News picture guidelines

Our aim is to sell your high quality news images to the world's media outlets. For us to sell these images on your behalf, we need a few things from you.

We need the image to:

Be of a subject matter that will be of interest to a news media outlet.
Have been uploaded to us as quickly as possible.
Be of as high a quality as possible and to satisfy our news technical criteria.
To be correctly and accurately captioned, with the correct date.
Note: CAPTIONS MUST BE ADDED TO IMAGES BEFORE UPLOAD.
To have the same IPTC headline text as other images in the same group.
Note: HEADLINES MUST BE ADDED TO IMAGES BEFORE UPLOAD.
To not have been altered in any way which may alter the truth of the image.
To have been taken legally. Images taken in the UK must also have been taken in accordance with PCC guidelines.

News subject matter

We want images which we can sell to a news media outlet.

It is difficult to give clear and comprehensive criteria for what makes a picture newsworthy or not. Usually it will be a picture of a recent newsworthy event or a visually interesting "picture of the day" type image which can hold its own on a page as a standalone. Most importantly, a news photograph will never be boring. Standard stock photography should not be delivered through any Alamy news channel.

Newsworthiness of photographs will be judged by the Alamy team. If we judge an image to be non-newsworthy, we will remove it from the news feed. If you have news web upload privileges only, the image will then be sent to QC to undergo quality control checking to make sure it is suitable for admission as a stock image. Images which do not meet our minimum size criteria or other quality criteria for stock images will not pass through QC and will need to be uploaded again. If you have news ftp upload privileges, your rejected news images will transfer to stock. This route must not be abused and news ftp photographers sending general stock images to the feed may have those images deleted and have to re-upload them through the normal route.

Upload quickly

News, sport and entertainment photographs should be filed as quickly as possible. Make sure you have thought about how you will upload your pictures to the Alamy news feed before you set out on a job. Think about the needs of the media outlets – if you wire pictures hours after an event, they will have already put a rival's pictures on the page before you have even clicked the send button on your laptop.

Quality control and technical criteria

Alamy has less stringent technical requirements for news photographs. The reason for this is that photographs of great events might be a bit small or a bit out of focus or a bit overexposed – they can still be great news photos. However, we do expect the images to be of the highest quality possible given the circumstances.

There are also some technical issues we cannot get around:

News image technical criteria:
Image Size	Images must be at least 5MB in size (uncompressed). Compressed files must not be greater than 25MB
Colour	Images must be RGB, not CMYK
File type	Images must be JPEGs
Filename	All images must have an alphanumeric filename ending in .jpg
Caption	Images must have a caption in the correct IPTC field (the IPTC Description Field) and make sure that the caption meets the captions criteria (see below). CAPTIONS MUST BE ADDED BEFORE UPLOAD.
Headline	All images in a group of images should have the same group headline entered in the IPTC Headline field.(see below). HEADLINES MUST BE ADDED BEFORE UPLOAD.

Captions criteria

Errors in the captions of news images are unacceptable – they could lead to a media customer publishing or broadcasting inaccurate information. Inaccurate news is not news at all.

In order to maintain quality, Alamy will not sell news images where there are spelling mistakes or where captions are not sufficiently detailed enough. Alamy staff may ask photographers to supply more information or ask them to correct errors in order to be able to try and sell a picture.

Photographers should make sure they are contactable by mobile phone after upload in case there are any caption or image queries.

Photographers who persistently file inaccurate or poor caption information may be stripped of their right to file news images through the Alamy system.

Alamy news captions should reveal all the important information and the context of a picture while remaining as short as possible:

The following rules should be followed:

News captions must be a maximum of 300 characters long.
Captions should always answer the following questions: WHO?, WHAT?, WHEN? WHERE? – and sometimes WHY? and HOW?
All captions must be objective. No pejorative language is allowed e.g. do not say things like “heavy-handed police tactics” or “overpaid footballer”.
Captions must be written in US or British English and must be formed of grammatical sentences.
Never use all capital letters.
Captions should in most cases be two sentences or fewer.
The first sentence should explain the key elements of what is going on in the picture. It should be written in the present tense using the active voice e.g. “Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi slaps on the suntan lotion…” not “ Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is slapping on the suntan lotion…”
The second sentence should normally be written in the past tense and explain the context of the first sentence e.g. “The Prime Minister has been criticised by opposition parties for taking 3 weeks' holiday during the country’s financial crisis.”
Do not put in any irrelevant details.

Who?

You need to say who is in the photograph.
You need to spell subjects’ names correctly.
Give subjects’ job titles e.g. “U.S. President Barack Obama”.
If the person is an ordinary member of the public, it may be appropriate to say where they come from.
In certain circumstances it is appropriate to give a subject’s age. Always do this as a number e.g. “Jane Smith, 23, a solicitor from Swanage”.
If there is more than one person in an image, say who is who by inserting the location of the person in the image - (top), (bottom), (left), (right) – after their name.
Sometimes photographs might include groups of people e.g. marching soldiers. Make sure you include the correct description for these groups – Army units can be particularly tough e.g. “The Highlanders, 4th Battalion the Royal Regiment of Scotland” is correct. “The Highlanders” or “The Scottish Highlanders” is not.

What?

You need to say what is happening - but stick to the facts.
Don’t assume knowledge – you might think everyone knows what ‘Trooping the Colour’, ‘The State of the Union address’, or ‘Bastille Day’ is, but your customers may not.
Be careful not to give your opinion about what is happening – it may be wrong – stick to the facts.
Don’t try and guess someone’s thoughts: Usain Bolt may look deep in thought but don’t say that he is so in your caption – you just don’t know.

