Alamy stock photography

Annotating existing collections – don’t panic!

Permalink Comments (104)21 September 2007 at 12:22 by Alan Capel
Posted under News

© Philippe HaysWe are very aware that, with the launch of annotation tools, many of you may be worried about editing your existing collection. We do understand your concern and want to stress that you don’t need to panic. Right now you don’t need to anything as your existing images are unaffected, but in the future you may want to take advantage of what improved annotation offers:

Your images may appear higher up search results for relevant search terms if you add the most important words to the new keyword fields.
Your AlamyRank can improve if your images are seen when they need to be and less relevant terms do not negatively influence your rank.
Customers will have additional information including, location, the date the photograph was taken and whether the image is a cut-out, digitally altered, or illustration.
You will be able to sell your images in the commercial market if you identify images which have the required releases.

The new annotation tools will help you edit your images intuitively and help us to present a more compelling collection of images to commercial customers. Advertisers and designers expect RF images to be free of any legal restrictions, so the interface will ask you to confirm details about releases and restrictions depending on licence type and whether images contain people or property. Some RF images which should have a release, but do not, will either be deleted or changed to a Rights Managed Licence (L or RP).

We appreciate that it may take some time to re-annotate your images, so our search engine recognises , but will not disadvantage, images keyworded under the old system.

For more help with annotation please see our improved information under Manage images in the contributor section. If you have more than 1000 images on Alamy, you can email our member services team for advice on managing large image collections.

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.

Add your own commentComments (104)

23 September 2007 at 13:15 Ian Murray

"Some RF images which should have a release, but do not, will either be deleted or changed to a Rights Managed Licence (L or RP)."

If they have sold as RF presumably they have to be deleted since they can't really be converted to L or RP.
23 September 2007 at 13:26 Charles Polidano

It isn't always straightforward to decide which are the most important keywords for a photo. It would be very useful to know which keywords are actually getting a particular image included in buyer searches. Perhaps this functionality can be added to the site?
23 September 2007 at 14:23 Mark scheuern

"Some RF images which should have a release, but do not, will either be deleted or changed to a Rights Managed Licence (L or RP)."

I like this, but unless this is going to be policed, wouldn't that require contributors (who shouldn't have marked these images for RF sale in the first place) to be honest and knowledgeable about the requirements for releases?
23 September 2007 at 14:33 Dennis

It is easy finding most RF images which do not have a model release.
eg.

Search and find RF images without model release and contains one of the following keywords - person, people, man, men, woman, women, child, children, baby, boy, girl, crowd, smiling, talking, running, sitting, drinking, eating, sleeping, reading, writing,

Then, modify to RM if never sold, otherwise delete.
23 September 2007 at 16:18 Tina manley

Most of this information - dates, location, etc. - was in the File Info when I originally submitted the photos but Alamy stripped it out! Is there any way you can use the File Info to fill in the fields when the photos are submitted? I can't look up the dates on over 6000 photos!
23 September 2007 at 16:27 José elias

Hi,

Sorry but I fail to see the connection between RF and Model Releases, as I also fail to see the logic that buyers expect to have all RF released. And this is because:

1 - RF is simply a way to sell an image. Instead of being paid for use, it's paid for print size. In none of this there's anything implicit with MR. RF can be sold as Editorial and that wouldn't require MR.

2 - When in the sale screen it's mentioned that the image hasn't MR, I cannot understand that buyers expect it to be Released and use it as if it has. It's public information for anyone that clicks on a thumb. So, only dumb, distracted, or ill-intentioned buyers will use a RF image for uses that a non-released image cannot be used. The same applies with RM images. So, I cannot understand this limitation.

And please, don't tell me that RM sales are controlled because it's proven that many pass the agency control. Does Alamy cotrol all RM sales made to Portugal, Italy, Russia or Ghana when made through the main site? And in countries where there's not even an agent?

Just create a box for us to mark RF as Editorial, and all images that does not have MR, can be automatically change to this status. Why change to RM (???) or delete them?

Other agencies have this, and it's really simple to implement. Just create a button...

Regards,
José Elias
www.fotoelias.com
23 September 2007 at 16:32 IanMurray

The main problem I see is that the information in the caption is regarded as of 'low' importance by the new seacrh engine and only the essential keywords as 'very high'. Up until know I would guess that most people have put the essential info in the caption.
23 September 2007 at 17:28 Chris gomersall

Why on earth don't I have an option to "select all" and change everything with one click of the mouse? I'm a wildlife photographer. All of my images are photographs. None are digitally altered. None contain people. None have model releases. Alamy makes things unnecessarily difficult sometimes. Or have I missed something?
23 September 2007 at 17:48 Martin wilson

Test: Why when I try to add a comment does it come back with bad data! and I lose what I typed.
23 September 2007 at 18:15 lisa valder

Comment no.8: No, you haven't missed anything, Chris. I have been going on to Alamy for years to provide a tool where changes can be made in batches. Either they don't know how to, or they don't understand the necessity to do so, either scenario is unsatisfactory.
23 September 2007 at 18:20 Ian Murray

I notice that all my existing keywords have been placed in the 'Comprehensive keyword' area - which is given Low significance by the new search engine.

Why couldn't existing keywords have been placed in the 'Main keyword' area where they would have been given High significance?

It seems to me that there is every reason to panic about existing collections competing with new content!

The odds are stacked heavily to favour images annotated under the new system
23 September 2007 at 18:32 Mark scheuern

Of course you don't necessarily want all of your keywords to have greater weighting, either, because of the potential AlamyRank consequences. And the smaller field could be a problem if you have an image has a lot of keywords. But, yeah, the same thought struck me.

I agree about the need to go back and keyword existing images if you want them to compete with new content. I don't see any way around that.

I'm torn between thinking this new system makes a lot of sense, especially given the way AlamyRank works, and being horrified by the amount of work it will entail. I certainly wish there were tools to do things like globally mark all images as photographs rather than doing it several thousand times by hand.
23 September 2007 at 18:49 Ian murray

Agreed Mark.

But as it is all the work I have ever done writing keywords and captions on 12,000 images over four years is all of sudden regarded as of LOW significance. September 2006 was my best month ever then in October AlamyRank knocked me back to barely 50% of average. Over the year I've gradually clawed back my sales and September 2007 has been the best month since AlamyRank. Now I, and many many others, get kicked to the back again.

I'm left wondering if there is any point giving up hundreds of extra hours probably just to find a year from now another exciting development kicks me down to the ground once more.

