Number Six

I went through a bad spell of few zooms and sales towards the end of last year. I then started uploading images from my backlog (I tend to upload during the colder months when not travelling or gardening so much) and things picked up nicely. I think it was David Kirkpatrick (?) who recommended uploading 'little and often' to keep your CTR etc at a reasonable level. It seems to work for me.

Hi Mark. I've just received my personalised version of the email and suspect all contributors will get theirs unless they've 'unsubscribed' from such updates. So, no, I'm sure they are not expecting any replies. Having recently discussed the perennial issue of street art images and re-annotated such photos as 'Editorial Only', I was interested to note the following in the email: "If your collection contains images of artworks these can never be marked as Exclusive to Alamy, unless you're the artist." It's probably been mentioned before and I missed it

Joseph - many thanks for the link to Alamy's advice on street art. Like you, I think that the term 'wider context' is open to interpretation but I suspect that it probably always will be. However, the requirement for selecting Editorial Only is obviously clear.

I noticed the following comment by Alamy's sister company (the S-word) on Twitter yesterday at the end of a post extolling the virtues of street art photography; "Remember to tag your photos as editorial to avoid any copyright issues". This was seen as a big issue by Alamy a while back, and I was one of many members who had some photographs deleted. There was also guidance on what street art photos could be included (eg. as part of an overall scene) but I don't recall a recommendation to use the 'Editorial Only' button as some sort of magic wand for acceptability. Has

It's also worth bearing in mind that the QC team's only interest is in technical perfection, particularly for your first upload which they will examine in great detail. They will have zero interest in the image content, regardless of your obvious enthusiasm for it. Far better to upload any images with perfect exposure, focus etc etc until you are used to Alamy's QC requirements for an acceptable image. Once you are passing QC successfully, then reevaluate your Paris shot with a clinical 'Alamy QC' eye. In addition, for a 1992 shot, I presume you are probably talking about digitising a film ima

I had one recently and it has come to fruition for the stated amount.

I was shocked and deeply saddened by this tragedy. My sincere condolences to Keith's family and to all those close to him. RIP

Many thanks for listening James. Merry Christmas! ps. I don't suppose you could sort out Brexit as well?

5 in the last week if that counts as a surge. OK amounts and no Distributor sales - it's the future...:)

Ref Mark's post above, it's probably worth noting that DxO's 50% offer includes the Nik Collection (which I bought at full price a few months ago - doh!). Cheers John

That was my concern as well. Plus, my 2 'one pic per day' sales had identical usage for the same photo (which I raised with MS before seeing this thread).

I also had 3 calendar sales of the same pic ( 2 one pic per day, one normal).

BME with 9 sales for $413 gross, despite my CTR and zooms having taken a severe nose dive in the last couple of weeks. It may be a coincidence, but my monthly average sales figures seem to have increased significantly since the new AIM was introduced (without me doing any re-keywording).

And I've just had another look, and my Affiliate sale discussed above has now been changed to a Distributor sale. Perhaps I should have kept quiet!

Hi Matt - sorry for the delay. No, the image was not zoomed on the same day as the sale (nor in any time period that I would associate with this sale). Best regards John

Well, I've just had my first 'Affiliate Sale' for a nice (for these days) three figure gross sum. Sure I'd have preferred it to have been a Direct Sale at 50% commission but, at 38.5%, it's obviously better than a 30% Distributor Sale. Moreover, as far as I can tell, it's a sale that I wouldn't have had otherwise. Overall, I suspect it depends whether you're a 'my glass is half full' or a 'my glass is half empty' sort of person. I'm definitely the former and my thanks to Alamy for this new initiative.

I always use Capture NX2 for automatic CA removal, even though I changed from Nikon to Fuji X-series some years ago. Basically, I run the 8-bit TIFF outputs from Fuji RAF file processing in Capture One Express 7 (not brilliant for removing CA imo) through Capture NX2's Camera Lens Corrections (with both CA boxes ticked by default). An extra stage in pp, but I also like Capture NX2's horizon tool so I'm prepared to live with a few more button presses. it works for me....

Good for me; 5 sales for $240 gross. Revenue for 2017 has already exceeded last year's so a happy bunny🤑

Like many others, I was hit by the recent street art removals/additional restrictions campaign. I found this to be very disappointing, as I had always gone to great lengths to attempt identification of the artists and credit them accordingly. I was also surprised by the street artists' concerns as their work is normally extremely transient in nature, perhaps only lasting a matter of days before being defaced, replaced or removed, and hence thought that a photographic record of a professional nature (with the associated publicity) would be welcomed by them. It would be nice to hear

'Adult' content? Have you been naughty Betty?:)

Congrats Mark - always nice to reach a milestone. I've literally just reached 4000 but it's taken me 10 years to get there. No sense in rushing these things... Cheers John

I have made no changes to my minimalist keywording/tagging philosophy since the intro of the new AIM. Still getting plenty of views and zooms and, if anything, my number have sales might even have improved. So, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".

I certainly try to remember to use both. The old keywording system used an American spell-checker which provided useful reminders. Unless I've missed it, the new tagging system doesn't appear to check spelling (or perhaps there's an option that I haven't seen yet).

Hi Betty Pleased to say that my zooms are up as well, and sales are pottering on quite nicely (for me). However, I haven't changed any of my keywords/tags and am unlikely to do so unless there is very convincing evidence (or Alamy guidance) that it's extremely beneficial to do so. The only exception is that I have used the new system to remove my name as a keyword/tag as it was occasionally attracting unnecessary views (and probably had no benefit). Regards John

From personal experiences of NT's appalling membership administration, I doubt if writing to them on this topic would reach the appropriate person let alone generate any worthwhile reaction.