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Author Topic: Extra Form Fields - Do You Use Them?  (Read 27585 times)

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rubyroo

« on: December 06, 2010, 07:04 »
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A quick question for Alamy contributors...

Do you think it's necessary to fill in all those extra fields for keywords and descriptions before your images go past the 'ready' stage?   I wonder why the IPTC data isn't considered sufficient for Alamy.  It doesn't seem to be compulsory to complete these fields in order to move images to the next stage, so I'm curious to know what others do - if you don't mind sharing, of course.


ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #1 on: December 06, 2010, 07:16 »
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I only fill in fields (other than the required ones) if I feel I have information that needs to go into them. For example, I fill in the description field if I have more information than will go into the caption.
I do find it odd that the require location on every shot, as it's very easy to think of studio setups where the location is totally irrelevant, again contaminating a search. (If someone keys in New York or Edinburgh or Delhi, they don't want a studio shot of a still life that happened to be shot there.)

rubyroo

« Reply #2 on: December 06, 2010, 07:26 »
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Thanks Sue, that's helpful to know.   The location issue - yes you're right.  If other studio shooters are completing that field it might well be throwing a spanner in the works...

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #3 on: December 06, 2010, 07:34 »
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Thanks Sue, that's helpful to know.   The location issue - yes you're right.  If other studio shooters are completing that field it might well be throwing a spanner in the works...
I think something has to be entered into that field for the file to be 'ready', then 'on sale': even if just Scotland or USA, or, I guess, 'studio'.

rubyroo

« Reply #4 on: December 06, 2010, 08:07 »
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You made me look a bit harder Sue... as far as I can see, only the caption field is asterisked as 'mandatory'.

I've never completed the location fields, and everything is either 'on sale' or 'ready'.  I'm using the 'old version' of the manage images feature.  
« Last Edit: December 06, 2010, 08:14 by rubyroo »

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #5 on: December 06, 2010, 08:21 »
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You made me look a bit harder Sue... as far as I can see, only the caption field is asterisked as 'mandatory'.

I've never completed the location fields, and everything is either 'on sale' or 'ready'.  I'm using the 'old version' of the manage images feature.  
Oh, that's interesting, I thought that caption, essential keywords and location were all mandatory. I've just looked and see that you're right.
Don't know where I got that idea from. Thanks!

LSD72

  • My Bologna has a first name...
« Reply #6 on: December 06, 2010, 09:05 »
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You do not have to put anything in the "Location" field. You can leave it blank. Mainly if you got something that would be specific to a local, then you would put where it was at.

rubyroo

« Reply #7 on: December 06, 2010, 10:06 »
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You're welcome Sue, and thank you too  :)

donding

  • Think before you speak
« Reply #8 on: December 06, 2010, 20:29 »
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A quick question for Alamy contributors...

Do you think it's necessary to fill in all those extra fields for keywords and descriptions before your images go past the 'ready' stage?   I wonder why the IPTC data isn't considered sufficient for Alamy.  It doesn't seem to be compulsory to complete these fields in order to move images to the next stage, so I'm curious to know what others do - if you don't mind sharing, of course.

Of course caption field is the only mandatory field, but you need to use essential keyword field as well as main keyword field for your keywords. By just having a caption it wouldn't get you many sales you gotta have keywords. Like ShadySue said, I only use the description field if there is more than I can get into the caption field that needs to be included with the image. As for location....I only use that where an actual location is involved.

rubyroo

« Reply #9 on: December 07, 2010, 03:16 »
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Thanks Donding... of course I meant in addition to the IPTC data  that's imported into the 'comprehensive keywords' field.  :D

It sounds as though you feel it's critical to duplicate the most important keywords into the 'essential keywords' field, and not just leave them in the 'comprehensive keywords' field.  In which case... I'll make sure I do that.  Thanks so much.  :)

« Reply #10 on: December 07, 2010, 03:56 »
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You don't repeat keuwords, you split them in the three groups according to relevance.

rubyroo

« Reply #11 on: December 07, 2010, 04:10 »
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Oh - I thought the 'comprehensive keywords' was the whole set, and that you split that group into two priority groups, but left the body of them intact (as they were imported from IPTC) in the 'comprehensive' field. 

