We’re also happy to see that we’ve just recently passed the 25, 000 fan mark on Facebook, and we’re seeing a lot of new faces. So a warm welcome to everyone!

Our Investintech community has grown and welcomed more than 6,000 new members into the fold. And the great part about it? It’s still continuing to grow. And it’s all due to you guys and your support. Thus, for April, there were a lot of people we wanted to thank.

First off, we’re happy to see Sonic among the ranks of other great software being reviewed on Indezine.com, a great site for PowerPoint resources and tips. Thanks to Geetesh Bajaj and his overview, Sonic PDF Creator 3.

A shout out goes to tech blogger and reviewer, Jason Slater from Jasonslater.co.uk, who took the time to really get to know Sonic. Take a look at the in-depth post, Review: Sonic PDF Creator, on his site. It’s a great summary for any tech saavy reader looking for specifics. Thank you, Jason.

Shaan Haider  from GeekyStuffs was also one of our great supporters for April, and we’d like to put a spotlight on him and his post, Sonic PDF Creator: A Software for All Your PDF Needs in thanks. We were grateful to get Sonic mentioned on his blog and read by the GeekyStuffs readership.

And the love didn’t stop at the great reviews.  It continued with our latest Facebook Giveaway.  Of course, that didn’t happen by itself.  Behind it, were the many bloggers, users, and software enthusiasts who helped spread the word.

So if you heard about our giveaway from a blog, article, or forum yourself, then you know to whom we’re indebted. There are more than can be mentioned here–which isn’t an exaggeration! So let them know that this big shout out in thanks  goes to them.

We’d also like to mention Willie D. from RGDDesigns.com, who showed his YouTube audience what Sonic PDF Creator can do. Thank you. Check it out if you’re a graphic designer.  It provides a great highlight on Sonic’s ability to retain images in the PDF format.

Our faithful followers on Twitter are another major support system we can’t forget. The recommendations, retweets, and mentions are always appreciated. Thank you for helping us get the word out there!

Source: https://twitter.com/#!/flowingdata/status/195052621713780736

Source: https://twitter.com/#!/melior_cj/status/189004390122790912

And a special thank you goes out to everyone and anyone who tweeted, retweeted, and mentioned Sonic and our Facebook Giveaway. We’re following them all and there are a lot! They haven’t escaped our attention or our gratitude.

To our supporters on Facebook, we appreciate all the messages and Likes you post up on our Wall. They matter more than you think.  The feedback you leave behind is front and centre for anyone needing a quick testimony.  And the messages are an encouragement for them and a recommendation for us, both for which we can’t thank you enough.

Source: http://www.facebook.com/Able2Extract/posts/419052098107229

We love that each and every one of you are supporting, checking in,  and interacting with us in different ways, whether it be a post, an RT, or a quick comment. It’s what makes our network into a real live community.

Thank you all!

We’re now giving away our latest Sonic PDF Creator 3.0 on Facebook to all of our fans! You can get a license to our PDF creation software–valued at $49.95, for FREE.

For anyone looking to save a few bucks on high quality PDF creation tool, this is the giveaway to check out!  Sonic PDF Creator 3.0 has every PDF creation and editing feature you’ll ever need.

In case you haven’t heard, our latest Sonic version sports a new and streamlined graphical user interface that makes PDF handling and manipulation more efficient. The handy new sidebar boosts your productivity by letting you access custom settings directly within the same window.

In addition, Sonic’s  main features have gotten major performance tweaks. Creating, securing, and editing PDFs with this latest version is faster and better than ever. Sonic allows you to easily generate a full-featured PDF document every time.

You also get an enhanced PDF viewing experience.  Sonic’s PDF viewer technology has been improved, and the new layout for its viewing controls lets you  zoom, navigate, and interact with your PDF content more intuitively. Sonic provides you with a smooth, high quality display of PDF graphics and textual content each time you open a PDF file.

Sound like something you could use?