It appears to me that Alamy have a clear and deliberate policy of consciously favouring and trying to attract new contributors at the expense of those who have invested a huge about of loyalty and effort over the years.
23 September 2007 at 21:09 Paul panayiotou

Well, that's all my re-keywording efforts this past 12 months gone into the trashcan.

And my IPTC based keywording workflow is now almost worthless...endless hours of fun spent setting up and using my keyword database all wasted as I now have keyword online

And, I don't know what is an "Essential Keyword".

As a travel photographer essential keywords are usually location details, but now there is a seperate field for this

Confusing, time consuming, and more than a bit clumsy. I need a beer!

Apart from that, it's great!
23 September 2007 at 21:51 Dennis

Very slow going. But trying to look at it on the positive side. ZT tolerance was trying to improve submission technical quality and this latest keywording change is trying to improve keyword quality and relevance.

Hope it is worth the efforts ...
23 September 2007 at 22:21 Felipe Rodriguez

Don't panic?

How the heck could we don't panic? Is Alamy aware of how many hours we have spent editing and keywording our pictures? And now, suddenly, all of them will sink in Alamyrank unless we edit them ONE BY ONE!

That's a stab in the back of all Alamy's contributors who have taken very seriously the task of building an image library here.

Don't panic?

I am desolated. That is.

Regards!
24 September 2007 at 02:59 Jacques Jangoux

Wouldn´t have it been easier from the photographer´s point of view for Alamy to tell us to place first the 6 - 8 essential keywords, next the main keywords, then the comprehensive (or additional) keywords, in only one keyword field (as it is now) so we can use the IPTC (File Info) field? It would be also easier to re-manage our existing keywords in the existing Alamy keyword field.
24 September 2007 at 04:18 Mark hodson

This latest idea by Alamy has to be the most (pauses to check number of characters left available before continuing) ill conceived ideas they have come up with so far. A 50 character limit minus the space between words which counts for one character between each word.

But of course Alamy would really like us to limit ourselves " try to limit yourself to just 35 - about 6 to 8 words only."

Wake up guys! I think you have lost the plot if you think we as photographers can adequately sell an image to a photo editor or end user in 35 characters or less.

What is the point in having a 2000 character limit for the description field which is rated as low and only 50 characters minus spaces between words for the text that is supposed to sell the image to the customer?
24 September 2007 at 08:04 Martin wilson

This is a technical fix to the wrong problem. Rather than fixing keyword spamming, similies (harbor & harbour) and yes phrases and groups which they are doing which would have solved 80% they come up with this.

And then they make it difficult for serious, organised photographers to sort out their collection.

I simply don't believe it will be worthwhile for serious contributors to stay with Alamy. There is going to have to be a completely different workflow to other distribution channels. We already have to upsize when others want native resolution (PhotoShelter etc). Now a COMPLETELY non standard annotation which ignores industry standards (IPTC).
24 September 2007 at 08:06 Felipe Rodriguez

Hi!

Assuming that Alamy is not going back with its new annotation rules, and thinking positively, I've just remembered that Getty provide their contributors with a very useful XML template containing all the fields they need for their pictures. I can very easily use such template on Bridge and I think it's equally easy to be used with any other XML compliant application.
Such Alamy template, even still slowing down our work flow, would be a great help for us, although it would still be very little help for updating our current image libraries according to the new annotation rules: that's my main concern so far.

But, please, Alamy, at least we need a tool like that Getty XML template!

Felipe Rodriguez
24 September 2007 at 08:10 colin palmer

Like a lot of posters here alamy rank data would give me a heck of a lot of work redoing the work already done.

There are a lot of valid comments here. I for one do not think it is worth the effort, and don't forget when there is 20 million images your chance of getting found drops off yet again....

I am not panicing, I'm just calling it a day! ( that was 32 characters of low significance )
If my images sell as is then fine if not so be it!!
24 September 2007 at 08:29 Olaf briel

It looks like the problem of better search results has not been solved but just outsourced to contributors.

I would have wished that efficiency and smooth workflow integration would have been part of the specification sheet.

Obviously this has not been the case.
24 September 2007 at 08:36 Mark Pedley

I like this system. It gives those willing to invest in the inegrity of their imagery and keywords an additional chance to gain advantage over those taking the "batch-processing" and "volume-dumping" approaches. Since the comprehensive keywords field is IPTC-compliant, those unwilling or unable to take advantage of this additional optimization feature will still be able to keyword as before, but will suffer the consequence of not working to improve the integrity of EVERY image individually. Those who DO invest in optimization will be rewarded. That's how it should be.

It is a lot of work, I know, but very necessary as all those who have been shouting about "dross", "premium collections", "similars" know very well. It makes no sense to leave the door wide open, but then complain about the imagery coming in. This is an additional filter that will begin to separate those wiling to invest more in their imagery from those viewing alamy as just another place to dump the same old stuff as everywhere else. Now we have the chance to nudge our images ahead.

I like these changes even though 5000 images will need to be optimized.

Nice move.

Mark Pedley
24 September 2007 at 09:32 Doug Houghton

Some RF images which should have a release, but do not, will either be deleted or changed to a Rights Managed Licence (L or RP).

How can you change a RF image to RM when the image might be on sale elsewhere as RF or even worse on a microsite.

I think your keyword search facility is going in the right direction but the keywording part of my brain needs HELP. More questions to follow, much more.

Doug
24 September 2007 at 09:42 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? Alamy says they won't be.

If they do alter, then surely everybody is in the same boat. If nobody changes thier collections already online then they all stay the same, just as before. Isn't it just the new pictures being uploaded which one would need to adjust?
24 September 2007 at 09:50 IanMurray

#22

Thanks Mark. You make some very sensible points and waking up for a new day I too feel much more positive about how I can use this new system to my advantage. It is such a shame that there aren't more efficient tools to do so more quickly. I also continue to think that it is plain wrong to give captions low significance in searches. For editorial photos in particular its the caption that holds the most important and concise factual information.

This new system does put the onus on the individual to revisit their collection. I'm not at all sure that large agencies or many quality photographers are going to feel that it is worthwhile.

Images which have good 'essential keywords' and going to appear higher than good images and I can't see how that is appealing to buyers.

