1. A method implemented by a computer comprising at least one processor for ranking images with respect to query attributes, the method comprising: in response to a query comprising a plurality of specified facial attributes that are each discernable from face image data, estimating locations of a plurality of facial regions that are each relevant to different ones of the specified facial attributes, and wherein the plurality of facial regions are distinct and different from each other; extracting a plurality of different features from the estimated facial regions of each of a plurality of database facial images; ranking the database facial images in base layer rankings as a function of relevance of features extracted from the images to the attributes relevant to the estimated regions; ranking the database facial images in second-layer rankings as a function of combinations of the base layer rankings and the relevances of the features extracted from the images to common ones of the attributes relevant to the estimated regions; and ranking the images for relevance to the query as a function of the second-layer rankings.