To get set up with your free license,

1. Go to the Giveaway tab on our Investintech Facebook fanpage
2. Unlock the giveaway form by hitting the Like button (the form is automatically unlocked if you’re already a fan)
3. You should then be able to see an automatically generated keycode for Sonic PDF Creator.  Copy that keycode and then click on the link below
4. Paste the code into the field provided on the giveaway banner that appears.  Then click on the Download button

However, there’s another tool out there which you’ll want to add to your bag of research tricks: Wolfram|Alpha.

What Is Wolfram|Alpha?–Not Your Typical Search Engine

Wolfram|Alpha is not your typical search engine. It’s a “computational knowledge engine.”

In other words, while we’re all used to looking through general search results of textually related content with Google,  Wolfram|Alpha, on the other hand, goes one step further with its curated data and advanced algorithms to give you dynamically generated and direct results.

Designed by the same company that develops Mathematica (the popular engineering software platform), Wolfram|Alpha can perform advanced mathematical calculations, deliver statistics and details, or provide background facts and info for any topic you have in mind.

From calculating stocks and mortgages to comparing historical figures and defining colours, Wolfram|Alpha covers a wide range of topics.  And depending on what type of answers you’re looking for, it can be more effective than a search engine.  The site has a section of examples you can use as reference on how to refine your input.

Having Fun With Your Data Search 

The interesting part about Wolfram|Alpha is that you can get a little creative with it.  You can find a lot of queries with interesting results which might surprise you.  Here are a few ideas on some fun uses:

• Answer or create word trivia questions
• Determine the caloric value of your meal
• Find Scrabble scores for different words
• Generate a  strong password

• Find statistics on a sports team
• Make comparisons– try comparing different fruit,  salaries for different positions, or competing websites
• Find out if you’ve had too much to drink

• Find out how common your name is
• Calculate the cost of living in a certain city or country

For instance, there’s that first phase where you procrastinate, thinking you’ve got all the time in the world to get your taxes done.  After procrastinating long enough, you get to that stage where you scramble around to dig up all the necessary documents, receipts, and forms together.

After that comes the panicking stage, when you find every accountant is fully booked and the queue for H&R Block is full with just 1 day left. And after turning to DIY tax software tools and beating those lineups, you get to the frustrating phase of organizing and getting everything filed away on your computer.

While Investintech can’t file your taxes for you, Sonic PDF Creator, which you may already have, can help you deal with the overflow of digital files. Here are some ideas on how you can integrate Sonic PDF Creator into your tax season routine.

Keeping Your Data Safe: Locking and Securing Tax Related PDF Files

With all sorts of information being scanned over and transferred onto computers, being efficient and mindful of your digital documents is important. This is especially true when most of those scanned in documents contain sensitive information.

Fortunately, Sonic has a variety of security features that can help you customize how you want your tax related files secured. To secure them as PDF files,

1. Open your PDF file in Sonic PDF Creator.
2. Click on the Create Secure PDF From File icon on the Toolbar. Or, select Create Secure PDF from the File menu
3. Click the Browse button to select a file.
4. Find the file from which you want to create a PDF (Note: the PDF is created according to the Creation Options settings found under the View menu)
5. Edit the document properties for PDF Compatibility, Title, Author, Subject, and  Keywords. Click on Next
6. Choose your level of encryption from either 40 or 128 -bit encryption
7. Type in a User password for the Open Document field, and a Master password in the Change Permissions and passwords text field
8. Choose the Permissions you want attached to the file by clicking on the checkboxes beside each option.
9. Click on the Create PDF button at the bottom 

Of course, all of that and the success of the Sonic PDF Creator 3.0’s launch, thus far, is only due to the amazing bloggers and users out there. It couldn’t have happened without them! So without further ado, here’s our round up of supporters we’d like to thank for helping us in March.

A Shout Out To Our LinkedIn Supporters

As you already know, we’re holding an exclusive product launch special for Sonic PDF Creator. It’s our chance to let LinkedIn users check out the latest in our PDF  creation tool. And we’d like to thank everyone for emailing in!

