Boring but necessary announcements

Changing your Alamy password - an update

James Allsworth — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 13:11:00 GMT

Thank you to those who have responded to our recent blog post and mail out asking you to change your Alamy password. We know things like this can seem tedious but they are important and we are pleased so many of you have taken the time to do this.

Those of you who have not recently updated your passwords will soon be emailed a new one. Once you have this we suggest you log in and change it to something a bit more memorable - remember this is just for those of you who have not recently updated your password as requested.

If you have any trouble logging in with a new password the best thing to do is just click the 'request new password' link to be sent a new one. If you continue to have trouble, or if you don't receive the new one, email Member Services for help.

Please change your Alamy password

Alan Capel — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 12:09:00 GMT

We have recently updated our password system in line with current e-commerce best practice. As a result we need you to change your Alamy password. To change your password, go to My Alamy and change your login details.

We suggest that you change your password as soon as you can. In the future you will be prompted to change your password if you have not already done so.

If you have forgotten your current password, select the “forgotten your password?” link on the log in screen and the system will email a new password to you.

If anyone else uses your account, please ensure you let them know the new password.

Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience caused.

This is a good time to remind you that Alamy rely on your e-mail address to communicate with you so it is important to ensure that it is valid and up to date. You should also ensure that mails from us don't end up in your junk mail folders.

If you have any questions about the change please email Member Services.

Who you gonna call? Not the sales team!

James Allsworth — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 15:47:00 GMT

© Photos 12It has come to our attention that an increasing amount of photographers have been calling our sales focused Customer Service line rather than Member Services, something that should be avoided to prevent the blocking of incoming sales calls from clients.

With over 30,000 registered photographers its inevitable that there will be times when you pick up the phone to call us, and we are unable to speak to you. For this reason we have a voicemail service where you can leave a message. If you do leave a message someone will call you back as soon as possible, usually that day providing your contact details are clear!

With various projects recently going live there has been an increased demand to talk to us via the phone so at this moment in time we are very busy. If you are forwarded to voicemail please leave a message and wait for us to call you back. A number of contributors have been repeatedly calling our Customer Service sales team to talk about contributor issues or to complain that the Member Services phone is diverting to voicemail. Can we please ask that you don't do this as the CS team are not trained to handle contributor enquiries and calling CS blocks incoming sales related calls.

We understand it can be frustrating not being able to get through to us right away and for that we apologise. With the majority of calls we receive, the information is already available on the website so be sure to check the (very useful) contributor section of the site before calling. Alternatively you could also put your question to fellow photographers on our lively contributor forum. You will probably find that your question has already been answered or your point already being discussed! You can also email our member services team who will be more than happy to help.

If you need to call us though the line is there, and if it's busy someone will be in touch soon. Our office hours are 9am to 5pm (GMT) Monday to Friday and the number is +44 (0)1235 844640.

Cheque returns - make sure your payment is not delayed

James Allsworth — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 12:28:00 GMT

If you have opted to be paid by cheque, make sure you give us the correct payment address otherwise you could experience a delay in receiving payment.

Every month we have a number of payment cheques returned to us due to an incorrect postal address. In many cases, recently relocated contributors have changed their contact details but have failed to update their payment details, which are arguably far more important!

To check and update your payment address click on My Alamy and click Change payment and tax details. This will ensure that your payments are sent to you directly rather than the scenic and long winding route of "return to sender".

AlamyUpload - update

Alan Capel — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 16:03:00 GMT

We are making good progress on the development of AlamyUpload. It’s in beta testing and will be trialled by increasing numbers of contributors in a phased release. Here are some more details.

We have been putting our new beta version of AlamyUpload through its paces. Our engineers tested it extensively on Mac and PC and we carried out the usual round of bug fixes. We also invited two groups of Alamy Contributors to our Oxfordshire offices to try it out. We made a few changes as a result of their experiences and soon, another group of contributors will test it from home or work. Thank you to all of you who offered to help with our trials, but we need to use specific profiles of contributor to fulfill our testing plan.

