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New Annotation tools launched

Permalink Comments (30)21 September 2007 at 11:56 by Alan Capel
Posted under News

Following our strategy to enhance the search experience for customers by improving annotation (outlined in James West’s article, Keywording for the future), we are delighted to announce the release of annotation tools.

With your help, we hope these tools will:

  1. Improve the relevancy of search results to help customers find images faster.
  2. Provide more comprehensive information about each image.
  3. Build a more compelling collection of images for the commercial market.

New features of this release are:

  • A new approach to keywording. Working with a knowledge of AlamyRank you can give greater weighting to certain keywords so the most relevant can influence where your images appear in search results.
  • Indicating the number of people in an image or property which needs a release.
  • Provision for the date and location a photograph was taken.
  • Showing whether an image is a cut-out, digitally altered, or an illustration.
  • More intuitive interface which will guide you through the annotation process.
  • A character count on the keyword fields.

What’s next?

  • You will need to complete all the annotation fields for any new images to go on sale.
  • Your existing images on sale will not be affected. Only if you change any details about an image will you need to complete the new fields.
  • The new weightings will not be reflected in the search engine until the changeover is complete. This may take a week or so.

For more help with annotation please see our improved information under Manage images in the contributor section or visit the forum.

We hope you’ll agree that this is an exciting development and the investment of your time will be worthwhile. It marks the next step in a series of initiatives designed to give you more tools to influence the performance and sales potential of your images.

Coming soon to complement these new screens will be AlamyMeasures, which will provide you with detailed data regarding the activity of your images on the site. Keep an eye on the Blog for further announcements.

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Add your own commentComments (30)

  1. 23 September 2007 at 13:31 Ben Plewes

    Another good move, can't wait to get stuck in!

  2. 23 September 2007 at 14:24 Bill Kuta

    I have been considering re-editing my collection and deleting some images that don't meet my current standards.
    I looked at the Annotation Tools page that came up for my entire collection. I could do both annotating and re-editing at the same time if there were a "Delete Image" button, but I don't see such a button. Could one be added?

  3. 23 September 2007 at 14:51 Jane sweeney

    Is Alamy in dicussions with Iview Media Pro on this?
    Since I do my annotations and keywording in Iview I would like to still be able to do this.
    When annotating there are often many images that have the same keywords it will take forever to do all this work one image at a time
    Plus I want to annotate the image ONCE only at the beginning this will not be possible if we have to annotate online
    Jane

  4. 23 September 2007 at 15:35 Mal

    Hi Bill Kuta

    Go to Manage Images, click 'more options' under the thumb and there is a delete button there.
    Mal

  5. 23 September 2007 at 15:51 Bill Kuta

    Thanks, Mal--plus that gives me a larger image to review.

  6. 23 September 2007 at 15:52 Dennis

    Long waited :-)

  7. 23 September 2007 at 16:25 Ian Murray

    "Then, modify to RM if never sold, otherwise delete."

    The actual Alamy advice is that if the RF image has sold then it will be deleted BUT then can be resubmitted as L.

    This doesn't make any sense to me. It could be an image that is also on micros or had been on micros, its sold as RF on Alamy, and now is to be presented as an L image??

  8. 23 September 2007 at 18:42 Manfred Grebler

    IPTC has been a worldwide standard for image descriptions and keywording. Now Alamy will effectively ignore this standard, because most of the information must be entered online image per image now.
    Sorry, I do not have enough time for such hassle. And I suppose many other pro photographers (let alone the agenies) will not, too. (And in addition online editing is quite error-prone...)

    So after ZT (about that I never complained) this seems another step by Alamy to reduce the number of submissions. Maybe this time they shoot themself in the foot...

    I think Alamy should at least
    a) offer a way to put all required informaion into the IPTC data
    and/or
    b) offer a way to edit multiple images at the same time.

  9. 23 September 2007 at 22:24 Kevin

    I'm a little confused, can any of you on this forum explain if the existing images in the collection will be affected by AlamyRank if one were to edit the kewords etc in the new Annotation tools?

  10. 24 September 2007 at 00:26 Sharon Lowe

    While I appreciate that Alamy is trying to make this agency easier and more meaningful for photo buyers, these "tools" are not tools, they are just more requirements. And, it will mean way more work for each of us to deal with them. Other agencies have sophisticated keyword programs that help us get our keywords standardized; other agencies allow batch processing so we can handle similar images easily and all at one time. I just redid a page of images using "Manage images" and it took several hours to do just one page - for similar images, I kept having to cut and paste and space allowed on each page for each section made it impossible to easily to do this. I fully understand the new requirements but we need real tools to allow us to fulfill them in a reasonable manner. For example, why can't I choose all photos taken in the same location and add that information to all of them? I can do that with other agencies. Why can't we choose all or a subset and add the "photo" designation to them?