Unless agencies and certain top ranked photographers will somehow be treated differently and still appear high in seacrhes without having to go through the slog that the rest of us will have to?
24 September 2007 at 10:10 Dennis

Would Alamy have introduce the new annotation system in its current form, with those restrictions if there are no keyword spamming? This is an inevitable course of action for the submission model used by Alamy (ie. neither content nor keyword editing, restriction and selection).
24 September 2007 at 11:05 anna

I have updated some of my images to the new model this morning and just noticed that when you search and look for them only the keywords in Comprehensive keywords show up, not the essential or main keywords??
24 September 2007 at 13:16 Mark scheuern

Anna, the images are still searchable on words in the other keywords fields, they just aren't visible. The displayed keyword field was always smaller than the actual field, anyway. Keep in mind a new version of the search engine to go with this keywording scheme is promised soon but for now searches still seem to work normally.
24 September 2007 at 13:30 Tony collins

Philippe, add correct spelling Mainwaring's to your essential keywords. :-)
24 September 2007 at 14:34 Andy

I'm not very happy about all these aditional work for the same commission. No one can say if these new tools will increase my sales/income, but definitly it is again more work for the photographer.

What can I charge if one day in the future Alamy is ready for an overtake after the 10+ million images are nicely edited??
24 September 2007 at 14:45 Joe Fox

'Does this image need a property release'

Sorry mate, no idea, I'm a photographer not a lawyer!
24 September 2007 at 16:02 Quentin bargate

Most people put the most important keywords first. I would have liked Alamy to have provisionally allocated, say, the first three keywords to Essential, next 5 to Main, the rest to Comprehensive.

As to releases, I need more time to review the latest wisdom, but it seems there is confusion between RM/L and editorial use. for example, some of my images may include identifiable people with no model releases, and thus may be suitable only for editorial use. Fine, but if I check a box that says I don't have a model release, the message says it can't be sold RM, and will be switched to L. What on earth for? Surely what should happen is that if you say there is a person present, the image stays L or RM (NOT RF of course) but the sales restriction should automatically switch to editorial.
24 September 2007 at 16:31 Martin wilson

How does this stop keyword spamming - just provides more places to put it? It needs intervention not additional complexity.

And the location field is not long enough to include full location and related terms e.g. Notts, Nottinghamshire,UK, United Kingdom, GB, GBR, Great Britain, EU, Europe.
24 September 2007 at 17:24 Quentin bargate

For RM, please read RP in message 33. thanks to Ian Murray for pinting out the error.
24 September 2007 at 17:57 Ian murray

"thanks to Ian Murray for pinting out the error."

Actually, your error was spotted after just two swift pints on return from watching the end of the 20-20 cricket.

And it wasn't the 'Wonder of Watneys' but a couple of nice cold Stellas in the Red Lion at Woodbridge, Suffolk, England, UK , United Kingdom, Britain, Great Britain, English, British, Europe, European, pub, public house, tavern, inn, beer, drink, drinking, alcohol, bar, east anglia, eastern, Belgian, imported, lager, cool, cold, icey, sport, sporting, competition, inside, interior, TV, televison, sporting, event, watch, watching, spectator, one man, male, middle aged, sad, bastard, 2007, south africa, african, sporting, pakistan, india, asia, final, competition, moment, occasion, some guys in there all afternoon wellied as hell, and a sweet little Indian boy and his blind dad popping in for a coke and Quavers to experience the last 3 overs and everyone happy that they were on the winning side
24 September 2007 at 18:24 Michael Dutton

Please please please Alamy can we have the option to copy all the info down from the previous image when entering info on fresh images. I work with large batches of similar images; usually only minor changes are made when moving from one image to the next. As things stand, I need to copy each section separately in the caption, keywords, description, location etc, AND re-select the various other options. Taking about 3 times longer now to deal with each image.... Or maybe I'm missing something.
24 September 2007 at 18:59 Jacques Jangoux

It would help if Alamy would show us in Summary of Images Sold which keyword search (or combination of keywords) has made our sales. Working through an agency (or a distribution service) we have no idea of how picture researchers think. Knowing which keywords were used in the past we could make a somewhat informed selection of important keywords.
24 September 2007 at 19:01 Jaybee

#38

"Knowing which keywords were used in the past we could make a somewhat informed selection of important keywords."

That'll be released after you've spent a couple of months doing the new annotations - so you can have the pleasure of doing it all over again.
24 September 2007 at 19:23 Michele Falzone

Dear Alan and Alamy,
unfortunately this new post which was supposed to give more details does not help very much.

I believe most photographers have a workflow involving keywording with specific tools which would include the keywords automatically inside the IPTC field. There is not mention of the alamy system being compatible with the IPTC standard.

For instance, on most professional slr cameras the date is automatically embedded in the iptc field. alamy could just read this field and input the data in the new field.

I firmly believe that angencies submitting a couple thousands of images per submission won't spend time at all refining ONLINE the collection.

The same applies to individual professional photographers, who can't afford to spend hours or days to refine online hundreds of pictures.

I hope we'll be able to come up with a reasonable solution!

best,
Michele Falzone
24 September 2007 at 21:09 Bill Kuta

Per the invitation above, I have emailed Member Services regarding managing my collection re Annotation Tools.

Specifically, I asked if there is a way I can globally tick off the same answers to several questions for all my images, and more importantly, move the first 300 characters of my "Comprehensive Keywords" to "Main Keywords."

The great majority (if not all) of my images have less than 300 characters of keywords. If I have to go through them one-by-one, moving Comprehensive to Main is exactly what I will be doing.

Seems to me I should be getting some benefit from having kept my keywords to a reasonable, non-spamming level all along.

Have not heard back from MS yet.
24 September 2007 at 21:09 Arni katz

Ian,
Your post #36 caused me to spit out my mouthful of coffee and thoroughly wet myself. Brilliant!

Thanks for the moisture addition to an already wet situation!
A
24 September 2007 at 21:45 JacquesJangoux

As I mentioned in my post # 17 and as others have said too, it would make sense to remain compliant to the IPTC standard, which makes life easier both at the starting point and at the finishing point. Sensible ordering of the keywords according to their importance would achieve the same effect as the new system, which will impose on us photographers a lot of extra non-photographic time, as working online is inherently slower than working in File Info.
24 September 2007 at 22:48 Eugene nikiforov

Alan

We need to have some tools where we can do all categorization offline and submit a ready header. Some other companies provide templates and verification procedures for solutions like Lightroom or Apple Aperture. This is really essential for success of such keywording for the following reasons:

1) offline keywording is much faster
2) if I as a photographer even choose to support this type of information, I need to be able to retain it, for my own and backup reasons. Doing it online seem like a very odd choice in this case

Also users with a large number of images already on Alamy will also need some automated way to mass edit existing images, and doing it online it very time consuming and prone to errors.

