Vincent Lowe

In science a theory is not "only a theory"...... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_theory

Yes, I read your post but I thought I would mention it again to emphasise the point...

I think all mine are already marked as exclusive but what would be useful would be a 'not Alamy exclusive' option in the AIM search filters. This would make it a lot easier to find any I might have missed.

Good point - it probably does.

er..be careful... Section 17.2 of the contributor's contract... Contributors shall be responsible for maintaining original and digital back-up copies of all Images submitted to Alamy and will provide replacement digital copies to Alamy on request at any time.

Just a thought - maybe they were uploaded by alamy staff to test something.

Thanks once again - sterling effort, I don't know how you find the time...! Vince

Have a very close look at the edges of the image. I had this failure once, years ago, with a one-pixel white border around the image (might only have been on two sides - can't remember now). Cause - I had 'Chromatic Aberration' ticked, 'Auto Scale Image' ticked but had 'Edge' set to 'White Color' instead of 'Edge Extension'. Photoshop - Lens Correction filter.

If you contact Alamy and explain the situation (and give them the reference numbers) I'm sure they would remove the duplicates without you having to wait.

Guardian - 17 Nov 18 Three photos by Ken Hawkins... An apocalyptic cult, 900 dead: remembering the Jonestown massacre, 40 years on https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/17/an-apocalyptic-cult-900-dead-remembering-the-jonestown-massacre-40-years-on

If you use proper image management software you don't see the sidecar files. If you move, copy, rename, delete a file the sidecar file goes with it. Again avoiding any possible problems/corruption of the raw file. Any problems with the metadata, just delete the XMP file and start again (never had to do it). There are good reasons why 'everyone else' uses sidecar files...

The point is that Mario (IMatch) keeps strictly to the recommendations and specifications of the ITPC, XMP, Metadata working groups, and their recommendation is not to embed metadata in raw files. Only Nikon decided to go their own way with Nikon Capture. The main reason I started using IMatch many years ago was because of its use of 'categories', which are similar to keywords except they are held in the database only and the raw files aren't touched. If I click on a category it shows me all the files with that category regardless of where it is stored - hard drive, DVD, cd, external drives even if they are offline. This avoids the problems, such as Phil has found, when you come to use a different program. Just to add - the categories can easily be converted to embedded keywords if necessary but in the fifteen years or so that I've been using IMatch I've never had the need to embed them in raw files.

Read this from Mario Westphal, developer of IMatch..... https://www.photools.com/community/index.php?topic=4438.msg29706#msg29706 Especially this bit - If you have used Nikon Capture, they also may contain an embedded XMP record. If you have used other software on the NEF files, they probably have an external XMP record. This is the standard for RAW files, only Nikon ever was so dumb as to embed XMP in RAW files.

Thanks. You beat me to it but I was just about to say my question was answered - they've just shown up.

I've only tried ftp once before and it didn't seem any faster than the web upload. However, I'm on a much faster broadband speed now so, after reading this thread, I thought I'd give it another go. Just uploaded 112 files in 18 min 45 secs, 1.29 gb total. I was using FileZilla which shows a small progress bar against each file and I noticed it was actually transferring two files at the same time. How long does it usually take for them to show up in IM when using ftp?