The responses we’ve gotten from users are amazing.  And from the sound of it, Sonic has its work cut out for itself. From securing files and archiving lessons to saving  webpages and merging PDF handouts, everyone is making good use of Sonic PDF Creator 3.0 so far!

We’d also like to mention the LinkedIn members who posted their Sonic recommendations on LinkedIn. Recommendations are your own personal way of standing behind someone’s  expertise, a service, or a product. And because LinkedIn is the place for connecting  people with businesses, recommendations are highly valued.  We can’t thank them enough for vouching for  Sonic!

Thanks To Our Friends In The Blogosphere

There were a good handful of Sonic Giveaways this month. Congratulations to all the winners—and good luck to those who are still waiting to see if they won!

Thanks to Ashraf from Dottech.org for tipping off the Dottech community to our special LinkedIn promotion! Because of his mention, we’ve distributed over 200 Sonic licenses to its readers with his post, Free Investintech’s Sonic PDF Creator (v.3.0)! [Limited time offer]. It definitely helped to get  Sonic out there.

We’d like to mention Arvind Kumar from Unlockwindows.com hosted a Sonic giveaway and wrote Create PDF from any Windows application with Sonic PDF Creator to give users a good look at Sonic. There’s also Shahzad Saeed, who posted up his Free Giveaway on Techandproject.com that got a lot of attention, as well. A big thank you to both for offering their readers a chance at Sonic PDF Creator.

Also, a big shout out to Michael Aulia who published his Sonic giveaway on  Cravingtech.com. Sonic PDF Creator was well received by the cravingtech crowd who shared and tweeted his Sonic PDF Creator Licenses Giveaway post. Thank you!

Bloggers like Zainil Dedhia from, Techtricks.com, and Navin Shetty from Techinfoblog.net, were great in letting their readers know about the latest Sonic version. It’s not always easy to find  a great reception right off the bat, but with giveaway posts like Giveaway-Sonic PDF Creator and Giveaway 5 Sonic Professional PDF Creator, it was extremely easy. We’re happy to know that their readers loved it.

A  big thanks goes out to Vishal Gupta from AskVG.com for his help in spreading the word. It was great to have a chance to get a Sonic giveaway going for his tech savvy readers. We hope you all enjoyed the giveaway. Thank you to the AskVG community for giving Sonic a shot!

We’d also like to thank PCBasics.com  for setting up their giveaway and awarding Sonic PDF Creator 3.0  with 5 stars! Their post Sonic PDF 3.0 [Review] showed off some of Sonic’s best assets, and we couldn’t  have said it any better.

A quick thanks also goes out to Jarek for setting up his giveaway on the Polish tech forum, Programyzadarmo.net.pl. It’s always great to connect with new communities online. So thank you to him for helping to expand ours by introducing us to his forum network with Contest!/ Giveaway! – Sonic PDF Creator.

Thank you to our friend, Jason Slater, over at Jasonslater.co.uk.  We were grateful to have Sonic mentioned among the other great tech reviews on his blog with his post, Sonic PDF Creator Version 3.0 Released.  And a shout out in thanks goes to Abhijeet Mukhurjee from Guidingtech.com for featuring Sonic PDF Creator in his weekly newsletter.  As always, we’re grateful to have their support.

To boot, Sonic has even gotten a great tutorial review on YouTube from tech reviewers, DesktopTechPros. Thank you to them for adding Sonic to their roster of reviews. Check out their channel for more handy tech tips on software you might be looking for.

In addition to Sonic PDF Creator, our Able2Doc PDF to Word Converter giveaway on Facebook also made a ripple on the web with a handful of bloggers.

To start, we’d like to thank Diggitech.com for their post, Able2Doc PDF to Word Converter 6.0 Free Genuine Serial Code, and Sanjay from Weblogtrick.com for writing up Able2Doc 6 PDF to Word Converter For Free. Just sharing it can go a long way, and it definitely has according to the expanding Facebook network of Fans.