  11. 24 September 2007 at 08:53 Bob croxford

    Dear Alan

    Just to let you know that I, for one, will not be wasting any time with online keywording. I will not be playing any games with pseudonyms trying to improve my Alamy Ranking.

    As a professional I need to have some kind of return for my efforts. Alamy is now dominated by RF imagery available everywhere and a crowd of non-expert amateurs. Your diversity algorithm pushes my images well down the search order.

    Nothing that Alamy has done recently has given me any encouragement to submit more images.

    Bob Croxford

    www.atmosphere.co.uk

  12. 24 September 2007 at 09:36 Keith Shuttlewood

    I have just amended one of my images and found the experience like editing a book through a letter box!
    The keyword fields are not deep enough which make editing my older images very slow. Did any of Alamy's web designers actually try and use this screen?

  13. 24 September 2007 at 10:44 Keith

    It would be useful if you could give a more technical description of how the seven annotation fields are used by Alamy Search. An English language description of the algorithm and/or a pseudocode version would be very helpful.

    How about updating the help section for Alamy Search to something more comprehensive in the same way you did with Alamy Rank?

    Personally, I think it would have been prudent to hold off releasing this change until the new monitoring tools are available. We might well re-keyword everything now, based on what we *think* is the relative importance of the keywords for a given image, only to see a completely different picture when the new tools are released, necessitating yet another round of modifications.

  14. 24 September 2007 at 16:26 Alan copson

    I second the comments about using IPTC data.

    I use a script to take caption/keyword data and plug it in to the IPTC fields. This works for a number of my agents that use different field for different purposes.

    Hearing about these changes, I have held off submitting new work for some time. There will be upwards of 1000 images in my next submission. Am I really expected to cut'n'paste 1000's of times, click on 1 person, 2 person... model release y/n??? This could all be automated.

    Oh, and any chance of being able to keyword search in Manage Images? How am I supposed to make al these changes if I can't search my own images effectively?

    Not very happy....

  15. 26 September 2007 at 12:23 Francesco

    Alamy seems to suffer from their own business model of accepting all images wether they are good for stock or not.

    Alamy should hire one or two image editors to delete bad images instead of bothering photographers with useless work.

    Photographers take pictures - and will submit them to other agencies who help them to make increasing sales instead of burden them with unnecessary tasks.

    What will be next? Doing sales tasks or bookkeeping for Alamy?


    As Bob Croxford said above:

    Nothing that Alamy has done recently has given me any encouragement to submit more images.

    Good luck




  16. 26 September 2007 at 12:55 Pam

    Alamy continues to add so much extra work to their image submission that it's getting hard to find the time I need to actually shoot. If they are going to require these "enhancements", then they should offer a streamlined and time efficient way to do so. The way it is right now is not very "photographer friendly".

    Not very happy either.

  17. 26 September 2007 at 14:22 Robert

    It would be handy to be able to specify an automatic response to fields like

    What is this picture: illustration/photo

    if you could set a default like you can with license and pseudonym it would save time.

  18. 26 September 2007 at 19:52 Wendy

    We are also pro photographers and will not be able to modify our imagery on Alamy. How do you modify 14,000 images? We need to keep our focus on shooting new material rather than being concerned about keywording and misc. details. We keyword once and send the keywords out to all agencies in the same basic format. In addition to that, our sales have dropped significantly over the past year with all the changes. So, we too are not very happy.

  19. 27 September 2007 at 19:28 Alan haynes

    Please create an Expression Media (formerly IView) application so that I can continue to keyword images in bulk using Expression Media. Doing them one at a time will take forever.

    Alan
    www.alanhaynes.com

  20. 28 September 2007 at 10:00 Peter Bowater

    Alamy has a strange way of rewarding its most loyal and conscientious contributors. We started at the beginning with a cumbersome keywording process and a low keyword character limit. We supplied copies of model and property releases. Then we had to add more keywords as the box got bigger. Then the system changed and became relatively simple.

    Then Alamy Rank and the suggestion that we should spend our precious time creating pseudonyms without any guarantee of better sales.

    Now, horror of horrors. Weeks in front of the computer to re-work a completely satisfactory set of keywords and information.

    Worst of all, in our opinion, we are being asked to indemnify Alamy and their customers against any foolish use the customer may wish to make of the image by having to state whether an image containing any definable property does or does not 'need' a property release. A book could be written to answer this question. The answer hinges entirely on the use made of the picture and the accompanying caption or description.

