Time to thin the herd?

[Guest]

Just spit balling here. For those of us who have been members for a good number of years, most (if not all of us) have duplicates, near dupes and technically poor images made with primitive cameras that we would never upload today. Most of these clunker images haven't received a zoom even one time, let alone a sale. (just speaking for myself now). Yet we cling to them in the hope that one day, the sun will shine upon their under-exposed face.

 

Given the vast numbers of images available through Alamy, would it make sense if we would be asked to cull out our losers, say 5% every year for 5 years, or some such formula? Wouldn't a cleaner, better catalogue benefit all of us? Just a thought. I know....me first.

 

[Newberry]

Makes sense to me, for those who want to spend time doing that. Though I wonder if older images get sorted last in searches anyway, as well as lower res images? 

[Vincent Lowe]

There are over 7000 images of the Eiger mountain in Switzerland on Alamy yet one of mine sold recently.  It was one of my first submissions way back in 2001 and it is the first time it has sold.  The image was taken in 1981 on good old Kodachrome.

 

So I'll not be doing any culling - you never know....

[John Mitchell]

1 hour ago, Newberry said:

Makes sense to me, for those who want to spend time doing that. Though I wonder if older images get sorted last in searches anyway, as well as lower res images? 

 

Yes, the search engine keeps pushing neglected images farther into the depths of no return, so I wonder how necessary or productive voluntary culling really is.

 

I too have had some surprises with images licensing despite ridiculously high competition. Also, once licensed, or even zoomed, said images can start mysteriously rising to the surface.

 

That said, Alamy is obviously bursting at the seams with a lot of subjects.

[cbimages]

No way. My old images continue to sell very well. Stats are, since 1 Sept 2017, I've had 92 sales. 43 of those were A or B prefix. A=21 & B=22. Of those 10 images were from old slide scans, taken with either an old manual Canon F1n or a Canon A1 or Canon T90 + FD lenses. The highest value sale I had for the period was a scanned slide.

[Bill Kuta]

I did some weeding 2 or 3 or 4 years ago, carefully, bearing in mind the observation that you never know what might sell. I'm done.

[Betty LaRue]

I also did some weeding, just in the last year. But I confined myself to getting rid of a similar or two out of a set whenever I got a bit carried away. I never took nearly identical images, but maybe say a piece of cake had a fork in the frame and one similar but with no fork. I also would do landscape and portrait. It seemed that the ones that came up in a search first would be the one I preferred to be last. You know how that goes. 

So if thy right hand offends thee, cut it off. 

What I did notice afterwards is that my zooms improved, and also my sales.  I probably only got rid of 50-100, because I don’t do a lot of similars. I do like to cover a subject, though, and truly have to fight those instincts and know when to stop. I think having a tight port is good, I just can’t quite manage it. As Popeye says, “I yam what I yam.” (I am what I am)

Betty

[Betty LaRue]

5 hours ago, Snappy on California said:

Just spit balling here. For those of us who have been members for a good number of years, most (if not all of us) have duplicates, near dupes and technically poor images made with primitive cameras that we would never upload today. Most of these clunker images haven't received a zoom even one time, let alone a sale. (just seaking for myself now). Yet me cling to them in the hope that one day, the sun will shine upon their under-exposed face.

 

Given the vast numbers of images available through Alamy, would it make sense if we would be asked to cull out our losers, say 5% every year for 5 years, or some such formula? Wouldn't a cleaner, better catalogue benefit all of us? Just a thought. I know....me first.

 

I took a look at your back page, and if you delete those, I’ll personally hunt you up and hurt you.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with those images. You have a nice port. The most you might do is tighten just a bit on what you yourself consider duplicates.

 

As far as those that have never been zoomed....I sold one a couple of years ago (a no-zoomer) that I was ashamed of. I actually had it up for deletion. After the sale, I had it restored. It wasn’t a dupe, it sat all by itself, but it was shot against the sun and I went too far, in my opinion, lightening the shadows, spot removing the resulting noise, yada, yada. I also thought the color was off. But somebody wanted it, and it wasn’t returned. Maybe it was recognized as a bit poor, but was “the exact “ scene the buyer wanted.

I’m still ashamed of it.