Thanks to Allpremiumstuff.blogspot.ca for sharing Able2Doc 6.0 PDF to Doc Converter For Free-Giveaway. And thank you to Nirab Sarma from Learnwithnirab.com, who showed his support with Able2Doc 6.0 Full Version Genuine License Giveaway.

And a big thank you to Tyler Dukes who kept an eye out on us and recommended our Docx to Doc online converter in his post, Make The Most Of Your Mobile Signature. He offers a couple of handy tech tips and  some great advice, so be sure to check it out!

Thank You For All The Tweets

And this month, Tweeters out there have been so supportive in recommending us and sharing our news. There were more tweets out there than can be listed here. To make it a bit easier to get everyone in, we’ve posted a couple of our own retweets of all the awesome tweeters who helped out by mentioning us.
Thank you to everyone— and to anyone we missed:

Source: https://twitter.com/#!/VillageGamer/status/175303364173758464

Source: https://twitter.com/#!/IvanaKrstev/status/176973300080193536

Source: https://twitter.com/#!/able2extract/status/180058464079458306

https://twitter.com/#!/SethTechEditor/status/180008717041926146

Source: https://twitter.com/#!/shannonrenelong/status/182111606388432896

Source: https://twitter.com/#!/able2extract/status/183306756515049472

Source: https://twitter.com/#!/able2extract/status/175722257560240130

Source: https://twitter.com/#!/able2extract/status/175668267896156161

Thanks to all those on Facebook who gave their thumbs up to let us know how much they loved our new Facebook look, the Sonic release, and our promotions! It’s great to know we’re on the right track.

Source: http://www.facebook.com/Able2Extract/posts/388149544530818

A big thank you to everyone for showing their support!

Facebook gave us the  opportunity to get in touch with you as a user and keep you posted on our  general announcements. With Twitter,  you got a new way to connect with us in real time and get our daily updates,  mentions, and shares.

And it didn’t stop there. While Tumblr was a place to post all of our  best Investintech links, Able2Extract news, and fun tech stuff, our G+ page was  the network to check out for the latest scoop on the best tech-related sources  and web links.

On Delicious, we bookmarked and saved handy tech-related articles and web resources for you.  And our Able2Extract LinkedIn group was an open place where you could talk with us and others  about Able2Extract and tech-related topics.

Well,  we’re happy to announce that we’re giving you yet another way to get in touch with us. You can now follow us on Pinterest!

If you’re just getting to know Pinterest, or in case you haven’t heard about it yet, it’s an online pinboard and community where you can organize, collect, and share interesting content you come across by pinning them onto a board. You can pin, re-pin, and “like” anything that catches your interest, whether it be an insightful article, a really cool image from another Pinterest user, or a video you created.

On Pinterest, you’ll get to enjoy another side of us. It’s a great way for us to get connected and in contact with you on a different level. We’ll be sharing our interests with you through our boards and the content we pin.  And it’s also an  easy way to help share our latest solutions, which can make your job go faster and a lot easier.

We’ve already got a few boards going with some great pins on them, and we’re still honing it down and building it up. Everyday we’ll be posting something different. So keep checking in for our latest pins.

And if you’re already on Pinterest, don’t forget to follow us. We’ll follow you back!

So drop by and check it out!

]]> http://www.investintech.com/resources/blog/archives/2400-investintech-gets-its-own-pinboard-on-pinterest.html/feed/ 0 http://www.investintech.com/resources/blog/archives/2382-a-late-thank-you-to-our-february-supporters.html http://www.investintech.com/resources/blog/archives/2382-a-late-thank-you-to-our-february-supporters.html#comments Mon, 12 Mar 2012 18:13:15 +0000 reena http://www.investintech.com/resources/blog/?p=2382 Continue reading →]]>  With the release of Sonic PDF Creator right at the end of February, we never really got to thank our supporters for the month.  We certainly got a lot of love on the web in February, and we’d like to thank everyone who went out of their way to support us.