    Could someone at Alamy please clarify this before we all stick out our necks by ticking the appropriate box? It would not be true to say that most images do need a property release as, for nearly all uses, they don't. In so many cases, a property release is, anyway, an impossibility. It surely can not be Alamy's intention to sterilise half the collection.

    It would also be interesting to have a definition of 'digital alteration'. All our images are adjusted in Photoshop to some degree. Where do we draw the line?

    If only Alamy edited and had done so from the start none of this work would be necessary. Now the responsible are paying for the fecklessness of the irresponsible.

    Peter Bowater
    www.bowater.fr

  21. 28 September 2007 at 13:44 Gregory Bajor

    "It would also be interesting to have a definition of 'digital alteration'. All our images are adjusted in Photoshop to some degree. Where do we draw the line?"

    Answer from Contributor Information/Manage/Cut-outs, digitally altered images and illustrations:

    Whilst many images may be altered to a certain degree, if the original scene has been changed significantly we define it as digitally altered. This includes adding, moving, or removing items and major changes to saturation, contrast and levels.

    Editorial customers (e.g. newspapers, magazines, book publishers) need to know if an image has been altered such that it no longer has the exact appearance of the original. Some customers need to be guaranteed a degree of authenticity.

    Source:
    http://www.alamy.com/contributors/stock-photography-cut-outs.asp

    Hope that helps,
    Gregory Bajor

  22. 28 September 2007 at 15:05 Nic cleave

    As wendy said #18, we have 10,000 images in our collection and the thought of spending yet more time on going back and re-keywording this collection specifically for Alamy alone, is not filling us with much hope for the future.

    We too have seen our sales fall away since the changes began last October. Here's an eg: Last September we had 11 sales and over $1500 revenue. Move forward to Sep 2007, and so far we've had one sale for $44 (oh and it was a distributor sale!)

    During the last 12 months we have edited our collection, gone back and re-keyworded on several occassions in an attempt to hang on to our monthly sales figures, which despite our best efforts now seem to have slipped away to almost nothing.

    Should we invest yet more 100's of hours in going back and doing it all again? Well maybe if we thought that we were going to continue getting sales, but with the new Micro stock scheme (Novel Use) it seems that even if we did all this work, we'd still our total revenue slashed by 50% or more. 50% of nothing, I guess equals nothing?

    Regards,

    Nic

  23. 01 October 2007 at 01:06 Charles Stirling

    1. Being able to set tick box fields to our own defaults would speed up the process.

    2. Allowing the setting of the month field only would be useful in searching, gives idea if summer or winter for instance.

    3. Question. Is the No. of People field to indicate the number of people or the number needing a model release, rather different? A crowd without any recognizable people, or part of a person (person unrecognizable), etc. are normally considered not to need a release in my understanding. If we tick the box then not allowed to set as RF

  24. 01 October 2007 at 17:05 Brian harris

    Alan and all at Alamy
    I have no intention of re keywording my collection of over 5200 images. The keywording system I use works fine and is industry standard and has been around for far longer than Alamy's existance, for the newspapers-Magazines and other non exclusive agencies that I supply.
    Along with many other professional photographers that have been in the business for many years, myself for over 30, have objected to your rather cavalier approach to us. You just don't seem to listen to common sense.
    Alamy was never broken in the first place, so why try to fix it. Since your implimentation of 'new' methods from last autumn my Alamy income has dropped to less than 30% of the previous period, I know i am not alone.
    Without photographers you don't have a business, please pay attention.
    i wish you well as you are decent group of individuals, but I'm affraid decency does not pay the mortgage.
    Brian Harris

  25. 04 October 2007 at 11:19 Rolf richardson

    I've been with Alamy almost from the start and this is the first time that I've seriously questioned their judgement. AlamyRank has done well for me so far, but the new keywording system is simply not cost-effective for photographers. Compared with some of you, I have a modest 3,500 images on file, but even that number will take forever to re-work, time that would be much better spent doing other things....like taking more photos.
    It seems like yesterday that we were being urged to cut down on excessive keywording, yet now we are faced with three separate keyword categories, offering over 1200 characters in total. Alamy, like government, seems to be falling into the trap of trying to convert all of us into pen-pushers. Photographers should be out there taking snaps, not filling in vast fields of forms. Keep it simple, Alamy

  26. 30 October 2007 at 23:59 Paul Collis

    Dear Alamy,
    what we are telling you here is not only in the contributors' interest, it's in your interest, because our interests are one and the same: sell more photos.
    Please listen to us carefully. Thank you.

