Build a permissioned test set
Choose three images you own: a complete photograph, a crop you published and a version with a different colour treatment. Keep their known publication URLs in a private worksheet. Compare tools against that small set before committing to a subscription.
Score the useful output
- Does the service find the known publication?
- Can you open the actual source page?
- Can you distinguish a licensed customer from an unrecognised publisher?
- Are dates, exports and repeat checks useful for your workflow?
TinEye's copy-oriented search and general visual search are sensible categories to investigate. Face matching answers a different question and should not be assumed to locate an exact photograph better.
Turn a match into a review
Compare each result with your licence records before contacting anyone. A customer may publish through a different domain or agency. Save the URL and relevant context without publicly accusing the publisher. Search coverage is incomplete, so a clean result list is not a guarantee that every use is authorised.
Provider documentation
TinEye. These links describe provider capabilities; this article does not claim an independent benchmark.
Continue with tool selection worksheet.