First, on the list, we’d like to thank Kyle Judkins for letting us guest post on Lostintechnology.com. Our   8 Amazing Chrome Extensions to Boost your Web Research Skills post was well received and shared by the Lostintechnology.com community.  In a nutshell, it was great to be able to contribute to the site. So if you need to get a bit more savvy with Chrome, head on over and take a look.

In addition, we also got some amazing mentions and reviews of Able2Extract.   We’d like to thank Matt Lombard from Dezignstuff.com  for giving Able2Extract 7 a try. His review, PDF to DXF/DWG Converter, put a spotlight on Able2Extract’s PDF to AutoCAD conversion capabilities, which helps put Able2Extract over the top as an all-in-one converter. But you don’t have to take our word for it. Now you can take the opinion of an avid DWG format user. Thanks, Matt!

Arvind Kumar from Unlock Windows is also on our roster of supporters for February. Thanks to his review, Able2Extract 7, A Perfect PDF Conversion Solution, our flagship product is now helping out new users, which is always one of our main goals. Thus, a warm thank you to him for helping us achieve that.

Able2Extract was also highlighted on journalist resource site, Reporters’ Lab in Top Tools for Handling Government Printouts. A big thank you to Tyler Dukes for including Able2Extract in that handy round up.  Are you a journalist? Check out his post and tell us what you think.

And a big shout out to Zainil Dedhia from Tech Tricks World for sharing our Facebook PDF Converters on his blog. The posting got some readers talking and excited to try it out.  Thanks for spreading the word, Zainil. We’re glad our converters could be of service to your readers.

And, believe it or not, articles aren’t the only reviews that are happening for Able2Extract. We also came across one YouTuber, kurda70, who made a review of Able2Extract as a video.  Thank you!

There was a lot of action on Twitter in February, too. From a simple mention to a full blown recommendation, Tweeters out there have been so supportive in following us, our content, and our news over the past few months.  We certainly wanted to thank them this month for sharing a bit of Investintech with their followers:

Source: https://twitter.com/#!/derestrict/status/165446283157454849

Source: https://twitter.com/#!/Emma_Fryer/status/167612110778548224

Source: https://twitter.com/#!/Eric_Montgomery/status/168824249061097472

Source: https://twitter.com/#!/alrolando/status/171235379234611200

Source: https://twitter.com/#!/JeannetteXOXOXO/status/172649503982239744

Source: https://twitter.com/#!/CymruITTS/status/174043493122064384

Source: https://twitter.com/#!/russkiemy/status/174998584981340160

Thank you to everyone for your support! We couldn’t have asked for more.

In this new version, we’ve provided yet another great  PDF solution for you  once again. This new update includes a newly designed interface, new and improved viewing capabilities and enhanced performance tweaks for all of Sonic’s main PDF editing features.

Don’t worry about re-learning everything for this new update. You’ll be glad to know that the same great Sonic features are still there–they’re only faster, better and more powerful than before. So you can jump right in.

Check out what Sonic PDF Creator 3.0 has to offer.

What’s New?

You’ll notice that the Sonic landscape has changed drastically. This Sonic 3.0 version introduces a new advanced graphical interface that improves the way in which you create, edit and interact with PDFs.

Updated One-Click Command Toolbar

First off, there’s theToolbar with a fresh new look and layout. To top it off, we’ve added a couple of new commands to the main roster of handy features, which makes editing and creating PDFs more efficient.

All-New Quick Access Sidebar

Second, you can’t miss the brand new side bar.  This is where Sonic  3.0 has made it even easier for you to manipulate your PDF files. In this area you can easily adjust and select the options for almost all of your PDF editing needs.

For instance, when you need to insert or extract pages, the options for that selected action will open in the side bar.  You don’t have to leave the PDF viewing window at all. The features are conveniently right there in the same window for easy access.

