Back in April, I reported at Search Engine Land that Google was indexing images within hours and displaying time stamps on images.
But since then, there has not been much discussion around the speed of Google indexing images recently.
A WebmasterWorld thread changed that, when an image expert came in and said Google is back at it.
He said:
Today I noticed for the first time, that a new indexed image is shown in the images Onebox of the Google serps (universal serach). This is extremly fast.I found it when searching for the actual Google Doodle "Louis Daguerre".
If you switch to google images I see 20 (!) new indexed pictures in the Top 35. Amazing - I call this "freshness" :-)
So not only are the images showing up in image search really quickly, which it has been since April. But he also says they are showing images that are really fresh in the web results within hours.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Comments:
Nick Stamoulis
11/21/2011 02:14 pm
Google has definitely been making strides to provide users with the most up to date information. This includes rewarding sites that update frequently. It's great to see that they are using this mentality across their offerings, including image search.
RenegadeAd
11/22/2011 02:36 pm
Awesome. Good for SEO.
rose
12/20/2011 07:39 am
It is very good.Google has definitely been making strides to provide users with the most up to date information.