Phil Robinson

Panic over - found the problem. It seems the cache of thumbnails was corrupted somehow. I cleaned them all out and things seem to have gone back to normal.

It seems to be a common problem, judging from the communication in forums on the web.

Since a very brief power cut this morning when the computer went off, I have had a couple of problems. 

The most serious is that I cannot see files as thumbnails in folders. Internet images work fine, as do images opened in Photoshop but I can only get icons for images (JPEG NEX and TIFF) in Widows Explorer.

I'm guessing there is a Windows Image Viewer or somesuch that has been corrupted.

Can anyone help?

Thanks in advance

Phil

(edit) I have just opened a couple of folders where the images were visible - then disappeared one by one. I have checked folder view options.  

What I like to shoot - travel. The trouble is, one man's travel is another photographer's local. 

What makes money - things I photograph on my kitchen table.

I have recently given up the day job and gone full-time with the photography.

I will not be travelling anywhere any time soon.

I may be investing in a new kitchen table.

I hope nobody gets the impression that if they aren't in the newspaper scheme they won't get any newspaper sales. I have never joined but still sell to the papers. How the numbers and fees would differ if I did.........?

Interesting thing about those low priced sales to the Czech Republic and their Slovac twin is that I meet Czech photographers  here in Stockholm at the Ice Hockey World Championship. They carry the same Nikon D4 and Nikon 200-400 4.0 zoom lens as everybody else. Just that combo is 10000 GBP on the hoof. Can their papers afford that becouse they pay us peanuts or what?

Perhaps they sell all their pictures in Japan.

Interiors / stained glass windows (better with diffused light) / statues / narrow streets which can be impossibly contrasty when half in the sun / details. Statues and stonework can be a nightmare to do in direct sun due to excess contrast.

I would, however, agree that a certain amount of time spent in pub can only be a good thing.

 

The last fail I had came through in 2 days. I don't think there is a standard 30 days for everyone. That was quite a while ago - maybe things have changed since then.

 

Was it a "partial fail" -- i.e. processing errors only -- or the real thing?

 

Alamy does say "up to" 28 working days, but I can't remember receiving a "failed QC" notification in less than a month. 

No, that was a total fail for interpolation artifacts. It was the first for a long time and I haven't had one since so I think the 'up to 28 days' can indeed be flexible.

My only experience of the China Daily is finding numerous photos of mine that they have reused from the Daily Telegraph. You should be honoured that they are offering to pay anything!

The last fail I had came through in 2 days. I don't think there is a standard 30 days for everyone. That was quite a while ago - maybe things have changed since then.

I've been submitting a series of repeated, symmetrical patterns made from duplicating images of various things - rocks, butterfly wings, seashells...

I think they would make great wrapping paper - anyone got any other ideas or any keywords I might not have thought of?

Any thought most welcome. Thanks

I would like to stress a point made by Semmik Photo - a lot of members of this forum do not have English as their first language.

Although many Dutch people do have a better command of the English language than the majority of Brits (Mr Semmik is doing pretty well himself), it is not something that should be assumed. Being polite in a foreign language is not only difficult, but also in the eye of the beholder.

Deliberate rudeness is usually easy to spot - not quite finding the right tone is a different matter and should be subject to benefit of the doubt. 

I can order a pizza and a beer in several languages - I wouldn't dare contribute to a discussion forum like this in most of them.

(P.S.  I notice the Alamy Administrator has two stars - is that out of five?)

Since NU began it has netted me $87.39. Yes, that's one decent sale in the real world.

However, the interesting thing for me is that of the 48 images that have sold as NU only 2 have earned anything from conventional sales.

NU sales seem to come from a certain style of photography which, for me, doesn't sell elsewhere. It appears to be - as Alamy intended - serving a different market.

I realise that this may not be the same for other contributors, but as the sales I have had are largely from pictures of specially-bought props, the NU sales have at least covered the cost of buying the objects. I'm not complaining.

I also believed the scheme was ending, but had three more come through on April 23rd.

Thanks for the replies - they don't really tally with my experience though. I do caption and keyword as soon as they appear in Manage Images but I have experienced a delay between them leaving the news feed and appearing in general searches. Maybe it is due to weekends.

It would be possible / easy to put a large, prominent watermark (or even a black hole) on the image exactly where the search box is. It wouldn't spoil the view of the front page but would make the image unusable if downloaded.

Like many contributors, I suspect, I still find the old version of Manage Images very useful. Unfortunately, the now-redundant 'cut-out' option is still there, and having edited my submission, getting a full list of 'not ready' images is hindered if they haven't all been tagged as cut-out or not. 

It also brings up a huge list of 'on sale, but requiring further details', which includes everything that has been submitted since the cut-out option changed (over 5000 images for me).

Could it please be removed?

 

I'd like the ability to sort pics using a different category so that I know which ones are finished and which ones are only partially finished but on sale.

 

It would be great to be able to publish them with just that caption to get them on sale quickly and then work through them gradually so that as I finish them I can move them from one category to the final 'On sale' one.

Just make a pseudo for those images and move them into your main one when fully worked

I wish I'd thought of that!

I can see what you mean, though images with just a caption and no keywords are unlikely to show up in many searches. How about a separate pseudonym (geogphotoslite?) where you can put things quickly then move them on to your usual one when you are satisfied with the keywording?

(In answer to your original point, which was why you posted here in the first place of course, I doubt Alamy would encourage contributors to put non-news images on sale without keywords.)

There's the Live News route - do you mean for more general stock?

You only have to add one keyword to make the image 'ready' - you can always go back later to add the rest.

actually it was a very old post from October 2007 - http://www.alamy.com/Blog/contributor/archive/2007/10/30/2386.aspx

not sure if the images on the lightbox still work, they won't load for me.

Hopefully if this is out of date info Alamy will let us know here.

The image loads for me. The post is official advice from Alamy and hasn't been removed or, it seems, updated, so I would take it as current best practice.

I do like Vincent's idea above though, especially as series like this in one image will not look great, or even recognisable, as a thumbnail. (Though, on the plus side, that might mean they get more zooms, just to ckeck out what they are).

How long does it take between live news pictures disappearing from the live news search and turning up in the general searches?

The last couple of events I've covered have disappeared for a while before being available again, despite being annotated as soon as possible.

There's a lot of discussion about the distribution system and whether to be in or out - most of my three-figure sales have come from Japan. Yes, I get a smaller cut, but Japanese TV have contributed a good percentage of my income over the last couple of years.

I had a similar price for an 'advertorial' last month. Very welcome as it helped pay for the trip to Barcelona.

The last front cover I had was for less.

I think that's an excellent idea. Keywording is THE most underestimated factor in the process of selling photos, and probably the most neglected even by those you realise its importance.

Some time ago I was introduced to the use of 'concept' as a keyword - never thought about using it, but look at the number of searches it comes up in.

I quite often think of a good keyword for an image and realise it would work well with 100 of my old images too.

And we could spread the word to PLEASE stop adding 'photo' as a keyword, unless its a photo of a photo.

As above, Nikon D300 and the 18-105 is my standard gear. Never had any problem with QC or sharpness.