Please try to address issues above

Sincerely

Eugene Nikiforov
25 September 2007 at 00:20 Mike

These new annotation tools remind me of the ill-fated Pureimages stock site set up a few years ago in the UK - anyone else remember it?? Doing keywording etc online is bad enough, but to have to do it image by image is downright ridiculous in this day and age. There are plenty of examples of good web based user interfaces to allow multiple updates to items in a list - there's just no excuse for not having implemented this. Pure Images did make some changes to their mechanisms to aid multiple updates, but too late. The site died a death because, I believe, they just could not get enough contributors to spend the time required to do so much work online.

The bottom line here is that we must be able to do all of the preparation of images offline because a) it's much much quicker and b) so that we have all that useful information stored locally. I have not contributed for a while as I have been waiting for things like alamy upload - I have set up a new workflow based around Lightroom and its extensive keywording capabilities. It seems that just when I thought I could get on, Alamy have placed a really unecessary hurdle in the way.

Whilst I can see the logic behind the changes being made, Alamy must realise they are going against industry standards here and really need to come up with some innovative solutions to interfacing IPTC data with their new data model.
25 September 2007 at 08:48 Dennis

From the start of the IPTC keyword field, fill the Alamy "essential keyword" section with as many words as possible, then the "main keywords", the rest can go into "comprehensive keyword".

At most one week's work by a competent and dedicated programmer. I know people in the UK who can probably that in less than half a day - with testing.
25 September 2007 at 10:01 Jaybee

#46

Great idea Dennis but that's not what Alamy want.

They want us to refine each image individually, adding "phrases in quotes" and [words in boxes] and all sorts of other shenanigans.

I can see the upside but the downside for us a sphotographers is that all these hours and hours of work become Alamy specific as its done online.

which will not benefit our images offline and therefore will not be reusable.
25 September 2007 at 12:55 Mark azavedo

Let me start with a life comment: I hate people who move goalposts.

Now let me tell you of this image I have in my head (I never get the time to put them in camera these days). It is of a load of techies walking around Alamy HQ at the moment. Smiling. Very self-satisfied. Congratulating each other. They've pulled off two major coups in one week - Alamy Annotation, Novel Use.

These guys don't live in a real world. Even less do they live in a photographer's real world. If we criticise they will be genuinely sad, unhappy, or, more to the point, genuinely uncomprehending.

Well, guys, let's talk in a way that might appeal - quantitative.

For new submissions to be put on sale we'll have to do the full annotation McCoy. For old images to really stand a chance of future sales we'll have to fill the extra fields (unless we have a mass boycott, but then there's the matter that the new fully-annotated pictures would create an uneven playing field anyway).

I estimate that in going over on sale images with the extra/re-ordered annotation will take 3 minutes per entry (probably longer after several hours doing it!). I've about 650 images in the Alamy ether. That is 32.5 hours work or just over four 8 hour working days. My friend has 7000 images up = 350 hours = 43.75 days of 8 working hours. That is nearly 1.5 months of solid work.

I assume the photographers saying "bring it on" have two images up there. I assume the techies, buried in their computer literate solutions (well, actually, not very computer literate or solution orientated) just don't know, care or even begin to comprehend.

Maybe the sales guys should take over the ICT - they at least know how little we make out of sales, and so how hard it is to justify time.

Maybe a half-sensible techie would attack the Alamy system such that each image would require less individualised treatment,and preferably off-line.

How can the Alamy guys in developing the new annotation not embrace the industry standard metadata system? In fact, with the proliferation of fields they've actually managed to move further from it - unbelievable!
25 September 2007 at 12:56 Dennis

Jaybee,

"phrases in quotes" and [words in boxes] give photographers the facility to more accurate describing their images. Relationships between elements on an image can now be more accurately describe. We do in speeches and writing, so why not in keywording for images???

Alamy is not deliberately trying to waste people's time by forcing them to annotate manually. If there are, then Alamy needs to look urgently and VERY closely within, in UK and India, for saboteur(s) of their business.
25 September 2007 at 13:06 Dennis

Mark,

I believe Alamy has good intentions but the implementations have not live up to expectations.

There is feel of lack of polish, thoughtful depth in design and that hard to describe sense of implementation wholeness and quality.

Pity
25 September 2007 at 14:03 Alan gallery

Since Alamy are giving us such a lot of extra work which will benefit them as well as us maybe we should get an extra few percent, hell, I would actually settle for getting the 65% that it says on one of the signup pages.

What would be nice is a page where we could set defaults for all those shiny new buttons that we have to wade through for every image. Being able to add sets of keywords to multiple images is so basic that it is a startling omission at this stage in the game. I would like a button to set restrictions for editorial use.

For users who submit with a populated IPTC keyword field as a simple solution it would be nice to have a recognised symbol that could be inserted in IPTC to separate the various fields so that the data could be automatically entered into each of the new Alamy keyword fields.

What about the long promised user tools?

Enough with the stick, lets have the carrot.

Alan Gallery.
25 September 2007 at 19:21 Gaspar Avila

I think everyone will agree with me when I say that we should be spending every available minute making good pictures, not playing with web forms and re-writing keywords over and over again. That's not much fun...

I even had to submit this simple comment 3 times. I got error messages in the first 2 tries. Now imagine editing thousands of images online ...
25 September 2007 at 19:28 ray grover

I have about 1000 images loaded and like others my heart sinks at the thought of all this work. They are mostly creative images aimed at a particular theme e.g. the price of coffee beans. Can anyone advise me of an alternative agency that would not involve me in all this extra work? I currently make three or four sales a month, which is fine. Ray
26 September 2007 at 04:47 Michael Kronmal

The topping on this dung cake is that those of us who did re-keyword have been penalized. The keywords in essential, main, or location are IGNORED by the Alamy search engine. This is just so unacceptable that I have no words to express my frustration and anger. I, by doing as Alamy requested have perhaps cost myself revenue. This will not be soon forgotten.
26 September 2007 at 09:23 Dennis

Michael, some nice images.
I have more images to update than you. Yes, it is a chore, again. Probably need a couple of month to get it all done.

But I take it as a welcome golden opportunity to raise my images over a sea of keyword spams and similars. I think alamy has good intentions but the design and implementation can be a bit rough.
26 September 2007 at 11:41 James Allsworth - content team

Any keywords you add into the new fields (essential, main, location) will not be searchable until the system goes fully live and is applied to the main search engine. We are very hopeful that this will happen over the weekend (commencing 29th Sept).

