What is disclosed is a system and method for searching a repository of documents containing images using an image as a query. The present method enables the adjustment of a threshold level through a no-reference quality assessment of the query image which produces an estimated measure of quality for the image. For each image in each document in the repository, a distance is computed between a hash value of each image extracted from the document and the hash value of the query image. Documents are flagged as possible matches if the computed distance is less than the adjusted threshold. Documents flagged as a result of the search are retrieved and provided to the user. The present method can be used along or as an adjunct to text-based search techniques. Other embodiments are provided.