1. A method of generating one or more captions or semantic labels for an acquired image with limited user interaction, said method based upon similarity between the acquired image and one or more stored images that are maintained in an image database environment, wherein the stored images have preexisting captions or labels associated with them, said method comprising the steps of: a) acquiring an image for evaluation with respect to the stored images; b) automatically extracting metadata from the acquired image without requiring user interaction in the image database environment; c) automatically selecting one or more stored images having metadata similar to the extracted metadata, thereby providing one or more selected stored images with metadata similar to the acquired image; and d) generating one or more captions or labels for the acquired image from one or more preexisting captions or labels associated with the selected stored images.