Author Topic: I love/ hate Alamy (Read 11035 times)

bobkeenan · « **on:** January 22, 2012, 15:08 »

I go back and forth between loving and hating this site. Right now I love it. I just had a photo sell for over $300 and I get 60%!!!!

The upload process is weird. If they find one image in your batch that does not pass QC they fail all of them. My meta imbedded keywords have to be re-distributed. And sales are very sporadic. The other thing is that I find following my earnings difficult to understand. ( and I do have a MBA). It looks like you have to wait for the sale to clear before it is yours. So there is a balance and a cleared balance. In addition, there have been a couple of refunds so they take the commission back on those. And they have a high threshold before payment and then as much as a month delay before payment.

But.... You gotta love the fact that 60% of the sales is yours and the higher prices for RF images.

luissantos84 · « **Reply #1 on:** January 22, 2012, 15:28 »

days ago I had a batch of 84 pictures only 1 rejected but all other were approved and online.. I was guessing that would be impossible too

wut · « **Reply #2 on:** January 22, 2012, 15:31 »

I've been loosing my mind for 3 weeks now, because of the PITA upload process. Not only that imbeded keywords have to be redistributed, if you input them using Irfanview, it reads just a fraction of all keywords and you have to do it all over again anyway. I just wanted to add something over 300 photos and in 3 weeks time, working on it every day, I'm still not through. While I'd be finished in way less than 3 hours at any of the 7 MS agencies I contribute to, except at IS of course. I just hope I'll love it anytime soon for the huge sums of money I'll be getting on regular basis. But I guess you need an even much larger port than at MS agencies in order to achieve that. Better content too.

I uploaded almost 500 photos without getting a single rejection though

Freedom · « **Reply #3 on:** January 22, 2012, 16:30 »

Of course, 60% commission is good.

I dislike their old conventional approach in QC. Alamy demands corner to corner sharpness which is not always necessary IMHO. If you try to experiment, their very conservative inspection will fail you.

They seem to be too relaxed in collecting money. Often my sales don't get cleared until 6-7 months after the sale. You just cannot count on Alamy's money for living unless you have a huge port. I only average 1 RM sale per month, and get paid about 2-3 times per year.

Oldhand · « **Reply #4 on:** January 22, 2012, 16:46 »

Hi there -

Often happens that if you have 1 image from a large batch rejected the rest will pass. Best tip though is smaller batches. Watch out with Infran View, not all software saves keywords correctly. Infran View embeds meta data Micro agencies can read, but you need IPTC data for Alamy to pick it up.I use Fotostation which is great for multiple image captioning - you could use Photoshop depending which version you have, some older versions though are not IPTC compatible.

When you get a good sized portfolio here you will get paid every month. Sales will be plentiful and it's just the same system as sending off an invoice and waiting to get paid a month later. With micro we are all used to instant sales being reported and the money credited to our account - Alamy deal with customers who settle invoices / accounts monthly, hence the delay. Just a more convention approach to payment for sales.

Not sure why I'm praising Alamy though, I earned more money before they came along! Oldhand

ShadySue · « **Reply #5 on:** January 22, 2012, 17:00 »

Quote from: Oldhand on January 22, 2012, 16:46

Alamy deal with customers who settle invoices / accounts monthly, hence the delay.

Or quarterly, like UK newspapers, in accordance with their tax accounting.
And longer than that in many cases, though I don't know the reason. 'Distributor's time scale' is a reason I got from member support.

Batman · « **Reply #6 on:** January 22, 2012, 17:49 »

Quote from: luissantos84 on January 22, 2012, 15:28

days ago I had a batch of 84 pictures only 1 rejected but all other were approved and online.. I was guessing that would be impossible too

Rejected or upload error? I've never seen a rejection for image and allowed the batch to go through. Screen shot of the rejection. What color was it.

ShadySue · « **Reply #7 on:** January 22, 2012, 18:12 »

Quote from: Batman on January 22, 2012, 17:49

Quote from: luissantos84 on January 22, 2012, 15:28
days ago I had a batch of 84 pictures only 1 rejected but all other were approved and online.. I was guessing that would be impossible too

Rejected or upload error? I've never seen a rejection for image and allowed the batch to go through. Screen shot of the rejection. What color was it.