But.. looking at it again, I do believe you're right Madelaide.  It actually says 'any other', so I shouldn't be duplicating.

Thanks so much.

« Reply #12 on: December 07, 2010, 04:16 »
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I fill out as much as I can and try to do it according to the way they want it.  There's some info somewhere on the site or in the forum.

rubyroo

« Reply #13 on: December 07, 2010, 04:43 »
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Thanks Sharpshot - I probably sound really lazy... It's just a daunting and time-consuming prospect for so many images when I'm also in high-production mode of new images just now.  I suppose I'm so familiar with the other agencies that I'm usually on auto-pilot, and all this extra stuff/new format has thrown me a bit.

Ah well... looks as though I'll just have to get my nose to both grindstones simultaneously (ouch... my poor nose..)  :D

Thanks so much.

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #14 on: December 07, 2010, 06:32 »
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@Rubyroo
Keywording at Alamy is a total nightmare for me. iStock: easypeasy, Alamy: what?
Here is the Alamy page with the info you need:
http://www.alamy.com/contributor/help/captions-keywords-descriptions.asp
(be aware that some of the info isn't fully accurate)
If you're used to using a controlled vocabulary, be very aware that Alamy doesn't have one.
Also, they don't have 'keyword phrases' as such.
So I've had search anomalies such as:
A search on someone called "Elizabeth House" threw up one of my photos of a house. My pseudonym has my Sunday Name, Elizabeth as well as my surname, so as I had the essential keyword 'house', my photo showed up on a search for "Elizabeth House". If your pseudonym is your real name, and your surname happens to be something like Glasgow or London, maybe it would be good to change your pseudo.
I had 11 hits last week on a search for 'the band great end' - I guess there's a band called 'Great End' - my photos were of  different bands (essential keywords) playing at the West End festival in Great Britain (recommended as an addition to UK, as without a CV, there's no way of guessing which a buyer will search on).
Without a CV, my photos of the little place called Otter Ferry (essential keywords) often shows up in searches for Otter. Last week one search was "otter NOT oriental NOT SEA NOT seaotter NOT eurasian NOT american NOT european [RM] [Land] [FS]"
There's a current forum discussion about the 'keyword phrase' issue:
http://www.alamy.com/forums/default.aspx?g=posts&t=9446
Good luck!
« Last Edit: December 07, 2010, 07:17 by ShadySue »

rubyroo

« Reply #15 on: December 07, 2010, 06:47 »
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Thanks so much Sue - you're so incredibly helpful!   I will have a good read of those links.  Sorry to hear you're getting so many fruitless viewings because of those search issues.  Wow, that 'otter' searcher made a huge effort to eliminate redundancy, didn't they? 

I've always meant to say to you... I love that Leonard Cohen quote at the bottom of your posts.  One of my favourite all-time quotes - and one I need to keep in mind often  :D

Thanks again.  So good of you to take the time.

« Reply #16 on: December 07, 2010, 11:50 »
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@Rubyroo
[....]
There's a current forum discussion about the 'keyword phrase' issue:
http://www.alamy.com/forums/default.aspx?g=posts&t=9446
Good luck!


LOL, that Keyword Phrase discussion is classic, great fun. Conflicting opinions, all sure theirs is right (none more stubborn as yours truly)  :D
« Last Edit: December 07, 2010, 11:52 by ann »

« Reply #17 on: December 07, 2010, 11:51 »
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aack, hit 'quote' instead of 'modify' - double post
« Last Edit: December 07, 2010, 11:53 by ann »