Improved PDF Viewing

Third, you’ll also notice that the viewing controls have changed their location. Instead of having it on the top, we’ve moved it to the right hand side, keeping it intuitively in reach and in line with the new layout of this latest version.

Sonic’s PDF  viewing technology have been tweaked to give you a better viewing experience of your PDF content. Thus, you get an overall higher quality page display and better interaction capabilities with your PDF file.

In a nutshell, Sonic PDF Creator 3.0 offers nothing less than an enhanced PDF user experience whether you have a complex PDF to edit or a secure PDF to create.  This latest version can get the job done like never before!

So check it out and feel the difference.  You can download it here.

UPDATE:  Visit Sonic PDF Creator on LinkedIn to find out how you can get your very own license for Sonic PDF Creator free.  But you better hurry, it’s for a limited time only as we celebrate the release of this latest version!

UPDATE 2:  Originally, Sonic PDF Creator 3.0 was announced with a 7 day free trial version. The correct duration of the trial is 30 days.

Also Investintech.com is aware of a technical issue regarding the trial version. Once users open Sonic PDF Creator after the trial period ends, the application cannot be closed using the “X” close button. Users will have to close it via Window’s Task Manager by pressing and holding Control-Alt-Delete.  We are working to develop a fix for this, and apologize for any inconvenience this has caused.

There are literally millions of rich content sources online. Relying solely upon one resource like Flickr as your main source can be limiting. Sometimes great images aren’t in a standard image format you can use. Sometimes you’ll have to get them into an image format, yourself.

So if you haven’t tried going beyond Flickr yet, now’s your chance. Here are a few resourceful DIY methods which can easily get you the images you want from different formats and media sources.  Take a look.

*Note: before using any of these tips, first ensure that you are not infringing on any copyright issues and that you remember to credit your sources correctly wherever necessary.

Create an image from a Webpage

One of the most natural places you’ll come across an image is, of course, a webpage itself. Whether you want a picture of an object or to record what you see on your screen, taking a simple screenshot is one of the most common and easiest ways.

Getting images from the Web is simple with the Print Screen button on a PC keyboard. Once you have the web page open, hit the Print Screen button for a screenshot of your entire desktop. To get a screenshot of only the active window you’re in, like your browser tab,  hit ALT + Print Screen.

You can then paste the capture into a general purpose image editing application, like Microsoft Paint, where you can cut out the image you want,  crop it down and easily save it into a standard JPG, PNG, GIF, TIFF or BMP image format.

Also, note that in some cases, you’ll be allowed to right click on an image on a webpage click on Save Image As… from the context menu. Doing so will allow you to save the image directly rather than having to create an image file yourself.

Extract an image frame from a GIF file

GIFs are animated images that work in the same way a flip book works.  Different individual images are put together and are quickly shown one right after another, giving the illusion of an animated object or scene.

For those looking to catch only one image frame of a GIF, you can easily do that with an online tool like Gifninja. This handy little webtool will let you upload a GIF file and split it frame by frame.  You can then right click and save it to whichever image format you want. However, as an added convenience, Gifninja will also offer you all the extracted frames in one single zip file you can download to your computer.

Create an image from a DVD movie

Catching a screenshot image from a DVD is next to impossible. If you’ve ever tried it, then you probably know that the video area comes out black or doesn’t render at all.  The video being played is displayed on a Hardware Overlay layer which your Print Screen capture functionality doesn’t recognize.  So you’ll need to disable the support of overlays.

To do this in Windows Media Player 11.x,

1. Go to Tools>Options> Performance
2. Click on the Turn on DirectX Video Acceleration for WMV files option to uncheck and turn it off
3. Click on Apply and OK

You can then insert and play your DVD, pause it on the scene you’d like to capture as an image, and take a screenshot of it as you would with a webpage. Import it into an image editing application and save it to the image format you need.