When?

You need to add the date when the picture was taken.

You can do this either:
- By putting the date in the first sentence e.g.
  “Charlie Chaplin accepts the Nobel Peace Prize at a ceremony in St Paul's Cathedral, London, UK, on Friday, 1 April, 2011.”
  (Note – please include the day of the week), or
- By affixing a date/location stamp ahead of the sentence e.g.
  “LONDON, UK, 1^st Feb, 2011. Charlie Chaplin accepts the Nobel Peace Prize at a ceremony in St Paul’s Cathedral, London.”

Where?

Always include the country where an event has happened in your caption. You can put this in the first sentence of the caption or in a date/location stamp at the beginning of the caption (see above).
Don’t assume too much knowledge about places. Customers living thousands of miles away will not be as familiar with your country as you are.
Give a full address when appropriate e.g. if you have taken an image of a location where police are carrying out a house to house search, put in the exact address e.g. “Police carry out a forensic search of 21 King Charles Street, Gloucester.”

Why?

A final sentence explaining why an image is important or why an event is happening may be appropriate, particularly to explain an image to a foreign audience e.g.
If the first sentence was: “Children cross the dried up river-bed of the River Thames in Abingdon, UK on Friday 1^st April, 2011.” Then the second sentence could be: “The United Kingdom has experienced its worst drought in four centuries according to the country’s Met Office.”
Be careful not to give your opinion or theory about why an event happened – be factual.

How?

It may be appropriate to explain how an event came about.
Be very careful not to provide your own explanation for an event which is not backed up by events.
For example: you may have a picture of a man covered in blood being taken to hospital after soldiers opened fire on demonstrators. You may be tempted to write a caption such as:
“MONTE CARLO, MONACO, 1^st April, 2011. A bleeding man is led away by fellow protesters after he was shot by police during a demonstration.”

“MONTE CARLO, MONACO, 1^st April, 2011. A bleeding man is led away from a demonstration in Monte Carlo during which police opened fire.”

Have a look at these fictional captions and see what a poor caption looks like and how it may be improved.

Bad caption	Why is the caption bad?	Good caption
Barack Obama meets Daffy Duck	Who is Barack Obama? Who is Daffy Duck? Which one is which? Where? When? Why?	US President Barack Obama (left) meets a man dressed up as the cartoon character Daffy Duck (right) at the World Cartoon Fair in Khartoum, Sudan, on Friday April 1, 2011
Leaves falling from the trees in Regent's Park	Where is Regent's Park? When did this happen? Why should I care?	Leaves fall from the trees in Regent's Park, London, UK, on Thursday July 14, 2011, as the country suffers its worst drought for 35 years. The UK’s Met Office reported on Thursday that no rain had fallen in the UK for 40 days and 40 nights.
Woman votes at polling station	Who? What is she voting for? What is happening? Where? Why should I care?	Norah Jones, 24, a firefighter, enters a polling station at Big School, Little Town, UK, on Thursday May 5, 2011. Polls suggest the General Election result will be the closest for a generation.
Peaceful demonstrator gets hit by an out of control riot policeman in Trafalgar Square as students demand the right to an education.	Where is Trafalgar Square? When? Pejorative language. Political bias. Why should I care?	A policeman strikes a student protester at a demonstration in Trafalgar Square in London, UK, on Friday April 1, 2011. Fights broke out between demonstrators and police during a march by more than 100,000 students, who were protesting at Government plans to triple University tuition fees.

Dates and Times

All photographs should be filed with the correct date taken in their metadata. This is crucial information for picture desks and for Alamy's news feed. The easiest way to make sure that you have the correct date and time on your images is to make sure your camera's date and time settings are correct. These details will automatically be sent with the picture when it is uploaded to Alamy's website. Failing this, please ensure that the IPTC Date Created field is correctly filled in on the image. Persistent offenders may be stripped of their right to file news images.

Note: The IPTC Date Created field is given prominence over the camera date in the Alamy upload process. An incorrect Date Created entry can override a correct camera date and time.

Headline Criteria

If a group of images is being filed then the IPTC headline field of each image needs to have the same identical headline text giving the description of the overall event.
For instance, if you are on the red carpet at Cannes and you have got a set of images of the stars arriving for the premiere of Modern Times by Charlie Chaplin, then enter:

“Modern Times premiere red carpet in Cannes”

If you need to use a verb, make sure it is in the present tense and the active voice. Do not use capital letters please.

Truth and editing of the image

News images cannot be edited in any way which changes the truth of the image. This means:

There should be no additions or deletions to the image.
Entities within the image should not be brought closer together or placed further apart.
The image should not be inverted.
No excessive lightening or darkening of the image or colouring of the image should be employed which might change the truth of the image e.g. darkening clouds to make them look thunderous when it was in fact a nice summer’s day.

Legality

All images sent to Alamy must have been taken according to the law of the country in which they were taken. In the UK, images must also have been taken in accordance with PCC guidelines.

Captions must be factual and must not be defamatory in any way.
Children subject to court proceedings should not be identified.
Victims of sexual offences should not be identified.
Pictures must have been taken from a legal location (e.g. the photographer should not have trespassed on private land to obtain the image).

In some cases it may be appropriate to blur details of the image

Any photographer who has been found to have broken the law or PCC rules in taking a photograph will have their right to supply news photographs to Alamy withdrawn and could have to pay legal costs to defend any action taken against Alamy or a news outlet because of his or her failure to abide by the rules.