An image selector selects images for visual similarity in some aspects and visual distinction in other aspects. A user submits a query to a search engine. Images identified by the search engine as relevant to the query are clustered into clusters having at least one similar attribute. Selection mechanisms organize images selected from each cluster based on a similarity metric into image rows. A selection metric is calculated for each image row and a row to be displayed is selected based on the selection metric. In some embodiments, images representative of a subset of image rows are displayed to a user and responsive to selection of a representative image, the corresponding image row is displayed.