Phil Robinson

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Hopefully if this is out of date info Alamy will let us know here.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