Put a splash of just the right color in your creations with 500px Labs’ clever new Splash photo-finding tool

posted Tuesday, August 23, 2016 at 6:59 AM EDT

If you're designing a website, book, magazine or something else where you're reliant on stock photography, choosing just the right images can be quite a chore. Chances are, you already have an image in your mind's eye, but you might have to browse through hundreds of images or more before you find one that's close enough -- if you can find one at all.

But those days could be over thanks to a clever new tool from 500px's labs. The development arm of the photo sharing and stock photography service has just debuted its new Splash tool in beta form, and it gives you a simple canvas on which to paint an approximation of the image you're after.

The tool then searches 500px's content for imagery that fits the bill as closely as possible, paying attention both to the color palette you've chosen, and to the overall composition of your creation.

Your drawing can be as simple or detailed as you like, within reason. You can control your brush size and color, and the gallery of suggested images will be updated after each and every brush stroke, allowing you to refine the results by continuing to add more detail.

But even with as little as just a handful of strokes, you can already get surprisingly relevant content -- and it's even sorted into five different categories to make it easier to drill down to the photo you're looking for.

For example, we tried just a quick stroke of green at the left of the canvas, and a broader stroke of red occupying the remainder. These two strokes were enough to find us a detail shot of a green tree next to one in fall colors under the landscapes category, a left-facing chicken against a green background under the animals category, and a couple of images of adjacent green and red buildings, among many other images which also corresponded to our selected color palette and (to a lesser degree) composition.

It's not going to be a tool that will have utility for everyone, but if you frequently rely on having to choose images to match a color palette -- or you're just too visual to find your stock photos with a verbal search -- then the Splash tool looks to offer a great alternative!