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #18 on: December 07, 2010, 11:53 »
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I've always meant to say to you... I love that Leonard Cohen quote at the bottom of your posts.  One of my favourite all-time quotes - and one I need to keep in mind often  :D
And 'there wiz me' thinking no-one had noticed!  ::)

donding

  • Think before you speak
« Reply #19 on: December 07, 2010, 11:54 »
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I just use the essential keywords of the main subject or concept. I then put the rest under main keywords. I don't usually even put any thing under the comprehensive keywords. I don't load my photos with a ton of keywords. I pretty well keep it simple with maybe 20 at the most. In the past I didn't understand how it worked and left everything under the comprehensive keywords and some of the early shots I still gotta go correct all that. It is a pain having to do all this...sometimes it will import a caption but usually it doesn't..it just puts all the keywords in under comprehensive keywords and then you gotta go and do all the editing on that part of it.

RacePhoto

« Reply #20 on: December 09, 2010, 01:26 »
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Thanks so much Sue - you're so incredibly helpful!   I will have a good read of those links.  Sorry to hear you're getting so many fruitless viewings because of those search issues.  Wow, that 'otter' searcher made a huge effort to eliminate redundancy, didn't they?  


Everyone gets "bad" searches with mixed words. The whole point is every word in the search is matched with every word in your keywords, caption and location.

Would you want it to NOT match words that were searched for? That would be silly...

I don't know how else someone would make a search work, except finding the words that a person is searching for? Maybe one of you can explain that to me?

If you want only accurate searches, don't fill the fields with extra keywords or close matches or concept words. Hey wait, the same thing happens on all the sites except IS, but for some reason people never stop hammering Alamy for having a 100%, find every word asked for, search.

Here's the answer:

The image will be returned for a search of any of the words and in any order or combination unless a customer searches using quotations. In which case the search will look for the exact words in the exact order within the quotes.

Quotes " " or ' ' or [ ] do nothing within keywords at this time. Only in searches.

Do not use commas in keywords as they are ignored and do nothing.

Alamy makes it clear that word order and proximity do make a difference in results displayed to someone doing a search. Without getting all complicated. If the search is for London Bridge Thames, every image that has the words London or Bridge or Thames will appear in the results. ALL MATCHING WORDS! But when you see the search results, the images with all three words in the keywords, will appear first, two words second and one word, last.

Not only that, within the group that have all three words matching, the keywords that have the three words in the correct order, will appear before Thames Bridge London, for example. It's really quite simple if you look at it from a logical perspective.

Computers don't think. They aren't smart. They don't reason. They have no intuition and can't guess what someone was really were looking for...

All they do is respond to what humans enter into them, A bad search will give poor results. A good search will give more useful results. But please don't blame the computer, it's just doing what some human has asked it to do!

Creating a poor search to get poor results, proves nothing, except that we can create bad data intentionally.
« Last Edit: December 09, 2010, 01:45 by RacePhoto »

donding

  • Think before you speak
« Reply #21 on: December 10, 2010, 15:19 »
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Thanks racephoto....I just spent the last three hours going through the 191 images I got on there so far, making sure the keywords were in order to the relevance of the photo. Some of the real old photos that were on there had comma's between each keywords and had the old traditional...."photo photogragh color colour landscape horizontal stock" keywords. Had to remove all those. Took awhile. Now I'm ready when the next 223 are approved... ;D

RacePhoto

« Reply #22 on: December 11, 2010, 01:28 »
0
Thanks racephoto....I just spent the last three hours going through the 191 images I got on there so far, making sure the keywords were in order to the relevance of the photo. Some of the real old photos that were on there had comma's between each keywords and had the old traditional...."photo photogragh color colour landscape horizontal stock" keywords. Had to remove all those. Took awhile. Now I'm ready when the next 223 are approved... ;D

Isn't Alamy a thrill sometimes. I carefully put words in importance by the three fields and then had all kinds of data in the Description field. (it used to be searched) Then people who would post a cut and paste from the encyclopedia in "description" complained about bad matches and the search, so they made it a non-search field. OK thanks... I had to go and move everything from description on over 1000 files to Comprehensive. That would be driver data, teams, car make and models, that kind of secondary information.

