1. A visual search method comprising the acts: receiving image data corresponding to imagery of a scene, captured by a camera; processing the received image data with at least first, second and third different baseline image processing operations, to thereby produce at least first, second and third different sets of processed data derived from the image data, said processing being performed using a particular apparatus, namely a portable system including said camera, a microphone, and a display; opportunistically identifying, from a set of plural additional image processing operations, a smaller subset of one or more further image processing operations that should be automatically invoked, based at least in part on said processed data, at least one of the identified further processing operations having a computational cost greater than each of the first, second and third baseline image processing operations; invoking said identified smaller subset of one or more further image processing operations; and as a consequence of said further image processing operations, providing information concerning an object depicted in said imagery; wherein different further image processing operations are identified and invoked, based on results of the baseline image processing operations, thereby providing an experience in which the portable system seems to respond intuitively and adapt image processing based on the scene from which the image data was captured.