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Blog comments – The floodgates open!

Permalink Comments (14)24 January 2007 at 12:01 by James Allsworth
Posted under Boring but necessary announcements

Flood damages a fence - Image A70868 © WoodyStock
© WoodyStockMany thanks to those that have contributed so far to our brand new blog. It's great to see how many of you are deciding to get involved already but we must point out...this is not a forum.

There are some unofficial, non-affiliated Alamy forums where you can spark debate between other photographers and discuss Alamy related issues. If you're after one to one conversations with us here, then I’m afraid you will be disappointed. It would be the nail in the coffin for your 65% commission split if we had to employ an army of staff to respond to each individual comment!

We will however be reading all your comments, taking issues and viewpoints on board and gathering feedback that will help us give you better information and improved services. What we won’t be doing is answering specific questions raised within the comments section. The Member Services team are alive and well, so by all means email us your questions and we will answer them from there.

When you do comment here you should stay on topic. Please keep your posts relevant and fact based. If you start asking about specific sales figures and payments in a blog post about the search engine, we will have to start deleting, and we do not want to be doing that!

Give us your relevant views and share your thoughts but direct your questions to Member Services - that way we can all get the most from this exciting and useful resource.

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Add your own commentComments (14)

  1. 24 January 2007 at 12:28 Chris Elsdale

    Thanks for the clarification!

    With permission from James I'd like to point you directly to three thriving forums where you can engage with other Alamy contributors across a range of topics.

    http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/AlamyPro/

    This is the largest and covers anything and everything. Membership criteria = link to one of your alamy images.

    http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/Alamystockshooters/

    This group is for contributors with large collections. Membership criteria = application + approval.

    http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/alamyrm/?yguid=113137658

    This group is contributors with a special interest in developing their RM options.

    Nobody need feel isolated anymore.

    Please take the time to find the group or groups that best suit your needs. They will all contain archives holding a wealth of knowledge.

    Chris Elsdale

  2. 24 January 2007 at 13:41 idmurray

    For anyone still feeling isolated and wanting to surround themsleves with kindred spirits. It takes about two minutes to set up your own Yahoo group. You could then post its arrival in the world here.

  3. 25 January 2007 at 18:45 idmurray

    In relation to the post by Chris Elsdale. As the person that set up the alamyrm group can I make a few comments.

    Chris did not ask me about this announcement and I feel that it would have been better to have done so.

    The rm group was in many ways a break off from the AlamyPro group - I got kicked off it for a start, not least for disagreements with Chris Elsdale - (plus it has attracted members who have heard about it via Stockphoto or through word of mouth.)

    It was not set up as some kind of training ground to educate people or offer advice on Rights Managed photography. Neither it is some form of RM propaganda group seeking to take over the world or convert people away from the obvious but legal sins of RF.

    In fact it has attracted a bunch of generally more seasoned Alamy RM contributors who grew tired of the 'noise' on AlamyPro.

    I'm now getting approaches following Chris's post on the basis of 'Hi, I shoot with micros and am thinking of submitting to Alamy. It would be cool to learn more about you RM guys' ( as in curiosity over exotic species)

    It feels rather uncomfortable to be advertised as an unofficial Alamy support group or whatever without having been consulted.

    Maybe that's why my instinctive response was to point out how easy it is to set up new groups.

    I'd suggest AlamyPro as a better source for more newbie type information.

    I'm posting this not to be difficult or unwelcoming but to make things clear.

    Thanks

    Ian Murray



  4. 26 January 2007 at 08:36 Gary Curtis

    I welcome the introduction of the blog with open arms, but as it is replacing the newsletter where are the picure needs for this month?

  5. 26 January 2007 at 09:47 James Allsworth - Alamy content team

    The picture needs will be making their comeback on these pages shortly. Watch this space!

  6. 26 January 2007 at 10:35 Ian M Butterfield

    For those who want to find one of the "unofficial, non-affiliated Alamy forums" you can find one at http://forum.iphotos.co.uk. We currently have over 200 photographers registered. The forum covers all areas of photography but has a very strong bias towards stock photography we also have dedicated areas to discus Alamy related issues.

  7. 26 January 2007 at 14:31 Christine Webb

    I am not sure I am on the right blog spot but ... KEYWORDING. I have just realised to my horror that I haven't systematically put the word ITALIAN on all my photos which are of ITALY. Why when I key in MEMORIAL do I get photos of gold fish, which have to do with MEMORY a completely different meaning to MEMORIAL. Whereas ITALY and ITALIAN should be on the same stem. Also is there a shortcut to keywording ITALIAN on 700 photos?

  8. 30 January 2007 at 07:32 Lisa Valder

    Very sorry to see the newsletter go, but good to have a forum.

  9. 30 January 2007 at 16:35 Jeff Greenberg

    How about miscellaneous or similar thread -- a place where one can suggest possible improvements unrelated to any current thread.

    For example, I suggest Summary of Sales, which now is only chronologically ordered, have option of being file name ordered, sale size ordered, etc., in same way Manage Images has ordering options...but this suggestion seems unrelated to existing threads. regards jg

  10. 31 January 2007 at 23:13 Alan Haynes

    I agree with Jeff, if you're going to go with a public blog (and I DO think it's a great idea!), let's have more categories for specific types of comments such as the one above about correcting the spelling on a misspelled keyword in 700 images.

    Alan Haynes
    www.alanhaynes.com

  11. 01 February 2007 at 20:54 cols

    Hi Folks.
    Are we not winging too much and should we not let Alamy get on with what they do best !!

  12. 03 February 2007 at 17:50 Kevin Bailey

    Great idea to do a blog. Maybe create a link to it from the main Alamy page, in the upper right corner?

    This is a useful, rich and informative form of communication, it should be branded more up front. At least make it a header on the "my Alamy" page and maybe a direct, but quieter link on the home page. I think burying it under "Useful information" eliminates significant potential to how it can build Alamy equity, for itself and contributors. It's easily overlooked.

  13. 15 February 2007 at 17:27 Jacques Jangoux

    Hello,

    I am not sure this is the right place, but I don´t think it belongs to AlamyRank either. It´s about Alamy rejection reasons.

    I think Alamy could be more precise in their rejection reasons.

    For example, "soft or lacking definition": is it soft because the picture is out of focus, or is it soft because you can´t distinguish the pixels (I don´t know about digital cameras, but for scans it matters).

    Other favorites are: Dirt or dust or other blemishes (I had a case of a one
    pixel line across the picture, due probably to dirt on the sensor,
    which I had not seen on my 17-inch screen; how can one guess that? - now I do a pass at 200% on some parts of my pictures);

    Data loss or corruption, which sometimes I cannot figure out where it happened (I am no Photoshop guru).

    Unsuccessful interpolation of DIG files, which can also be mysterious to the non-initiated at interpreting pixels. How can it be described? How do the wrong pixels appear?

    Each of these can mean several different things. Some specific details would help as sometimes you are at a loss to find out what the defect is.

    I realize that it would be impossible to give a detailed analysis of all defective pictures, but knowing how to recognize past defects would help us avoid these defects in future submissions.

    Maybe examples of the main esoteric defects could be shown (at the pixel level) in "check Images for quality".

  14. 16 February 2007 at 10:55 James Allsworth - Alamy content team

    If you wish to comment please remember to stay on topic. For any questions please email memberservices@alamy.com.

    Many thanks

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