Advice and tips

Having difficulties with keywording your images?

Ben Gray — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 13:04:00 GMT

We appreciate there are many of you that would rather be out with your camera than sitting in front of your computer. However, it doesn’t matter how fantastic your pictures are if they do not have the necessary keywords behind them. Poor keywording means they simply will not be getting the visibility they deserve. Yes, unfortunately the accurate keywording of your images is a necessary evil.

We have been working with external companies that offer keywording services to ensure that they understand the format required for Alamy and the differing importance of our keywording fields. These companies range across different countries, services they offer and of course price, but the good news is they will all give you a discount if you want to use them to get Alamy formatted keywords. The result of a recent audit means we are pleased to recommend the services of all of them.

So why not check out the approved keywording company list and see if they can help you put down your dictionary and pick up your camera?

Permissions: Museums and Heritage properties

Pippa Greig — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 15:40:00 GMT

© MIXA Co. LtdIt may surprise you to know that there are a number of situations in which you require permission in order to take photographs for stock. This is true for a range of museums, galleries, historic sites and heritage properties. Shooting stock images on these properties often requires permission in order for images to be sold for commercial gain (which includes both editorial and advertising sales). The issue of “permission” is separate to that of property releases, and if not obtained, you may face litigation from property owners. If you’d like to know more, then read on…

Whilst you can photograph buildings and properties that are located in public places or are open to the public, there is the legal issue of “Contract” which you may not be aware of. By entering a museum for example, you agree to its terms and conditions and this is known as Contract. The majority of museums, galleries, historic sites and heritage properties have policies in place which state that photographs may be taken, but not for commercial purposes. These policies can cover both the interiors and exteriors of properties.

By distributing images online with Alamy, if you are shooting these types of property without prior written permission, you will be in breach of Contract. In addition, you are will also be in breach of your Alamy Contributor agreement (clause 10b) which states that:

“The Contributor represents, warrants and undertakes to Alamy as follows: except for the Prior Rights (if any) the Copyright Owner is the sole owner free from any third party rights of the entire copyright and all other intellectual property rights throughout the world in the Image”

Whilst many photographers believe they have the right to shoot wherever they want, property owners have the right to assert their legal position and request to have any images in breach of Contract removed from the Alamy website. If we are made aware that images on our site have been taken without permission, we may remove these images from our site at any time.

Our Advice to you:

Gain permission from the property owners/management in writing to distribute images taken within these properties, prior to shooting and then uploading images to Alamy.
If in doubt or where permission has not been sought, do not upload the images to Alamy. Property owners have the legal right to litigate against photographers contravening their policy.
Places to watch out for when shooting on heritage property:
- National Trust Properties
- English Heritage Properties
- Some other landmarks/Trust properties e.g. Somerset House
- Most Museums worldwide (e.g. V&A, Natural History, British Museum etc)
- Most Galleries worldwide (e.g. National Gallery, Saatchi Gallery)

In light of the above, if you have any images on Alamy which you would like to remove, please email Member Services.

Editing and enhancing your collection

Alexandra Bortkiewicz — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 14:37:00 GMT

© ImageStateIf you are preparing a portfolio to sell your work, the 'less is more' approach generally works best. A buyer is more likely to remember the one or two impressive images over the other 15 mediocre ones, so best to include just the memorable ones that will linger in the buyers' mind.

Preparing submissions for your stock photography agency should have a similar approach, though with Alamy unlike some other agencies there is plenty of flexibility with what you can send. Alamy often describes itself as a market place and so contributors are encouraged to 'experiment' with different kinds of content and styles, to play that market place. We have grown on that success and become defined as an agency with more then just the mainstream offerings. Image buyers often come to us because they cannot locate the hard-to-find subjects, specialist collections or alternatives of popular subjects. Alamy do not edit submissions and likewise do not dictate what the customer sees.

So this aspect of the process is up to the photographer. Bearing this in mind, a good place to start is seeing what there is on the Alamy website in areas you are specialising - you can start 'editing' your collection even before it is shot! Filling gaps in content is always a good place to start particularly if your collection is more orientated towards the editorial markets. Picture researchers covering this market will be very specific about what they are looking for.

Imagine what your images will look like populated in a page of images on a computer screen. Graphic and easy to read images are likely to be 'pulled out' more by a viewer scanning the page then a flat toned one. In this respect, remember to check histograms and make the most of levels and curves features in Photoshop to apply the best degree of contrast, brightness and saturation to the image. This is important for all markets but particularly essential for appealing to the commercial market.

If you have been selling your collection directly yourself for some time, start with your best sellers - they have a proven track record and we can extend their shelf life by exposure to more markets and territories that provide additional sales.

If you are struggling to keyword an image or cannot visualise its usage, or did not have purpose in taking the images in the first place, the image is probably not worth submitting.

If you wish to supply us with a series of images, it is best to submit a vertical, a horizontal format and a variation with a different nuance or conceptual angle from each shoot/subject area. This is to reduce image redundancy and improve the visual quality of results when a client performs a search.

If you supply us with a series of very similar images, of almost identical compositions with only slightly different exposures; where the expression on the model is the same, or the frame has not really changed, your images are likely to appear further down the sort order. From a client perspective it takes too long to go through the options and do the edit themselves, filtering out the images they don't require. At Alamy we now only accept a maximum of 5 similar frames, however it's recommended to just send in one or two frames at the most.

On the other side of the spectrum, there are some contributors who are so rigorous in editing their collections, desiring the highest perfection to what they send, that they are very likely to omit images that will sell. It's really about trying to find the right balance and maximising the fact that Alamy can effectively access all kinds of markets globally. If you are a specialist you want to reflect the depth and breadth of the collection: primary, secondary and even tertiary tier of subject matter. If you are generalist, keep the collection lively with variety and diversity of situations, and not overloaded with similars.

Knowing what to send will become easier as Alamy release tools and data designed to allow you to analyse how well your work is performing in the market place. This will hopefully answer questions like why a particular collection is not performing so well and which is, so as to know where to best focus future efforts.

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.