Microsoft follows in the footsteps of Google and adds face search to its image search engine.

The Live Search weblog reports that Microsoft’s search image search engine now lets you narrow down image search results to faces, portraits and black and white images.

By including portraits and images Microsoft is going one step further than Google’s undocumented face search feature.

To turn face filtering on in Live Search use the following syntax: jimi hendrix filter:face

For Portrait filtering use the following type of search query: jimi hendrix filter:portrait

Black and white images can be identified by using the following syntax: jimi hendrix filter:bw

The Live Search team is working on adding a pull down menu or alternative ways of accessing these new features.

The features seem to work pretty well, and in our testing we only found a few instances where images that do not include faces were represented. It is not clear to us what the “portrait” category represents though. The results are not identical with the “face” listings.

Live Image Search