Or if you made a mistake, the rejection gets filtered out before the inspector sees it and it doesn't count. Silly examples of mine e.g. if a file has been just too small, or once I uploaded a file from an unapproved camera - it was in a folder with a whole pile from an approved camera and was from a few years back, so I didn't even think to check. Both of these rejected at upload and the rest of the uploaded batches were accepted.
(I'm sure I've seen someone here say they had had photos accepted from an older camera not on the list, i.e. not a new one pending approval.)

Equus · « **Reply #8 on:** January 22, 2012, 18:48 »

Quote from: Oldhand on January 22, 2012, 16:46

Hi there -

Often happens that if you have 1 image from a large batch rejected the rest will pass. Best tip though is smaller batches. Watch out with Infran View, not all software saves keywords correctly. Infran View embeds meta data Micro agencies can read, but you need IPTC data for Alamy to pick it up.I use Fotostation which is great for multiple image captioning - you could use Photoshop depending which version you have, some older versions though are not IPTC compatible.

When you get a good sized portfolio here you will get paid every month. Sales will be plentiful and it's just the same system as sending off an invoice and waiting to get paid a month later. With micro we are all used to instant sales being reported and the money credited to our account - Alamy deal with customers who settle invoices / accounts monthly, hence the delay. Just a more convention approach to payment for sales.

Not sure why I'm praising Alamy though, I earned more money before they came along! Oldhand

Oldhand, what qualifies as a good sized portfolio at Alamy? Thanks!

luissantos84 · « **Reply #9 on:** January 22, 2012, 19:15 »

Quote from: Batman on January 22, 2012, 17:49

Quote from: luissantos84 on January 22, 2012, 15:28
days ago I had a batch of 84 pictures only 1 rejected but all other were approved and online.. I was guessing that would be impossible too

Rejected or upload error? I've never seen a rejection for image and allowed the batch to go through. Screen shot of the rejection. What color was it.

ShadySue · « **Reply #10 on:** January 22, 2012, 19:18 »

Quote from: luissantos84 on January 22, 2012, 19:15

Quote from: Batman on January 22, 2012, 17:49
Quote from: luissantos84 on January 22, 2012, 15:28
days ago I had a batch of 84 pictures only 1 rejected but all other were approved and online.. I was guessing that would be impossible too

Rejected or upload error? I've never seen a rejection for image and allowed the batch to go through. Screen shot of the rejection. What color was it.

'Partially failed' is a technical error at upload, maybe file size, wrong camera or a file getting stuck during upload. The latter used to take a week to resolve, as someone went in manually to fix it after a week. Haven't had one for a while, so maybe that's changed.

luissantos84 · « **Reply #11 on:** January 22, 2012, 19:22 »

Quote from: ShadySue on January 22, 2012, 19:18

'Partially failed' is a technical error at upload, maybe file size, wrong camera or a file getting stuck during upload. The latter used to take a week to resolve, as someone went in manually to fix it after a week. Haven't had one for a while, so maybe that's changed.

I see

BaldricksTrousers · « **Reply #12 on:** January 23, 2012, 03:01 »

If the technical quality is good enough for the main micro sites it is good enough for Alamy. Their inspection is a doddle as long as you are careful. It must be two years since I had a rejection and then only because I was messing around.

The upload processing is a PITA and sales are erratic but usually nice when they happen (though its annoying if they get reversed).

lisafx · « **Reply #13 on:** January 23, 2012, 13:45 »

I haven't had any rejections, and I am happy with my sales at Alamy.

My only issue is having to wait for weeks and even months for payments to clear. Although I make more than enough to get a payout each month, because of the way payouts are done, I sometimes get a very good payout one month, and then nothing for a month or two. I also think it's a bit archaic to have to wait for money from >$35 sales and novel use sales to clear.

Eventually I do always get paid, though, so overall I am quite happy at Alamy. Sales have been improving too, so that's nice

lagereek · « **Reply #14 on:** January 23, 2012, 14:29 »

No rejection here either, sales are OK, people are friendly and know their stuff. They got many years of experience.