We appreciate this was not very clear from our post and apologise for any confusion this has caused.
26 September 2007 at 15:37 Dennis

James, no problem. Thanks for letting us know. Good luck for the weekend.
26 September 2007 at 18:34 Bill Kuta

James, when an image's keywords consisted of less than 300 characters, why didn't you put it into Main Keywords?
26 September 2007 at 22:19 lisa valder

Please please alamy delete all images which have not had a sale for a few years. Less is more! Contributors of images would not have to go through hoops and waste hours trying out futile strategies to compete with millions of other images and buyers of images would not yawn their way through all those images, that nobody wants.
27 September 2007 at 08:42 Alistair scott

Yes Michael, I've just discovered that.

Here I've been all week, working away on my Alamy images like a good little contributor, and all I've been achieving is to have them disappear from searches.

I've been shooting myself in the foot with Alamy when I could have been shooting images for other agencies.

What a ****-up. Please can you tell us when this is sorted, Alamy. Some of us have to put bread on the family table.
27 September 2007 at 10:17 Tony lilley

I have come across a couple of problems.
1. If there are people in the picture and they are so far away that they are not recognizable, do you tick the "people in picture" box, which of course there are, if so you need to model release all people if it's a RF image?
This seems crazy to me.

2. In the location field, what do you put when the picture is made from maybe 10 or more separate images as a composite which is the case for many of my pictures?

Hope someone can help!
27 September 2007 at 11:16 Peter phipp

If I leave the "does this image require a property release " box empty .. and complete the new keywording , is the image still going to be searchable by the new system? Alamy Please reply to this piont as I think that unless the photographer states that the image DOES have a property release , it is up to the purchaser to consider the use .
27 September 2007 at 23:10 JacquesJangoux

Lisa (post 59): Some editorial pictures don´t sell for several years (for example, some scientific subjects like rare plants or animals). What I would do is ask contributors with many similars to edit their collection, keeping, of course, the images that have sold and a reasonable amount (no more than 5, by Alamy rules) of similars.
28 September 2007 at 09:40 Manfred grebler

Toni (61): In this case the location will most likely be not relevant for search, just leave it empty.

Peter (62): "Does this picture contain property that needs a release?" is mandatory, you cannot leave it empty.
28 September 2007 at 12:25 Rainer Raffalski

Dear Alamy,

your new form contains questions regarding property releases. In case I don't have a release I have to decide whether it is needed or not. That, of course, depends on the kind of usage.

Many of my images do not need a property release for editorial use, but may need it for commercial use. I suppose this is the case with many images from many contributors.

In your contributor help section you describe how to deal with that problem. That's fine. But did you actually try to do it at least once? No?

O.K., I'll tell you, these are the steps to go through to prepare one single image for editorial use only:

1. Scroll down to "Select restrictions"

2. click "Usage"

3. select "Advertising/Promotion"

4. click "Add restriction"

5. scroll down to "Select restrictions"

6. click "Usage"

7. select "Consumer Goods"

8. click "Add restriction"

9. scroll down to "Select restrictions"

10. click "Usage"

11. select "Direct Mail / Brochures"

12. click "Add restriction"

13. scroll down to "Select restrictions"

14. click "Usage"

15. select "Display"

16. click "Add restriction"

17. scroll down to "Select restrictions"

18. click "Usage"

19. select "Multimedia"

20. click "Add restriction"

21. scroll down to "Select restrictions"

22. click "Usage"

23. select "Internal Business Usage"

24. click "Add restriction"

24 steps to prepare one single image for editorial use. Now multiply that by the hundreds or thousands of images a contributor has to work on.

And that is not necessary at all. It could be one single step, if there were an "Editorial Use Only" button.
1 step instead of 24 steps.

Dear Alamy, you have loaded a lot of work on your contributors. I think you know that. This work may be necessary to improve the overall quality of Alamy. I do understand and appreciate that.

But there is absolutely no need to force your contributors to do 24 steps of work when 1 could be enough.

So, Alamy, please, please, please solve this problem! And please solve it soon: Give us the "Editorial Use Only" button!

Rainer Raffalski
28 September 2007 at 12:54 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
28 September 2007 at 15:48 nina buesing

Alamy: please address the issue of the property release.
28 September 2007 at 17:35 Clive rowley

I'm just trying to get to grips with all this having clicked on "manage my images" this morning. I got my calculator out and if I spent 2 minutes on each image for sale it would take me 143 hours (Plan A)

So - Plan B. Do it for the best images. But here's the rub: I have sold many images which I would not include as my best. But they suited whoever was buying them. So, Plan B is based on a wrong premise, but it's the best I can think of.

As to what requires a release, here I am really floundering, as everything does not seem to be black and white. The exampled image of Captain Mannering's pub sign (note - not Captain Mainwaring – was there a legal reason for this?) does not carry any releases, yet there might be a copyright issue here (?) Or intellectual rights, whatever they are. Short of having a specialised lawyer in my closet, there are many images which I feel incapable of declaring whether the image needs a release or not.

Sometimes it is extremely difficult to take photographs without including properties or recognisable people where releases are simply impossible to obtain. Does this mean that these images are all worthless? Every evening I see on BBC television, or daily in the newspapers, images which include people in the street, at a football match, on a beach, and properties, logos, motor cars, shops, etc etc. Does the BBC or does a newspaper obtain releases in all these cases? I doubt it.

I could restrict my submissions to sunsets and buildings which are fairly insignificant in a landscape, or to people in the distance, or to animals, provided they are wild and not owned by somebody.

But altogether, this business of whether an image requires a release is a minefield. Sometimes it will be easy to say an image requires a release, and sometimes that it doesn’t. But there is a whole gamut of photography in between these easily defined situations.

As Rainer Raffalski asks in comment #65 please give us an "Editorial Use Only" button. It makes sense, and restricts the usage to what is easily understandable.
28 September 2007 at 17:56 Joe Fox

RE property release required.

Dear Alamy,
I've just found out from a colleague that images wont be accepted for sale unless the 'does this image require a property release' button is ticked.

I refuse to tick this button because I am not a lawyer.

I will not be submitting any more images until this is addressed.
28 September 2007 at 18:50 Clive Rowley

I have just sent the following email to memberservices@alamy.com and I hope it may be an answer to the problems:

"Dear Alamy

I am desparate! I feel that in many of my 4292 existing images on sale, I have no idea whether they require releases or not.

