Digital image and video libraries require new algorithms for the automated extraction and indexing of salient image features. Eigen values of an image provide one important cue for the discrimination of image content. In this paper we propose a new approach for automated content extraction that allows efficient database searching using eigen values. The algorithm automatically extracts eigen values from the image matrix represented by the covariance matrix for the image. We demonstrate that the eigen values representing shape information and the skewness of its distribution representing complexity provide good performance in image query response time while providing effective discriminability. We present the eigen value extraction and indexing techniques. We test the proposed algorithm of searching by eigen value and its skewness on a database of 100 images.