What next? Well Alamy changed the invisible field from Main to Comprehensive, so all my "hidden" words that I didn't want the competition to see, in MAIN, are now showing and all the third importance words in comprehensive are invisible! I gave up.

I use the "quotes" around words and [distinctive phrases]  markings, even though they aren't activated and for all we know, never will be. I just don't want to have to go back and re-edit for a third or fourth time, the 1500 photos I have up now. That and I'm so lazy that I have another 500 images that I should be working on but I get distracted. Only positive outcome from that delay is I don't have to upsize anymore. Thank God! That took all kinds of time and I always worried that at 200%, or 180% whatever it was, any tiny flaw would be magnified.

Anyway, yes, for anyone who does care. Alamy has made it clear from the start...

1) The fields are weighted, use them to your advantage. Main, Essential, Comprehensive. 1-2-3
2) Word order and word proximity do count in searches.

Put the most important word first in the Main keyword box. Put words that are likely to be searched for together, in the right order and together. Your image will come up with others in alpha sort or less specific organization.

Instead of fighting the search, use it to your advantage.

BHZ is only a game, but at one point I had an image from one pseudo that had no sales, and one image from my main pseudo that has all the sales, and they appeared next to each other in the BHZ search. So much for worrying about Alamy Rank. I have more important things to do than obsess over if my image will show 5th on page 1 or 15th on page one. :) If it's a good shot and shows in the first few pages, someone doing a reasonable search will find it. If they are only looking at one page, then they are not really serious about buying anything?

One of these nights, it will be snowing, I'll be up late and bored and I'll shoot off another couple hundred shots for the collection. Then what we all know is next. Wait three days and there's about a whole day of editing keywords after that.

The new bulk editor is a real time saver for me, especially when I do a whole day of shooting at once. The location and many of the details can be entered once and will get dropped in every photo. It's even quicker than entering metadata because it's Java and no software needed, just the browser and Alamy. Double click on any image and it's in edit. Grab whole batches and change them all at once. It's smooth.

Yes rubyroo - sometimes I do the minimum data fields and make photos ready, and then start over with the real data. The only thing that's really important to remember is once it's On Sale, you can't just delete it, without the 90 day wait. Before it's ready, one click and it's gone.

We can't change the license without some difficulty, writing to support, once it's On Sale.

If one day is that important in a world that's been here for millions of years, go for it. Otherwise, what's all the rush? How much difference does one day make?
« Last Edit: December 11, 2010, 01:35 by RacePhoto »

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #23 on: December 11, 2010, 06:58 »
0
Thanks so much Sue - you're so incredibly helpful!   I will have a good read of those links.  Sorry to hear you're getting so many fruitless viewings because of those search issues.  Wow, that 'otter' searcher made a huge effort to eliminate redundancy, didn't they?  


Everyone gets "bad" searches with mixed words.
That's bad for the buyer.

Quote
The whole point is every word in the search is matched with every word in your keywords, caption and location.
and pseudonym

Would you want it to NOT match words that were searched for? That would be silly...
Quote
As I've said before, I have Caucasian musicians playing Japanese drums. I decided the fact that they were Caucasians could be relevant (positively or negatively) to buyers, so I put it into main keywords, but a search on ethnicity throws the images up on a search for Japanese ethnicity, and I can't avoid it.
For all I know, African Elephants might show up on a search for African ethnicity.
(checks)
Hey, that check is surprisingly clean. Most of the images are actually of African people. I wonder how come?
Quote
I don't know how else someone would make a search work, except finding the words that a person is searching for? Maybe one of you can explain that to me?
Quote
If you want only accurate searches, don't fill the fields with extra keywords or close matches or concept words. Hey wait, the same thing happens on all the sites except IS, but for some reason people never stop hammering Alamy for having a 100%, find every word asked for, search.
[unquote]
I'm only saying a good CV, including keyword phrases, would be much better.
The first time I noticed this problem was when an image of mine of the "Queen Elizabeth National Park" in Uganda showed up in a search for Queen Elizabeth, Uganda, which was presumably looking for HM's visit there not long after I left. This would waste buyers' time and p*ss them off. In fact, doing a search on Queen Elizabeth Uganda doesn't have any of HM in the first 3 pages (360 files) and the fourth page just has the wheel going round and round for well over a minute.
To be fair, if they'd gone into the advanced search and entered Uganda, "Queen Elizabeth" as a phrase and NOT National Park, they could have saved a lot of time finding nil result.
Quote
Here's the answer:
The image will be returned for a search of any of the words and in any order or combination unless a customer searches using quotations. In which case the search will look for the exact words in the exact order within the quotes.
But doing All of Alamy research, I've discovered that you can't second guess which order a searcher will put two words in (unless they're a logical phrase).