For example, the very first image I come across (on sale since 22 August 2007) viz AE6RTX is a picture of a medicine bottle, probably at least 40 or 50 years old. It has the name of the pharmacy on it (which no longer exists) and the bottle belongs to me. Does this mean I can tick the box where a property release exists? I don't know. It is a nice image to illustrate Oil of Citronella.

Would it be at all possible to have a third option (the first two being whether a release is required or not) for 'EDITORIAL USE ONLY' which automatically lists the restrictions that apply, but still indicates that Editorial Use is acceptable. Perhaps the same piece of software could change the licence to L from RF if this is necessary. This could be so easily instituted and would save so many of the worries that contributors seem to be airing on the blog comments.

I shall copy this email into the blog comments as I feel it may be a satisfactory resolution.

Regards
Clive Rowley"
28 September 2007 at 19:24 Michael Kronmal

On releases, it needs to simply be a "do you have one?" question for both property and model. Since Alamy does not permit the contributors to consult with the buyers, how could we even possibly have an opinion as to if one is needed? We are not the ones publishing images, we are not lawyers, we are not even aware of what usage will occur, yet we are being asked if one is necessary? Alamy needs to address this ASAP, as it is just plain broken.
28 September 2007 at 22:32 JacquesJangoux

Alamy,
What about native, illiterate people? Will it hurt us if we click the box that says there are people on the picture, but with no model release?
29 September 2007 at 08:13 Clive rowley

Product Shots: today I sent a letter to member services about an alamy image used in yesterday's Independent newspaper.

It was of the top of a recent Daily Mail newspaper and it casrried no releases nor any restictions. It was a licensed image A031J3.

I asked alamy that I presume this means that product shots do not require any release.

This would certainly help me in my new annotations.
29 September 2007 at 08:46 Clive rowley

Town Centres and some Travel Shots:

At present I have started on the mammoth task, and am doing the easy ones like Food Shots and people shots where model releases are certainly required and obtained.

But I do a lot of images, for example, of town centres in the UK and abroad. These invariably include images of recognisable people and logos on shops etc. They are not the 'main feature' but it is difficult to photograph many travel and places shots without including them. Also they would be pretty boring shots without these inclusions. I have sold quite a numner of them.

Shoould I 'digitally manipulate' them to blank out all the faces and shopfronts? Or should I tick the release not needed button? I really don't know. I would love to have the facility to press an Editorial Use only button if that were the answer.

I'm sorry to be putting all these questions, but when I have done the easy ones (and that will be some time), I shall have to deal with the ones that are not yet black and white.
29 September 2007 at 08:52 Dave

RE post No 71.
Michael, you have said everything that needs to be said regarding property/model releases.

Alamy know this as well as the rest of us.
29 September 2007 at 10:52 Philippe Hays

Re nº 65
Yes please Alamy, create a button for "Editorial Use Only".

It's a joke -and a pain in the wrist- to have to go through so many steps to apply the necessary restrictions.

Thanks in advance.
29 September 2007 at 13:26 Tibor Bognar

This new development is exasperating for people like me; I have around 10,000 images filed under the old system and it's disheartening to think about re-doing all of them one by one!!! By the time I'd be done, no doubt Alamy will invent something new again. Please have a consideration for contributors who have been faithful collaborators for years!

I always insert keywords in photoshop before sending my images in; why couldn't these few words be put into the first fields in your system, instead of the last one?

I have photos of more than 100 countries, each with it's own laws about what requires a property release. How I'm supposed to give you a correctly reply?

In the left hand column of the annotation field, why not have DEFAULT settings with the "No" reply everywhere, 0 people, and "photo" instead of illustration. Try to imagine the amount of work this could save for us! Personally, all my 10,000 images are like that, so try to calculate the number of mouseclicks you would save me!

First the novel use, now the new annotating tool, Alamy keeps throwing annoying news at us. I'm in my fourth year as an enthusiasthic supporter of Alamy, but frankly I'm getting discouraged!

Please Alamy, make changes to this annotation scheme, it certainly hasn't been considered carefully enough!
29 September 2007 at 16:25 JacquesJangoux

A possible reason for implementing the new keywording system is, besides that we are said it works with the new search algorithm, to force photographers, by giving them more work and work for each individual picture, to edit their submissions more tightly. Close to reach 10 million pictures, Alamy must have realized they have, perhaps, 1 million pictures that sell. The other 9 million are ballast that make the boat heavier. I suggest that to reduce the weight of this ballast Alamy could contact the photographers at the bottom of AlamyRank, or the photographers with more than 1000 images and that have not made a sale in two years, to edit their collection to 30% of what it is.
29 September 2007 at 21:21 Rainer Raffalski

Dear Alamy,

the more I think about the new Alamy rules regarding property releases, the more I find them disturbing.

As Joe Fox pointed out above in post no. 69 only a lawyer can answer the question whether an image may need a property release or not, but... not my lawyer, since he knows about a buyer's intentions as little as I do.

It is only the buyer's lawyer, knowing the purpose an image is to be used for, who can answer that question.

My lawyer can not! And I can even less!

IT SEEMS TO ME THAT ALAMY WANTS TO PLEASE THE BUYER BY SHIFTING THE BUYER'S RESPONSIBILITY ONTO THE PHOTOGRAPHER.

Is that legal? I don't know. I do know, fair it is not!

Once a happy Alamy contributor,

Rainer Raffalski
29 September 2007 at 22:09 nina buesing

Alamy: when are you addressing the concerns of the people on this blog?
30 September 2007 at 21:13 JacquesJangoux

Alamy,
An actual example: The 4 keywords: < rainforest, "tropical rain forest" aerial canopy >
give 48 characters (a researcher for a college ecology textbook would
probably use "tropical rain forest", the correct scientific term,
whereas someone working on a tourist brochure would probably use
"rainforest", thus both keywords are essential. You cannot know which
keyword is essential for a specific editorial/commercial project.

I would group Essential Keywords and Main keywords in one category,
which would give use 350 characters.

Then in Comprehensive keywords you could place words less likely to be
frequently used.

Really, until Alamy gives us the keywords that led to a sale we will
have no way to know which keywords are essential.

Even simpler would be to have just one category and ask contributors
to list the keywords by order of importance. You could imagine a
system where the first 5 words (or 8 words) get 5 points, the next 10 (or 15) get 4 points, the next 20 get 3 points, and the rest gets one point (somewhat like auto racing championships).
We could then use the IPTC field and not have to worry about it later.
Just a suggestion.
30 September 2007 at 22:28 Povl

This new system is hopeless. Other agensies can provide us with tools and automated systems to do most of the job.