We will gradually involve more and more of you in the trial. Once we are satisfied that the system is working properly, we will make AlamyUpload available to all, and will notify you when you can use it. To use AlamyUpload, you will need:

One of the following combinations of operating systems and browsers:
- Windows PC with Internet Explorer or Firefox.
- Apple Macintosh OS X 10.4 with Safari or Firefox.
A broadband connection.

For more information, please read, AlamyUpload - technical requirements.

We’ll post more news as it becomes available. In the meantime, thank you for your patience and please continue to submit your images on CD/DVD until we notify you that AlamyUpload has been enabled on your account.

AlamyUpload - technical requirements

Alan Capel — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 16:00:00 GMT

To be ready for AlamyUpload you may wish to check that it will work on your operating system and choice of browser. Here are the minimum requirements.

Mac users

Apple Macintosh X 10.4 with Safari and Firefox

is supported on Mac OS X 10.4 and later.
AlamyUpload is supported on the following browsers:
- Safari
- Firefox 1.5 and later. To check which version of Firefox you have:
  1. start Firefox;
  2. click Firefox in the top menu;
  3. click About Mozilla Firefox.
AlamyUpload uses a Java Applet which requires version 5 or later (also called version 1.5) of the Java Runtime Environment (JRE). To check which version you are running:
1. visit www.java.com/en/download/help/testvm.xml;
2. if the JRE is installed and enabled you will see an animated figure, above which will be the version information. The version of the JRE must be 1.5 or greater.
3. if the version is wrong, or you do not see the animated character, you will need to do one or more of the following:
  1. Install JRE 1.5 or later from the Apple website.
  2. Update to JRE 1.5 or later from the Apple website.
  3. Enable Java from within Firefox Options:
    1. start Firefox;
    2. click Firefox and then Preferences;
    3. click the Content tab;
    4. select the Enable Java option.
If you use Mac OS X 10.4, you should already have version 5 of the JRE installed. However, you may want to visit the Apple website to download the latest version for your system; and you may may need to configure it as the default version. To do this:
1. On your Mac, use the Java Preferences Utility found in the directory:
  Applications/Utilities/Java/J2SE 5.0/
2. Restart your browser for this change to take effect.

PC users

Windows PC with Internet Explorer

AlamyUpload is supported on Internet Explorer 6 and later. To check which version you have:
1. start Internet Explorer;
2. click Help;
3. click About Internet Explorer.
AlamyUpload uses an Active X component which is installed as the page loads.
If you still have problems, it may be because you need Administrator privileges on your computer. Please ask your network administrator for assistance.

Windows PC with Firefox

AlamyUpload is supported on Firefox 1.5 and later. To check which version you have:
1. start Firefox;
2. click Help;
3. click About Mozilla Firefox.
AlamyUpload uses a Java Applet which requires version 5 or later (also called version 1.5) of the Java Runtime Environment (JRE). To check which version you are running:
1. visit www.java.com/en/download/help/testvm.xml;
2. if the JRE is installed and enabled you will see an animated figure above which will be the version information. The version of the JRE must be 1.5 or greater.
3. if the version is wrong, or you do not see the animated character, you will need to do one or more of the following:
  1. Install JRE 1.5 or later from the Java website.
  2. Update to JRE 1.5 or later from the Java website.
  3. Enable Java from within Firefox Options:
    1. start Firefox;
    2. click Tools and then Options...;
    3. click the Content tab;
    4. select the Enable Java option.

The return of the blog comments!

James Allsworth — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 10:23:00 GMT

We are pleased to announce that the comments feature of the blog has once again been enabled. We’re sorry we had to turn it off for a week, but we are far less likely now to receive so much spam, which is good for everyone.

Should you wish to comment on any of the news or features we post be sure to keep your remarks on topic, fact based and free from any sort of insult.

