Google now makes it easier for search users to view and download the full-resolution version of your Web images directly, completely bypassing your web site. And Yahoo image search simplifies finding images licensed for reuse under Creative Commons.

Google image search: Download a photo without seeing its web site

If you’re looking for images, Google image search now gives you a more direct path to the full-resolution version of the photo you’re viewing. But some photographers say this has led to a dramatic drop in visits to their web sites, with implications for revenue from the products and ads on those sites.

Previously, clicking on an image search result displayed an image over a dimmed view of the page that contained it. Now when you click an image search result, Google presents a larger version of the image isolated on a dark background, and gives you three buttons:

• Visit Page takes you to the web page containing the image. That’s fine.
• View Original Image opens the direct image link. This displays the full-resolution version of the image by itself in your web browser, without displaying the web page that contains it. Many photographers and web site owners are upset about this button for two reasons. While it’s always been easy to download a photo from a website, the View Original Image button makes it possible to get that photo in one click without even going to your site. Also, if your images are intended to bring customers to your site, View Original Image means they can directly download the original photo without ever seeing your site’s products, services, community, branding, message, calls to action, ads, additional photos, or any other content that your living depends on.
• Image Details takes you to a Google image search page with additional information and other similar images.

The following video shows you how it works:

If you’re unhappy with how Google image search brings your images directly to the user without displaying any of the other assets of your web site, as far as I know there’s no good way to remedy this situation at the moment. It’s more important than ever to make sure your images include embedded copyright and contact metadata, a visible watermark, or both, because Google image search now makes it more likely for your photos to be seen without any of the copyright and contact information that might normally surround them on your web pages.

Discussions in forums around the web indicate that one approach is to disable image hotlinking on your site, but a disadvantage to that is Google will simply enlarge the little thumbnail image for use in the isolated search result, and that looks ugly. (Image hotlinking is where another site can display an image on their site using a direct link to the image on your site. Some web site disable hotlinking because it serves up the image from your site, meaning it’s your web site account that provides the bandwidth and server load to show your image on their site.)

Yahoo image search: Filter images based on Creative Commons licensing

If you’re searching the Web for photos that you can legally use in a project, Yahoo has made that a bit easier. When you search in Yahoo, click the Image tab, and reveal the image search filters, you can apply a filter for images that are labeled for reuse under Creative Commons licensing. There’s more than one Creative Commons license because they’re designed to represent a range of usages, requirements (such as attribution), and limitations, so after you find an image you want that’s labeled for reuse be sure you understand and respect the specific Creative Commons license that the image uses.

The following video shows you how it works:

Not all images on the Web are labeled for reuse. Yahoo is likely to retrieve these images primarily from its Flickr photo service, which makes it easy for users to assign a Creative Commons license.

The Creative Commons filter actually existed on Yahoo search before, but disappeared. The recent change brings back the filter.