Extract image from PDF

Here’s a great way to get a variety of images from the PDF format. Our own Able2Extract not only converts PDF to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, but it also lets you convert PDF to image formats.

When you have your PDF opened in the application, just select the page or pages that contain the images you want from the PDF file and click on the Convert to Images icon on the toolbar. You’ll get the following dialog below where you can adjust and select a number of image conversion options for  JPG, BMP, GIF, PNG and TIFF.

After you select your conversion options, click on Convert.  Able2Extract will generate an image format of the page which you can then crop and edit in any image editing application you have.

With the limitless amount of rich content sources online, it’s easy to go beyond Flickr and other image databases. So don’t limit yourself to one type of resource. Try exploring other ways on your own.

However, because there are so many uploaded images, Flickr becomes a bottomless resource that can be hard to search.  Flickr does, indeed, allow you to tailor a search on the site. You can search for photos added by tags, place, sets, and galleries. You can also search by date–images recently added, added by month, or the most interesting uploads in the past 7 days.  Flickr  even lets you search for photos taken by a specific camera!

Although those search options are readily available, they can become a bit limited or inefficient at times when you can’t find what you’re looking for. 

Ever spend hours trying to find the perfect image? Combing through the same tags over and over again?  Clicking on each image for related leads? It’s like trying to find a needle in a haystack. 

Fortunately, there are a few alternative search tools that can make for a more efficient search. So if Flickr’s usual search filters don’t cut it, try a few of these to get an image search that works for you.

1. FlickrStorm

If you need a search tool that’s more direct when it comes to searching for images with a certain type of license, check out FlickrStorm. FlickrStorm lets you skip the extra clicks required on Flickr.  Just specify which licensed image results you want returned from the drop down box, type in your keyword, hit search, and you’re on your way.

2. Mulitcolr

Multicolr takes searching for images by colour up a notch. If you’re searching for photos based on a wide pallet of colours, Mulitcolr will let you pick up to 5 colours to search for image results containing those colours.

Multicolr’s search results return all Creative Commons images that were voted by Flickr users as “interesting.”  So with Multicolr you get a high quality selection of the most visually appealing images.

3. Tiltomo.com

With Tiltomo.com you can search more freely for images based on Theme and Colour. The visual search code crawls two Flicker Databases which may help in narrowing down your results even more.

Type in a tag and below each image you’ll see the option to search by similar theme or colour. When you click on either option, you’ll get highly  related images that can make your search more efficient.

4. Tag Galaxy

Tag Galaxy is one of the most interesting ways of searching Flickr for images by tag and just had to be included on the list. As you can tell from its title, Tag Galaxy mixes tag searching with the visual concept of  searching through a galaxy.

Once you key in your first tag, Tag Galaxy will let you further refine the search by giving you the option of adding more tags other users have associated with it. Tag Galaxy will then add those tags into its search and generate results of images containing all the tags you enter.

Click on a photo to see it, then click again to get a short summary of the photo. Along with the summary, you’ll get a hyperlink directing you to the photo’s Flickr page.

5. FlickrCC

Although Flickr allows you to search for images by license type, it requires a few clicks. If you want to try a quicker way of accessing those images in a search, FlickrCC is an alternative you should check out. This search engine lets you find images released under the Creative Commons license.

With different flavours of CC licenses, the creator of FlickrCC clarifies which CC licenses are part of the default search on the about page. Unlike FlickrStorm, FlickrCC will give you images tagged under a number of related license types by default.

If you want images that can be edited and tweaked, for instance, check the “For Editing” box. This will allow the search to include images with licenses that allow derivatives. You can also switch to searching for commercial licensed photos via the checkbox located in the upper right hand corner, as well.

Regardless of which images you’re looking for, it’s always a good idea to have a few tricks up your sleeve when it comes to searching Flickr.com.  If you can get creative with these search tools, you can quickly tailor down your search and navigate around Flickr’s databases even more efficiently in no time.