The wonderful world of Jpeg submissions

James Allsworth — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 13:25:00 GMT

© Brand X Pictures Our required file size for submitting Jpegs seems to cause an incomprehensible amount of confusion with a high volume of photographers. Put simply, we are flabbergasted as to how many times we are asked, daily, of what format and size of images we require!

Let’s set the record straight right now. First and foremost, yes, we want you to send Jpegs. No, we don’t want you to send Tiffs. The reason for this is that we provide our clients with Jpegs to download, not Tiffs. It’s been industry standard to work like this for a long time now and even in the days when we required you to send us Tiffs, we converted them to Jpeg for the clients. Yes we know Jpeg is a lossy format, but to the naked eye, there is no visible difference between a high quality Jpeg and a Tiff file. The client can simply download the Jpeg, save it as a Tiff, and work away on it saving as many times as they like without loss in quality. It’s really that simple!

Now that’s out of the way let’s move onto file size. Jpeg is a compressed file format. The compressed file size (size on disk) varies with picture content and should be ignored, as long as it’s no bigger than 20MB, which is our upper limit for Jpeg size. What’s important is the uncompressed (opened) file size. The opened file must be at least 48MB at 8 bit to get through our quality control. Typically a 48MB 8 bit file will be between 3MB and 10MB as a Jpeg if your image was shot digitally. Film scans will be larger. This is because Jpeg “sees” film grain as image detail and compresses it too. You can easily exceed 20MB from a 35mm film scan saved at Jpeg level 12. It’s sometimes necessary to save at Jpeg level 10 to get below 20MB. Yes we want you to send us the Jpeg. No we do not want a Jpeg 48MB in size as yes that would be ridiculously large!

What you don’t want to do is work on your images whilst they are in Jpeg form, repeatedly saving as you go along. Saving a Jpeg as a Jpeg is pretty much a no no, as you are recompressing a compressed file. An ideal workflow example would be to convert your image into a Tiff file, upsize it to a minimum of 48MB at 8bit, make any alterations as needed with dust spotting, levels etc then at the very last step, save as a high quality Jpeg. Yes, we want the Jpeg!

We found this very interesting article on Jpegs through Wikipedia that you may also find useful.

Give us the time as well as the place.

James Allsworth — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 12:39:00 GMT

© Arthur SteelIt can make or break a sale. For some clients, particularly those in the text book and travel industries, having the date an image was taken is very important. They want to know if those palm trees still line that beach. They want to make sure that the quaint looking town square is still a town square…not a block of flats.

Customers also look for images from a historical perspective. They may need a picture of London from the 1980’s, a 1960’s school playground, or a genuine 1970’s perm...Who knows? But you can see why giving them this information may help customers buy your images.

We know that annotating your images with the date taken enhances their sales potential. To add dates to your images simply go to My Alamy and click Manage my images. If you don’t know the exact date your image was taken hold off for now. You will soon be able to add just the year rather than the full date. Not only will this be an ideal opportunity to sit back and reminisce of times gone by, it may also result in a few extra sales in the future.

AlamyUpload - Honest folks, we are working on it.

Alan Capel — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 16:54:00 GMT

© ACE STOCK LIMITEDFirst and foremost, we would like to whole heartedly apologise for the delay in providing an online upload service for your images. We had hoped to have the system up and running in 2006, but encountered some unexpected problems. We were happy with the way the system worked but once multiple users were logged on at the same time, we were not happy with the speed and efficiency of the system.

We are currently working on fixing these issues and plan to get feedback from some of you soon.

We often get contributors offering to help with testing. Although this is appreciated, we have specific profiles of contributor needed so it is far more effective for us to select and invite rather than take you up on offers ad hoc. We know you only want to help but this is the best option!

Any updates will be posted on the blog as they become available. We thank you for your continued patience. For now please continue to send in your images via CD or DVD.