Each of multiple images is analyzed to determine how the colors of the pixels of the image are distributed throughout the color space of the image. Different covariance based characteristics of the image are determined that identify a direction, as well as magnitude in each direction, of the distribution of colors of the image pixels. These different covariance based characteristics that are determined for an image can be saved as associated with the image, allowing the characteristics to be accessed and used as a basis for searching the images to identify particular types of images. These different covariance based characteristics can also be used to order the images identified by a search.