Another reason why Google has left its competitors way, way behind in the search engine race: Friday, a post on the (unofficial) Google Operating System blog noted that you can now restrict Google image searches by specifying one of twelve different colors:

red, blue, green, teal, purple, yellow, orange, pink, white, gray, black, brown

Only images that contain the specified color will be listed in the search results. Officially, you must use a command-line search in your browser's address bar to use this new feature, using the following syntax:

http://images.google.com/images?q=SEARCHTARGET&imgcolor=COLOR

[Replace SEARCHTARGET with what you're searching for and COLOR with the color you want to see in the images]

Here's an example that displays train photos containing the color yellow:

http://images.google.com/images?q=train&imgcolor=yellow 

Here's an example that displays Union Pacific train photos containing the color gray:

http://images.google.com/images?q="Union Pacific" train&imgcolor=gray 

[The spaces are replaced by the character string %20 in the web browser address bar when you enter the search: http://images.google.com/images?q="Union%20Pacific"%20train&imgcolor=gray]

That's a lot of typing, but the Google Operating System blog entry includes a simple drop-down menu you can use to perform your search (the results open in a new window). Hopefully it won't take long for Google to add this feature to its standard advanced image search, but it's still a very powerful image search tool.

Do you have other tips for using Google Image Search? Hit Comment and share your discoveries.