RacePhoto · « **Reply #15 on:** January 23, 2012, 17:02 »

Quote from: luissantos84 on January 22, 2012, 19:22

Quote from: ShadySue on January 22, 2012, 19:18
'Partially failed' is a technical error at upload, maybe file size, wrong camera or a file getting stuck during upload. The latter used to take a week to resolve, as someone went in manually to fix it after a week. Haven't had one for a while, so maybe that's changed.

I see

Orange is some a technical error.
File size or wrong format rejections, are booted out in the upload process, and logged. Upload error can be just an error no log message.

Green is easy, you passed.

It's the dreaded RED fail that's a QC failure.
Reason is on the right side on Alamy in your history. When you get the original rejection email, the failed image is moved to the first image in the batch.

Posted by someone with far too much time on their hands in the Winter.

contrastaddict · « **Reply #16 on:** January 23, 2012, 18:40 »

I'm exclusive, so my only option at Alamy would be RM correct? I've never really looked into it, I wouldn't be able to generate a large enough portfolio as the majority of my work is on IS as RF. I do have a handful of photos I don't submit, however not enough to create a decent port. Not to mention, the RM sales are pretty rare I imagine.

THP Creative · « **Reply #17 on:** January 23, 2012, 21:08 »

They seem to be picking up for me a bit, although certainly not amazing.

But no rejections so far. Sticking with them for sure, hoping the gradual improvement continues

RacePhoto · « **Reply #18 on:** January 27, 2012, 15:19 »

Quote from: THP on January 23, 2012, 21:08

They seem to be picking up for me a bit, although certainly not amazing.

But no rejections so far. Sticking with them for sure, hoping the gradual improvement continues

I hate to go along with the naysayers, but I've never had a rejection on Mostphotos either and there are some low earning micro sites that will take almost anything I upload.

Problem isn't getting past QC, it's making sales.

Alamy is a fine place, pays well and works nice. I don't mind the lengthy keyword process, it just helps reduce the high volume people who would dump everything on the drives, onto Alamy. It makes people decide what's really worthwhile and also the review process has the same effect. No game of thorwing up anything and see what sticks. For that reason I like Alamy.

For people who like letters and numbers. RPD is about 150 times what you get on Micro, but the PRI is about 1 / 150th of what you get on Micro. In my case, I look at it as Less is More. Where sometimes Micro is based on more images, more sales, sheer numbers and volume of sales.

Alamy and Micro are two extremely different ways to make some sales.

Mantis · « **Reply #19 on:** January 27, 2012, 21:32 »

Quote from: ShadySue on January 22, 2012, 19:18

Quote from: luissantos84 on January 22, 2012, 19:15
Quote from: Batman on January 22, 2012, 17:49
Quote from: luissantos84 on January 22, 2012, 15:28
days ago I had a batch of 84 pictures only 1 rejected but all other were approved and online.. I was guessing that would be impossible too

Rejected or upload error? I've never seen a rejection for image and allowed the batch to go through. Screen shot of the rejection. What color was it.

'Partially failed' is a technical error at upload, maybe file size, wrong camera or a file getting stuck during upload. The latter used to take a week to resolve, as someone went in manually to fix it after a week. Haven't had one for a while, so maybe that's changed.

I am not sure if Alamy has FTP (which may result in file size rejections) because I use the Java uploader, which catches file sizes issues before the upload and simply doesn't allow them in if they don't meet size requirements. Thus I never get any rejections for file size now that I use the Java uploader. In the old days the Java uploader didn't catch file size issues, today it does.

ShadySue · « **Reply #20 on:** January 27, 2012, 21:36 »

Thus it's an 'error', not technically a 'rejection'.

luissantos84 · « **Reply #21 on:** January 27, 2012, 22:03 »

Quote from: ShadySue on January 27, 2012, 21:36

Thus it's an 'error', not technically a 'rejection'.

right, ERRORS - 1, FAILED - 0

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Author Topic: I love/ hate Alamy (Read 11035 times)

bobkeenan

luissantos84

wut

Freedom

Oldhand

ShadySue

Batman

ShadySue

Equus

luissantos84

ShadySue

luissantos84

BaldricksTrousers

lisafx

lagereek

RacePhoto

contrastaddict

THP Creative

RacePhoto

Mantis

ShadySue

luissantos84

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