Bing announced that it is rolling out some changes to Image Search, including speed improvements and a completely redesigned image viewer.

“We ‘dimmed the lights’ around the photo, adding a darker look that makes it easier on the eyes and lets the results shine in high definition,” says Bing Image Search program manager Jon Noronha. “Simply click on the main image to navigate to the original source web page.”

Here’s the before and after:

It also comes with full screen mode, and a larger filmstrip at the bottom of the screen, which you can scroll through with the arrow keys (or by clicking the arrows).

“The new design doesn’t just look great – it’s also much faster,” says Noronha. “We rebuilt our viewer from the ground up focusing on speed improvements so you can see a picture immediately, without wasting time waiting for the page to load. And when you want to go back to your results, just click the X to close it.”

You can preview sites that images are from before clicking through, and you can click “more sizes” or “similar images” for more image options.

I’m sure more than a few former Google Image Search users will be checking all of this out.