The traditional way of access to image information is through descriptive keyword searching. However, many studies in image indexing and retrieval have reached a consensus on the difficulties and limitations of text-base image description. This research investigates the feasibility of using visual browsing that is being used comparatively much less than keyword searching. The effectiveness of Keyword access versus visual access were examined through experiments in which participants searched for pictures of specified emotions using different access modes: keywords only, visual browsing only, and the combination of both. It was found that keyword searching was appropriate for clean searches while visual browsing was the effective way to browse many pictures quickly, thus finding more relevant pictures. Findings and results can guide of images retrieval systems, especially the retrieval system of subjective and interpretive information.