Beholder - Internet image searches made easy
Nov 18, '03 11:04:00AM
Contributed by: robg
The macosxhints Rating:

[Score: 8 out of 10]
When I went looking for a screenshot of DarkForest (see my comment to last week's Pick of the Week), I fired up an app I've been meaning to try for a while - Beholder. Beholder allows you to easily search for images on any of three pre-defined web sites (Google images, AllTheWeb, and AltaVista). If you have some HTML knowledge, you can even create your own search engines for other image sites -- you just need to be able to dissect the URL that the engine spits out and input it into Beholder's prefs. One quirk is that, by default, the searches are named "Default Set (1)," "Default Set (2)," and "Default Set (3)." I just opened the prefs and renamed them to reflect the services they search. Using Beholder is simple - enter your search term, pick an engine, and hit Start.
As seen here (full size image), you get an iPhoto-like browsing interface for scanning the results. Thumbnails are on the left, and on the right you get a "zoomed" version of the image, along with relevant URLs (copy and pastable, or clickable) for the image, the page, the search link, and any associated image text. Double-click an image and it opens in a new window and you can save it to your hard drive.
Watson and Sherlock, of course, both have image search features. Sherlock only searches Getty for licensed images, and Watson doesn't include the Google search engine (in either the Google tool or the Image tool), so many pages aren't found -- for instance, the DarkForest screenshot I found on Google wasn't found by Watson's Image tool.
The one nit I have with the program is relatively minor -- search results open to full-screen size, though a quick click of the green button will get you a nice "minimal" browsing window -- you see one image and the URL information, and can page through them with the up and down arrows. If you resize the results window, though, those settings are not remembered on the next search. The window type (normal or minimal) and window size settings should be user-controllable; I don't really like it when an application takes over my entire screen.
Yes, you could use this tool to steal images from the web ... but then again, if that's your intent, you could do it just as well from Google's image search page! Used properly, Beholder makes it easier to find those obscure image references you might need for a project ... or a Pick of the Week comment :).
Comments (7)
Mac OS X Hints
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=2003111809022414