Quote
Quotes " " or ' ' or [ ] do nothing within keywords at this time. Only in searches.
What do you mean 'only in searches'???

Quote
Do not use commas in keywords as they are ignored and do nothing.
True, but I use them anyway, in the hope that one day they will be used, in a proper CSV manner.
Though I sometimes leave them out of essential keywords if I run out of space.

Quote
Alamy makes it clear that word order and proximity do make a difference in results displayed to someone doing a search. Without getting all complicated. If the search is for London Bridge Thames, every image that has the words London or Bridge or Thames will appear in the results. ALL MATCHING WORDS! But when you see the search results, the images with all three words in the keywords, will appear first, two words second and one word, last.

Not only that, within the group that have all three words matching, the keywords that have the three words in the correct order, will appear before Thames Bridge London, for example. It's really quite simple if you look at it from a logical perspective.
If only you could second-guess which order buyers will put their searches in.
AlamyMeasures can only help so far, as it can show that one order is more likely, or that so far the order I'd have searched on isn't the one most people search on Alamy.
And as over half of my sales have never been zoomed, there are a lot of searches which aren't even being recorded in AlamyMeasures.
That only shows how the Big Buyers search.
Is there any information as to what percentage of overall sales are made by those buyers whose data appears in Alamy Measures?

Quote
Computers don't think. They aren't smart. They don't reason. They have no intuition and can't guess what someone was really were looking for...

All they do is respond to what humans enter into them, A bad search will give poor results. A good search will give more useful results. But please don't blame the computer, it's just doing what some human has asked it to do!
That's why it's good to help the dumb computer by giving them a smart CV.
Quote
Creating a poor search to get poor results, proves nothing, except that we can create bad data intentionally.

I know it's just a dream. Apparently CVs cost a fortune, and since apparently most contributers haven't gone back into their keywords and added "..." and [...], which is allegedly why these recommendations haven't been implemented (I admit, I haven't used [...] a lot), I guess they wouldn't go back and DA their existing keywords, which would be onerous in the extreme for those with huge ports, I guess the dream of an Alamy CV is just that.
Pity, that.
Anyway, it gives me something to amuse myself over a nice cup of tea, trying to work out what someone really wanted when I get a strange search.

I'm quite cokka with Alamy today, as I got a sale yesterday for $500/$300 to me, so I'm just holding my breath until it clears.
 ;D
« Last Edit: December 11, 2010, 09:58 by ShadySue »

rubyroo

« Reply #24 on: December 11, 2010, 09:43 »
0
Thanks Race and Sue - what an interesting and informative read!

I was surprised to learn that phrases in quotes aren't recognised yet - but, as you say, it probably seems wise to use them, as they may be recognised in the future.  The thought of having to re-describe or re-keyword a huge port at some point in the future sounds a bit of a nightmare.

I suppose you're right Race - it's a case of giving over a day to Alamy's system here and there.  It's not so much that I'm 'in a rush' - it's just that I've developed certain patterns and rhythms in the way I do things (as does everyone, I'm sure)... and Alamy's system seems such a deviation from that.   Just a case of getting used to it, and treating it as an entirely separate entity, no doubt.

Congrats on the big sale Sue.  I'm so pleased for you! ;D


 

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