a gallery of images matching both the sketch and the colors used in the sketch.
I took my bad drawings for a spin on Splash and noticed that the search results populate in real time, adjusting themselves with every line drawn or new color used. Users are able to change brush sizes for more precise drawings, but the end result will always look like something drawn in MS Paint.
However, Splash proves itself relatively efficient at matching up poor drawings with real-life images. In the search results Splash groups the images into five categories: landscapes, people, animals, travel, and city.
Kelly Thompson, head of Product at 500px, states in the press release:
“This is a way of searching images that has never been done before. Splash makes it much easier for creatives to find the exact image they are looking for on the 500px Marketplace.”
Splash is the first product designed by 500px Labs, an innovation group within 500px. In its database, 500px contains over 80 million photos uploaded by over 8 million users. To see the new search engine in action, visit labs.500px.com.
