[Luciano]

Well yes and no.. (actually i am not sure if it is this bit of code)
the problem is the filmstrip and the previous next links in showimage..
if you just did a search you get the result in browseimages.. lets say you get 20 images.. you click on one of the images.. you go to showimage.

then you would expect the filmstrip to reflect your search.. AND if you click on next image you would want to see the next image of your search.. thats why you would need the searchid in showimage.

but i am actually not sure if it is this code that does the job.. or if it is some other code.. but i dont see any other place where the searchid is pulled in showimage...

actually i would be more comfortable by renaming $search to something else like $pp_search
in that case it would have to be done with all $search in showimage and dependencies.. (if some functions use : global $search)

Luc

[EDIT]
Actually it seems you loose following functionallity:
the searchorder in filmstrip and prev/next (ASC or DESC)
the orderby in filmstrip and prev/next .. images will all be ordered by default (which is dateline i think)

AND the obvious error message if the searchid is deleted (by cron all 24 hours) while you are browsing..
maybe there are some more..

there is a second $search query in the page.. lower.. i think those 2 queries could be joined into one.. (saving one query)

[/EDIT]