The Alamy solution is like a web one (1990 type) solution. They need to hire some updated programmers who can utilise the new systems.

I have clos to a 1.000 images on Alamy, and as long as this system is so bad to do a job, I'm not goind to alter anything.

All the informations is in my pics when I send then to alamy, they just have to retreive it.

I use Iwiev to keyword all of my images for Alamy and other agencies. The other agencies can reterive the information, but Alamy can not.

Alamy - this is not good enough - you have to do it better that this. Your competitors can - why can Alamy not ???

Hopelessly out of date is what it is!
01 October 2007 at 07:38 Linda

Out of the many many agencies I contribute to,this has to be the most backward way to work. Time consuming,slow,and what is the point since all this work has been done already and is embedded in the we images we've uploaded. My info shows up automatically with all of the agencies I am with including the 25,000 images I have on Photoshelter.
Agreed,Alamy you need new programmers.
You also need this blog to better handle different browsers. I started this on Firefox and below it says type the 6 characters you see in the picture on the left...There are no characters to the left!

I moved to Safari and now I see the characters.

All of this new work you've dumped upon us seems to be geared for when you sell contributors work as microstock and it is used and abused in ways it should not be that it is making the photographer legally liable for the actions of the strangers licensing the images.
Linda
01 October 2007 at 07:49 David hancock

RE: Property Release

This should be simply yes or no in the same manner as Model Release is handled.

Contributors are not lawyers though many of us think we are.

I think opinion about whether an image should have a Property Release or not should be left to the purchaser.
01 October 2007 at 12:47 Arni Katz

Has anyone else noted that there is no deletion option on images that have been QC'ed but not key-worded yet? For those of us reconsidering Alamy, its appears we no longer have an option to delete images before going through the "make read for sale" process. This MUST be addressed.
01 October 2007 at 14:49 Jacques Jangoux

Linda (post #83)
I use Firefox, and the problem ocurs ocasionally. Sometimes the 6 characters appear, sometimes not. Just try again. Another problem: after typing the characters correctly, when I click Add comment I get an error message. I mayhappen twice, then the third time it works.

OT: There is another problem with Firefox. I cannot access the main Alamy website or any of its links (except the blog!?!?) from Firefox. I get the message:

Microsoft VBScript runtime error '800a01a8'
Object required: 'objUserInfo.Item(...)'
/include/inc-global.asp, line 374

I have to go to Internet Exporer. This problem happened the first time some time ago for 2 or 3 weeks; then I was able to use Firefox again; then about 10 days ago, the problem came back.

Alamy, please forward this to your programmers. Thanks.
01 October 2007 at 15:49 Povl

Do this photo need a release?

How on earth shold I know? I don't know how the buyer is going to use a given image....

Could we please, please, please, have a button to mark our pictures: " Editorial use only"

Please, please, please - I beg you - this work wery well with other agencies, why not adopt that possiblity?
01 October 2007 at 16:54 Arni Katz

Dear Fellow Contributors:
After the last month of watching Alamy's "Novel Use" scheme and then
the utterly absurd re-working of their key-wording procedure, I have
seriously reconsidered my involvement with this agency.

After the second QC failure of my latest re-submission due to "dust"
on one image, which in fact was a seabird in flight, I have deleted
all remaining images waiting for key-wording.

I have been shooting professionally since 1972. I have worked for some
of the most demanding anal-retentive editors on the planet. In my
humble opinion, the current dynamic at Alamy has become completely
unworkable for any professional who values their work and their time.

I am leaving my currently live images as they are with no updating to
any keyword fields and going forth to other agencies with far better
options.

It is a shame. Alamy looked promising and wonderful a year ago.

Best of luck to you all!

Arni Katz
01 October 2007 at 19:22 Trevor payne

I have just been keywording using the new annotation boxes and find the process far too slow now that keywords have to be seperated into three different categories. Is this Alamy's attempt at getting photographers to be more selective about what they send in? If it is then it will certainly work in my case - I won't want to send in as many images as I used to as it's now far too time consuming answering so many questions for each image and listing keywords according to ones perceived importance - Who knows which keywords are more important than others anyway?
01 October 2007 at 22:34 Tony watson

I have just spent the whole day keywording new images, about 10 hours work in all. How many have I managed to complete? 35 images!! Thats pathetic, I have better things to do with my time, like taking photo's.

I'm still trying to get to grips with all the new fields, annotation options, etc, and I'm not really sure if I'm doing it correctly. This new system is so unnecessarily slow and labourious.

NOW MY HEAD HURTS.
02 October 2007 at 14:01 Tibor Bognar

As many people in the blog have pointed out, you are trying to
place the burden of responsibility of whether a release is needed for any
specific use to the photographer. Any reasonable person could see that this
will not work. I may click on release needed or not, but how qualified am I
to decide this? Alamy sells in the entire world and I have photos of over
100 countries. Let's imagine a street scene in an Italian city where among
other things some private houses can be seen. This was taken by a Canadian
photographer and sold by a British agency to a client in Japan, who
will use it in a corporate communications brochure in Malaysia. Which laws
will govern this and who is the superstar international lawyer who can
answer the question whether a release is needed? And you are asking this
from us for every possible scenario like this? I may click on yes or no, but
it will be meaningless and will not save you from possible problems later.
This is one thing which you must recognize as totally ill-conceived and
change immediately.
02 October 2007 at 16:29 Michael howard

Arni Katz said "It is a shame. Alamy looked promising and wonderful a year ago."

Yes - your post above said it all. I feel the same: first worried by "novel use" and then not having time to do a week's work re-keywording, while waiting nearly a month for a submission to be looked at for the second time.

An offending cloud shape or plume of smoke (which I should have smoothed over) on one seems to be the cause of everything being refused this time. To wait yet another month could be the final straw for me.

But Alamy have made quite good, and increasing, sales for me.
02 October 2007 at 23:47 Rainer raffalski

Tibor Bognar wrote: "I may click on yes or no, but it will be meaningless and will not save you from possible problems later."

No, Tibor, you are wrong. It is not at all meaningless! Didn't you read the contributor agreement? You are fully legaly responsible for the information you provide. If you click, no property release needed, and it turns out otherwise, then you are the one who is in trouble, not Alamy.

Rainer Raffalski
03 October 2007 at 16:13 Arni Katz

Please read this amendment to my earlier post:

James Allsworth was kind enough to write me a detailed personal note, including samples of images that resulted in my last QC failure. There were indeed visual flaws due to sensor dust that I did not catch. It was not due to the seabird, seabird droppings or any other content issue.