    IPTC IPTC IPTC IPTC IPTC IPTC IPTC IPTC IPTC IPTC IPTC IPTC IPTC IPTC IPTC IPTC

    'Editorial use only' button. 'Editorial use only' button. 'Editorial use only' button. 'Editorial use only' button.

    Model / Property Release Necessary? Publisher decides.
    Model / Property Release Necessary? Publisher decides.
    Model / Property Release Necessary? Publisher decides.
    Model / Property Release Necessary? Publisher decides.

  27. 10 November 2007 at 00:02 Roger

    Spot on, Paul.

    Alamy has created an absolutely ridiculous situation. How do I know if an image needs a model/property release? It depends on the use to which the publisher intends to put it. The rules are different from country to country but Alamy's guidance and requirements are plainly based on the US position which which might be entirely irrelevant.

  28. 10 November 2007 at 00:52 Roger

    Further to my last post, I set out my message to Alamy after last year's contributor forum. I was promised a reply but never heard anything more.

    "I am still puzzled by the model and property aspects of 'Alamy Safe'. I
    understand exactly what you are saying and why you are saying it but I fail to understand how it can possibly work. Apart from photos of the sky, every image will include people, property or both and to qualify for 'Alamy Safe' you are seeking releases. When you consider that every area of land, and every tree & blade of grass and every stone & every brick on it, belongs to
    someone, no photograph will qualify without a release. It is not
    practicable, even if remotely possible, to obtain releases on this scale.

    I know that the USA is a litigious country and that we [in the UK] are rapidly catching up but it is going beyond the bounds of reason for Alamy customers to require releases for general views of people and places, as used in travel brochures or postcards for instance.

    Something else worthy of mention is section 58, Terrorism Act 2000. This
    makes it an offence, punishable by up to ten years in prison, for any person to collect or make a record of information of a kind likely to be useful to a terrorist, or for any person to possess such a record. This expressly includes a photographic record. There are reported incidents of photographers being challenged by the police, albeit in a friendly way, when
    taking pictures of the Thames and its bridges at night, for example. OK, it is a defence for a person charged to show that he had a reasonable excuse for his action or possession and if he raises a sufficient argument it is for the prosecution to disprove his case, but this law has to be interpreted and enforced sensibly or we'll all end up in prison.

    So too must the need for model and property releases be interpreted
    sensibly.

    I am not suggesting that your policy for 'Alamy Safe' is flawed and, of
    course, it is for the customer to decide whether he needs releases or not.I am just pointing out that if the over-zealous American practice catches on to a great extent commercial photography will become a thing of the past. If I shoot a general view of Piccadily Circus, I will inevitably include buildings whose owners will doubtless decline to give a release but, in this
    country [UK], I do not believe a property release is always necessary. English Heritage includes many photographs of listed buildings on its web site and they are there with or without the owner's permission provided they were taken from publicly accessible land, subject to the possibility of a 10-year exemption for residential buildings only.

    Quite where all that takes us I don't know but it raises issues which I was
    unable to pursue fully at Friday's presentation. Food for further thought, perhaps."

    Any further thought by Alamy has made the situation hopeless for the photographer. The new Does This Picture Needs a Property Release field is mandatory but impossible to complete for the reasons previously expressed.

    Roger

  29. 19 November 2007 at 04:30 Mark johnson

    I'm a little late in contributing to this discussion on the new Annotation Tools, but I agree with the majority of pro photographers: this is a nightmare. I have 4000+ photos on the Alamy site, and if I used these new "tools" as suggested, I would be spending weeks of full time work re-revising my images (it took me the best part of a day to annotate my latest upload of 45 images).

    After writing Member Services with my concerns, I got a form letter in reply stating how important this all is, and the offer of an Excel Spreadsheet which is an alternative way to revise our images. Unfortunately, it does not go to the core of the argument most of us have been making: this is more work that Alamy should be either automating or hiring specialists to do in return for their percentage for licensing OUR images. I already spend enough time in front of the computer, thank you very much!

    Best,

    Mark

  30. 27 December 2007 at 19:32 Tony hobbs

    What is Alamy trying to do to we photographers, I just get used to the Alamy Wizard with iView then they say that is no longer being accepted! So the 100 images that I have keyworded and captioned in iView was a waste of time and I need to re do it all in "My Alamy"!

    Thank you Alamy very much indeed!!!

    I hope they re think their policy and reintroduce the Alamy Wizard! I hope they read this, and the other comments by other members as all this doesn't seem very popular!

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