Flickr  is almost certainly the best online photo management and sharing application in the world. Flickr didn’t invent online picture sharing, of course, but it was the first such site to recognize itself as much more than a hosting service for personal photo albums. It’s a place not just for self-display, but for an emergent visual conversation. In September, Flickr got their 5 billionth photo being uploaded and number is soaring high.  Flickr

So what if you want to look at or locate some of the best pictures here? There are some great Flickr search engines out there. If you’re looking for a high quality photo for a project, article, website, or you’re just bored, these websites can help you find what you want. Here is some of the Best Search Engines To Find Photos On Flickr:

1. Compfight

It’s a simple website both in form and function, and it works very well. With Compfight, type in your search query and you can select whether you want to search for that word in the tags of photos or their text descriptions.

You can also opt to look through Creative Commons images, which is important if you’re looking to use a photo for a project. Thumbnails of images will populate after you search and all you have to do is click on one to open up its corresponding Flickr page.

2. Tag Galaxy

Tag Galaxy  is very cool search engine Just type in your tag on the homepage and click Go to be taken to a search page showing what appear to be planets.

Clicking on the different planets will allow you to drill down your search to a specific tag.You can spin the sphere by dragging it and click on individual photos to see them zoomed in. Very cool.

3. Flickriver

Flickriver is another simple Flickr search engine. You can search photos, groups, users, tags, and even places, and photos are displayed vertically on the page according to relevance, most recent, or most interesting.

You can also set the size at which photos are displayed on the page.

4. PictureSandbox

Picture Sandbox something beyond the other search engines mentioned here and that is  you can view photos not only of Flickr, but Stockxpert, Fotolia, Dreamstime, SmugMug, and Webshots as well.

If you can’t find the photo you’re looking for on this site, chances are it doesn’t exist.

5. FlickrStorm

FlickrStorm is a minimalistic photo search site. With FlickrStorm, you can also view your history of the photos you’ve clicked on, as well as a tray that you can add photos to and download them from.