Image Uniqueness & Duplicate Content

Image uniqueness is an opaque thing to measure, but it seems that Google is starting to take this more seriously.

It seems that merchants whose images are very unique, highly detailed, and distinguishable are much more reliably indexed. For example, something like a white T-shirt on a light colored background with very little detail on the T-shirt seems to be demoted by Google.

This concept is particularly important for merchants who are selling products that are not unique—like a retailer who carries many brand names.