I'm new, so if this has been asked before or if I'm asking in the wrong place please tell me!
My website is ok with google, but none of my images show up in Image search. They have ok names and all, and I ticked "Enable enhanced image search" in Google webmaster tools.
But they're not showing up. Can anyone help?

How long has your site been online?

Try to search for the name of the picture in "". If you you find your image it might mean that your site needs more links and more "trust". I've never been worried about images but I guess that links also play important role here.

Please View: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/matt-v...es-for-images/

That is a "great" tutorial video by Google's Matt Cutts on getting images listed in Google Images. Remember, proper filename and use of the alt="" element is the key to getting your images indexed. Remember, 70% off the traffic from it though will bounce right off, remember they are looking for images not content.

Molly I'll second the recommendation for the Matt Cutts video.

The image search thing in Google's Webmaster Central has nothing to do with where your images rank so don't rely on it.

You can also try some searches for things like 'image optimization' or similar. The video Stephen linked to will give you the basics. I forget if it's mentioned in there, but many people say the words you use in text near the images will also play a role.

alt attributes are very effective.. you can also try putting some text around your image..

A blogger blog is really helpful with driving traffic to your site. Google will host your images. I get a lot of my traffic from Google Images.

They get listed automatically depending on how long your site has been up for.

My site is online for more than 4 years and despite it may contain more than 8000 images only 5-10 are indexed (and they're only thumbnails)

Only 5-10 are indexed or only 5-10 rank well? Two completely different things.

getting your image indexed by google or other SE is easy, just allow your site or blog indexed by google next thing is that google will index the images.

My guess is that google never indexed images from my site because they have no alt description...other than that, i really i'm in the dark about.

well alt attribute is very effective... but i noticed that even if you don't include any alt attributes your image can be still searchable..

There's probably a great deal going on in the algorithm about this.

I've been 'hotlinking' some of my photos in forums I participate in, when I get a good one I like. When Google sees the img element with a src pointing back to my site, wrapped in a link pointing back to my site, that might tip them off that the image is important enough to be found on a couple of different domains. That probably doesn't have too much to do with it, because honestly I prevent hot linking from all but a small handful of sites. But it might have something to do with it.