An image management method for storing, indexing, searching, and/or retrieving image data comprising the steps of: identifying keypoints in images, including keypoints in a query image of a query document and keypoints in potential target document images of a collection of potential target documents, wherein identifying keypoints comprises calculating centroids of connected components; generating fingerprint information from local groups of the keypoints, wherein a single fingerprint is comprised of a sequence of quantized persistent transformation ratios for a group of nearest neighbor keypoints sorted in clockwise order, and wherein the fingerprint information and accompanying images are organized in a Fan Tree structure, which provides near neighbor searching in a high dimensional space, and wherein the near-neighbor searching in the high dimensional space provided by the Fan Tree structure includes looking up of near misses of fingerprints, including fingerprints which are less than identical fingerprints of the query image by a predetermined tolerance, and wherein the Fan Tree structure comprises nodes, each node having children, one for each quantization level of persistent area ratios, the fingerprint being a path from a root node to a leaf node of the Fan Tree structure, traced by the branches taken; comparing the fingerprint information of the query image with fingerprint information of the potential target document images in the collection of potential target documents; determining a best match between the fingerprint information of the query image and the potential target document images; retrieving at least one target document image based on the determining step; and at least one of displaying, printing, storing or transmitting the retrieved at least one target document image. identifying keypoints in images, including keypoints in a query image of a query document and keypoints in potential target document images of a collection of potential target documents, wherein identifying keypoints comprises calculating centroids of connected components; generating fingerprint information from local groups of the keypoints, wherein a single fingerprint is comprised of a sequence of quantized persistent transformation ratios for a group of nearest neighbor keypoints sorted in clockwise order, and wherein the fingerprint information and accompanying images are organized in a Fan Tree structure, which provides near neighbor searching in a high dimensional space, and wherein the near-neighbor searching in the high dimensional space provided by the Fan Tree structure includes looking up of near misses of fingerprints, including fingerprints which are less than identical fingerprints of the query image by a predetermined tolerance, and wherein the Fan Tree structure comprises nodes, each node having children, one for each quantization level of persistent area ratios, the fingerprint being a path from a root node to a leaf node of the Fan Tree structure, traced by the branches taken; comparing the fingerprint information of the query image with fingerprint information of the potential target document images in the collection of potential target documents; determining a best match between the fingerprint information of the query image and the potential target document images; retrieving at least one target document image based on the determining step; and at least one of displaying, printing, storing or transmitting the retrieved at least one target document image.