Has verifying a reader’s photo ever stopped you from publishing it? If so, you might be in luck.

The website TinEye allows you to search for images, find out where they originated, how they are being used and if a modified version of the photo exists. It’s also a good way to check and make sure your own work hasn’t been altered or reused by another publication without credit.

You can start by uploading a photo or providing a url to the image. Either way, TinEye will crawl the Internet for duplicates.

According to its website, TinEye has already indexed 2, 180,913,080 images from the Web. It also has a Cool Search page that displays some of the interesting photos it has come across online.

Check out the site and let me know what you think. So far, I think it has the potential to be a great resource for journalists and publications, especially as we use more user-generated content.