Ashish Agarwal

Wow, I did not know this one. I have been using only spaces (as specified in Keywording do's here: http://www.alamy.com/contributor/help/captions-keywords-descriptions.asp). Now have to think whether I should go back and start to put commas instead of spaces. I have around 1,000 images where I might need to do this. Ouch. Thanks for this post, since will be careful while posting.

I was evaluating all these cloud based offers and then came upon Zenfolio. It provides a way for you to display your photos easily in different templates (although I have never managed to reach some of the incredibly beautifully looking sites that other people have created). For $30 per year, you can store 4 GB, and for $60 per year, you can store apparently unlimited storage (of photos and video), and can easily download. There are other features, most of which I have for now, left unexplored :-). The idea of being able to save and also display at the same time was something that appealed to me.

Now I am careful. But I have a number of photos (maybe in the >10K range, maybe because they are sitting in different albums, not yet cataloged) that were taken by point and shoot cameras, and I have to see what I can do with those. And I have an interesting twist. I have a large number of photos taken with a camera - Sony DSC R1, that was initially accepted but many months ago, MS stated that it is no longer accepted. An entire Switzerland trip is captured in that camera, and I have to look for alternate uses, such as this one. (I tried adding an image from My Alamy, but not coming through in the preview. Not sure, whether it will come through in the final display. This is the link http://www.alamy.com/image-details-popup.asp?&n=NaN&imageid={A569246B-4718-4598-81BD-0740151D1BBB})

I couldn't put it on Alamy. Was taken with a point and shoot (so even for Alamy users, there are some advantages to point and shoot cameras). :-)

I submitted some day before yesterday, and they cleared yesterday.

This thread has been fascinating. I particularly liked the description earlier about using textures as the background to create fascinating images. However, FAA has been weird for me. The image which has had the maximum sales so far is this one, and I cannot for the life of me understand why it has sold multiple times. I took this image soon after stopping playing, and just as a lark, without too much though. http://fineartamerica.com/featured/number-of-ping-pong-bats-piled-on-a-table-ashish-agarwal.html

Ouch. I got the same answer from MS some time back, and then resolved to first process all the remaining photos from this camera that is there in my archives. Like all such good intentions, never happened, and am now wondering whether it will be worthwhile to process those photos. I do not want to be in the 28 day sin bin.

In my case, I use Lightroom, and enter a description in the proper field. Whether for Alamy, or for posting to Facebook or Flickr, I use the same image (different sizes, and with or without a watermark). Description is useful for Facebook / Flickr or other locations, and when I upload to Alamy, the same description gets populated in the description tab.

Like others in this list, I had CS5 and LR3, and that was working. However, I took a new camera and LR (ACR) was supporting this new camera RAW, so finally upgraded to LR4 and CS6. I am fairly satisfied now, and hence not thinking about upgrading. However, at some point in the future, with some OS upgrades or other changes, if these software stop working, might need to move to the CC versions and onto the monthly payout one.

Thanks for the link to the model release. I went to the relevant section, and it says 'parent' (singular). So I could take the photo and also act as the parent and sign the model release form ?

Hi, Was looking for some opinion on this one, it's an intensely personal question. I recently had a kid, and now when I track him with the camera, I can see such a lot of different poses that are stock worthy (even if they would have been done by others); kid in cot, kid getting a massage, etc. Do folks take photos of their own kids and post them as stock photos ?

Hi Andrew, Good for you. If you don't mind, what is the process you follow once you located an infringement ? - Determine the addresses of the infringers - Send them a email with an invoice (do you have a set format that you send) ?

Yup, submissions have gone from a few hours to a few days. But given that I have seen failures, when it takes 2-3 days to pass, it can be a tense time. I submitted a batch y'day and in QC all of today - so am waiting for another day before the sinking feeling to start. :-)

Hi Barbara, one thing I learned from going through these forums on a regular basis. Keywords are 'key' :-). The better your keywording and the more specific you can be, the better your chances of being found. So: 1. If you have images of trees, flowers, bridges, buildings, almost any kind of object, get as many details as possible. Google where required. So, for example, if you have a flower, look at google images to hunt for the exact scientific name of the flower. 2. Go through these: http://www.alamy.com/contributor/help/captions-keywords-descriptions.asp & http://www.alamy.com/contributor/help/annotation-options.asp 3. I also periodically look at searches to find my images, and if an image is not showing up where I expect it to be, I review keywords. Once, I had an image show up when i was searching for an object in Britain and in the Scottish Highlands, but not when using Scotland. Went back to my image, and, and ... Scotland was missing from the keywords. And there are people who are much better experts at doing keywords ... this can be a great and informative thread ..

I think TinyEye does provide services; but they are not free and can be expensive unless you are one of those who are already earning more than say $3000 in a month :-) http://services.tineye.com/MatchEngine Not been able to find a way to do automated search on Google Images (so far).