It appears that age and denial that self-abuse does indeed result in blindness, has caused my terminal visual decrepitude.

I appreciate sincerely the personal gesture from James, which was a welcome indication our comments on this and other venues are read and taken seriously.

My QC failure was justified and appropriate.

Arni
04 October 2007 at 21:17 IanMurray

Huge respect Arni.

Ian Murray
05 October 2007 at 13:21 Arni Katz

Ian,

Thanks very much. I feel if we are going to post critiques of Alamy we certainly must be responsible for our own errors.

Alamy is listening to us. Whether it is in their master plan to address our concerns is beyond our control.

Cheers,

Arni
08 October 2007 at 20:55 Bud Kovalchik Photography

Alamy:

This is the 4th attempt to submit this blog -- I'm getting angry!

As a new professional photographer, I have to agree with most of the furor over the new keyword requirements. Don't "spin your wheels" by inventing unique ways to keyword when your competitors already have simple systems in place. You are causing a lot of work! A lot of work! A lot of work!

I first started the process of being accepted as an Alamy contributor one year ago. My experiences have been as slow as pouring sugared honey:

1) It took 4 months to get through the acceptance/quality control process because I didn't understand the "size" requirements and got useless replies to my inquiries for HELP on this issue. A couple of well-established USA photographers finally figured out my problem after giving it two days of thought. After resizing to your requirements, the 10 test images were accepted and I spent 1 month resizing my best images to that date.

2) I next spent four months waiting for three batches of submissons (about 560 images) to get approved. At least they were accepted the first time through! :-)

3) Next -- one month keywording the 560 submissions to last years keyword requirements.

4) Now -- one and 1/2 months without a sale.

5) Finally, and perhaps the last straw, I now have to keyword all images "once again" "do it all over again" "waste time" [repetative] [one] by [uno] by........................

Perhaps Alamy should be more concerned about it's most important asset (THE PHOTOGRAPHER) instead of unique ways to keyword images and reaching the 10,000,000 image milestone (congratulations by the way).

We, the contributors, would prefer to be taking pictures rather than constantly redoing keywords and other busy work. You'd get to 20,000,000 faster.

Another concern: To see why my images are not selling -- I wondered if they were even on the site, so I searched several wildlife keywords. "Red-necked grebe" quickly found my images as few images are listed on Alamy. SI had the same results with some other more obscure bird and animal searches. On the other hand, "osprey" led me to hundreds (>1000?) images and it was hard to find my 37 images scattered among them. I considered more than half of my images better than more than two-thirds of the other osprey images and wonder how a buyer will find my more spectacular, more sellable images?

Another concern -- there were too many cases of missidentified birds, flowers, scenes, structures, etc resulting from the "osprey" search AND too many simply bad images. What will a buyer think? I personnaly would bail out of Alamy and search another photo warehouse.

I feel I have many great images to offer and, like a fine wine, will "improve with [experience] and [age] [aged]". Do you want me or not Alamy.

My hope is you will fix the problems with keywording and make our job easier. If you haven't done so, consider adding some computer-literate photographers to your tech staff.

Thanks for listening and sorry for being so blunt.
09 October 2007 at 09:12 Paul glendell

I have just got to add my feelings to those of tens of photographers who simply don't have time to re keyword thousands of images. For example I only ever submit photographs not illustrations yet for every image in the past and future I have to tick a box to say so. You must create a default for this and so many other things in your wonderful new keywording system. It really is crazy. I can only asume that you simply have too many photos and what you are of course trying to do is to stop photographers submittings lots of similar images. Make it harder and harder for us to submit images and we, the photogarphers will submit only our best. You are forcing us to edit our images by making it take us a lot of work to get them onto the site. It will take you a lot longer to get to the next 10 million and yes of course my sales have suddenly droped off the last couple of months. Still can't stay here chatting I've got a couple of thousand images to re keyword, identify, date, time, log, annotate, box tick, sorry should that last one be in [these things] or not? I really can't see this all happening and all of us to would like to be taking photos will be plugged in or will just find somewhere else to sell photos instead. Have a nice day staring at your computers folks!
19 October 2007 at 02:54 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 carefully:

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

'Editorial' button 'Editorial' button 'Editorial' button 'Editorial' button 'Editorial' button 'Editorial' button 'Editorial' button 'Editorial' button

Model and Property Release Necessary? Publisher decides.
Model and Property Release Necessary? Publisher decides.
Model and Property Release Necessary? Publisher decides.
Model and Property Release Necessary? Publisher decides.
28 October 2007 at 02:54 Linda Reinink-Smith

Just as Jaques (comment 72), I wonder about model release with regards to native illiterate people in remote areas of the world. Those are essentially the only kind of people photos I take. What is the requirement in this situation? The photo objects are often happy to be photographed, but others do not understand what a camera is, and most are illiterate. Would such subjects be considered recognizable? Can anyone, please, advise? I asked Alamy, but their reply did not directly relate to my quetion.
30 October 2007 at 17:13 Michael Kronmal

Linda,

Alamy has completely avoided the situation that they have caused by requiring contributers to provide a legal opinion regarding if releases are required or not. They likely will not provide you any specific direction as they themselves would want to avoid the liability that they have thrust upon us. Their silence on this issue speaks volumes.

We are photographers, not omniscient attorneys who specialize in worldwide publication release issues. Stop trying to include us in the publishers liability for how they use an image. We can attest to if we do or no not have releases, nothing more.
31 October 2007 at 20:13<

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Annotating existing collections – don’t panic!

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27 September 2007 at 10:17 Tony lilley

27 September 2007 at 11:16 Peter phipp

27 September 2007 at 23:10 JacquesJangoux

28 September 2007 at 09:40 Manfred grebler

28 September 2007 at 12:25 Rainer Raffalski

28 September 2007 at 12:54 Peter bowater

28 September 2007 at 15:48 nina buesing

28 September 2007 at 17:35 Clive rowley

28 September 2007 at 17:56 Joe Fox

28 September 2007 at 18:50 Clive Rowley

28 September 2007 at 19:24 Michael Kronmal

28 September 2007 at 22:32 JacquesJangoux

29 September 2007 at 08:13 Clive rowley

29 September 2007 at 08:46 Clive rowley

29 September 2007 at 08:52 Dave

29 September 2007 at 10:52 Philippe Hays

29 September 2007 at 13:26 Tibor Bognar