Find Visually Similar Images

Sometimes words aren't enough. If you have an image — a photo from a previous campaign, a reference a designer sent you, a screenshot from a website — you can drop it into Freedam and find every asset in your library that looks like it.

Why It's Useful

Avoid duplicates. Before uploading a new photo, check whether you already have it or a close variant.
Find all versions of a shot. Many libraries contain slightly different crops, colour grades or resolutions of the same image. Visual search groups them.
Discover alternatives. When a designer asks for "something like this", drop their reference in and see what's already on hand.
Trace a mystery image. If someone sends you a brand image and you're not sure where it came from, visual search finds it in your library along with any associated metadata.

How to Use It

In the Gallery, click the camera icon in the search bar.
A dialog opens asking for a reference image.
Either drag and drop an image file into the box, or click it to browse your computer. Files up to 20 MB are accepted.
Click Find similar images.
After a few seconds, the dialog displays a grid of matches — most similar first.

Each result is labelled with a confidence level:

Very high — nearly identical (likely a duplicate or the exact same image).
High — strong resemblance (a different crop, colour variant, or very close composition).
Medium — clear similarity (same subject, different angle or scene).
Low — loosely related (similar palette or theme).

Click any match to open the asset's detail page, or select multiple matches to perform bulk actions just as you would from the Gallery.

What Counts as "Similar"

The visual search considers several aspects of the image together:

Overall appearance — composition, shapes and layout.
Dominant colours — palette and tonal balance.
Subject matter — what the image is of, recognised by the system's visual understanding.

Because more than one signal is used, the results are robust:

A heavily cropped version still matches.
A colour-adjusted version still matches.
A completely different photo of the same subject often still matches.

Tips

Use the best reference you have. A higher-quality reference gives better results, but even a small thumbnail usually works.
Crop out noise. If your reference has a lot of text overlay or a thick border, crop before uploading — the match will tune to the actual image content.
Combine with filters. After getting your results, close the dialog and narrow further — for example, to images from a specific collection or tagged "approved".
Check the top result first. If it has Very high confidence, you probably already have that exact image in the library — useful before requesting a new photoshoot.

Speed and Limits

Searches typically return in under a second.
The maximum reference image size is 20 MB.
Supported formats include common image types (JPEG, PNG, WebP, HEIC).
Very dark or very low-resolution references may produce weaker matches — try a cleaner copy if results look off.

Privacy

The reference image you upload for a visual search is not added to the library. It is used only to find matches, and is discarded when the dialog closes. You can safely use external references without worrying about them polluting the catalogue.

Searching by Meaning — find assets using a descriptive phrase instead of a reference image.
Finding Photos of a Person — the "visual search" version specifically for people's faces.
Duplicate management (administrators) — a dedicated tool for locating and cleaning up exact and near-duplicate assets across the whole library.

Troubleshooting

The dialog shows "Upload failed"

Check that the file is under 20 MB.
Make sure the file is a supported image format.
Try a different browser if the upload consistently fails.

No results appear

Your library may not yet contain anything similar — try a different reference.
Freshly uploaded assets need a short moment to be indexed for visual search. If an asset was uploaded in the last few minutes, wait and try again.

Results look unrelated

Try cropping the reference to focus on the subject.
A very complex image with many objects can lead to broad matches — isolate the main subject before searching.
Use the Advanced Filters panel to narrow the returned matches by collection, tag, or date.