Betty

[Matt Limb]

8 hours ago, Vincent Lowe said:

There are over 7000 images of the Eiger mountain in Switzerland on Alamy yet one of mine sold recently.  It was one of my first submissions way back in 2001 and it is the first time it has sold.  The image was taken in 1981 on good old Kodachrome.

 

So I'll not be doing any culling - you never know....

 

I would agree, a set of images taken back in the early 1980s on Kodachrome, which I spent hours working after scanning well over a decade ago, some are regular and popular images still generating income. 

 

By today's standards of digitisation, they may not be that spectacular, but clients must like them as they sell ... we must be client requirement driven, not tidy clean collection driven.

 

 

    

[Cryptoprocta]

I won't be deleting anything unless I find an accidental near-duplicate, as I did last week. Of the Bs and Cs I sold in the last three months, most hadn 't been sold before.

 

Of course, there are people with e.g. 20 or 30 images like the frames of an old film movie, but like the keyword spammers, they're not going to cull.

[Colblimp]

Not a hope in hell.  After all the work tagging I'm not deleting anything, old images do sell. Silly idea.

[Matt Ashmore]

1 hour ago, geogphotos said:

I'd suggest moving these images into a new pseudo so that they are still on sale but do not drag down the rest. 

 

Alamy is set up to deal with every sort of image so personally I would not delete anything. 

 

Do pseudo's make any difference nowadays other than helping us manage our own images?

[spacecadet]

Plenty of old sales in my figures. More than half of last year's are 5 years or older.

[NYCat]

You seem to edit pretty tightly so I think you should keep on as you are. Nothing wrong with what you are doing as far as I can tell.

 

Paulette

[Allan Bell]

8 hours ago, Betty LaRue said:

 

As far as those that have never been zoomed....I sold one a couple of years ago (a no-zoomer) that I was ashamed of. I actually had it up for deletion. After the sale, I had it restored. It wasn’t a dupe, it sat all by itself, but it was shot against the sun and I went too far, in my opinion, lightening the shadows, spot removing the resulting noise, yada, yada. I also thought the color was off. But somebody wanted it, and it wasn’t returned. Maybe it was recognized as a bit poor, but was “the exact “ scene the buyer wanted.

I’m still ashamed of it.

Betty

 

Betty maybe that image was bought for a book on "How NOT to take photos."

 

Allan

 

 

[Dave Richards]

I dare say I've a host of 'clunkers' in my collection, but a couple have sold.

Rather than delete, I tend to go back over the pictures and add/change/delete tags - at least while I don't yet have an unmanageable number of images to trawl through!

[Robert M Estall]

Your edit is pretty tight. I have been through several, but not all your pages, but there are just the few occasional images where the light wasn't very good which you might delete, but not likely worth the effort. There are many stunning shots of the Bay Bridge so I guess I wouldn't bother with a dull day shot for instance. We try to be polite here, but there are some collections where there are some real clunkers. Sometimes lots & lots of them! I really don't know why people bother but Alamy tries to hide them at the bottom of the pile as far as possible. Forum members have made suggestions, but that's down to Alamy's business model.

[Betty LaRue]

2 hours ago, Allan Bell said:

 

Betty maybe that image was bought for a book on "How NOT to take photos."

 

Allan

 

 

Allan!! Shame! 

[M.Chapman]

On 04/09/2018 at 00:57, John Mitchell said:

Yes, the search engine keeps pushing neglected images farther into the depths of no return, so I wonder how necessary or productive voluntary culling really is.

 

That said, Alamy is obviously bursting at the seams with a lot of subjects.

 

I think a cull has to happen at some point as the search engine seems to get slower and slower at delivering results, or is it just me?

An automated cull of exact duplicates??

 

Mark

[John Mitchell]

13 hours ago, M.Chapman said:

 

I think a cull has to happen at some point as the search engine seems to get slower and slower at delivering results, or is it just me?

An automated cull of exact duplicates??

 

Mark

 

I haven't noticed the search engine getting slower, but an automated cull of exact duplicates sounds like it would probably be a good idea. However, I imagine that it could pose some technical problems.

[mickfly]

It's pointless, it's like suggesting that Alamy remove all pics from contributors with less than 'say' 200 images who have never sold a licence... they won't... just in case.