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similar stock images


DDoug

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When I look at an image in my portfolio, there is a link below to "Similar stock images." The previous link to other images by same photographer is gone.


This makes it look like my reward for making my images exclusive to Alamy is that referrals are to images by others only, unless some of mine happen to be seen as similar and are lucky enough to be included in the linked group. In at least one case, I have a few that are in fact similar, e.g., water droplets on leaves of various plants, but only images by other photographers appear below.

 

Perhaps it's all the same to Alamy no matter whose images are licensed, but, actually, I wonder if it's really in your interest to give your photographers the impression that you care so little for the fact that a client has zoomed one of their images and they should be penalized rather than rewarded for it.

Edited by DDoug
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Could it be you just don't have images with the same words in the caption?

Because when just I tried adult cookery class (one that was zoomed yesterday) I had none either. Nor had the next contributor. But when I left out adult, there they were. Only not with mine because I only had one image of a cookery class.

 

wim

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59 minutes ago, wiskerke said:

Could it be you just don't have images with the same words in the caption?

Because when just I tried adult cookery class (one that was zoomed yesterday) I had none either. Nor had the next contributor. But when I left out adult, there they were. Only not with mine because I only had one image of a cookery class.

 

wim

No. I tried it with a number of images. As I said, only photos by others are shown " unless some of mine happen to be seen as similar." My point was that whether or not images of mine are included in the category of similar photos, the entire category of other photos by same photographer (formerly shown above the tags) no longer appears and it's down to luck as to whether any of mine are in the set below the tags.

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I tried it with one of mine and it worked fine. My other photos appeared before the tags. I think Wim has pointed out that although we don't like to see the images from other people shown it also means our images show up in their zooms so maybe we can benefit.

 

Paulette

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It's difficult to say for sure without knowing your images and their respective captions and keywords but it isn't as simple as the 'Stock Photos by the same contributor' selection having been removed, Wim's example demonstrates this surely. I have a lot of pictures of Henley Regatta (far too many obviously) but when I manage to find one of mine down on page 10 somewhere I do get that section. e.g. R30C7D, it's always the same 10 pictures of Henley Regatta incidentally.

 

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31 minutes ago, DDoug said:

No. I tried it with a number of images. As I said, only photos by others are shown " unless some of mine happen to be seen as similar." My point was that whether or not images of mine are included in the category of similar photos, the entire category of other photos by same photographer (formerly shown above the tags) no longer appears and it's down to luck as to whether any of mine are in the set below the tags.

 

That is very weird. Same photographer is working normally here. Like this.

 

wim

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10 minutes ago, wiskerke said:

 

That is very weird. Same photographer is working normally here. Like this.

 

wim

Then it must be a temporary glitch of some sort. In some searches there are very few relevant images and since I have several of them it doesn't make much difference.

In the sample you linked to, there are lots and lots, so it would be important to include the "Stock photos by the same contributor" set.

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50 minutes ago, DDoug said:

Then it must be a temporary glitch of some sort. In some searches there are very few relevant images and since I have several of them it doesn't make much difference.

In the sample you linked to, there are lots and lots, so it would be important to include the "Stock photos by the same contributor" set.

 

Do you have some examples? Like image + the keyword/phrase you used to search for them?

 

wim

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It is strange, I think it depends upon how you come across the image, the type of search. If I search directly by Alamy code E9G7B2 for this image of a  comma butterfly then that section doesn't appear. If instead I search for 'nectar' then it appears on the first page of results and if I select it you do then get that section.

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19 minutes ago, wiskerke said:

 

Do you have some examples? Like image + the keyword/phrase you used to search for them?

 

wim

 

3 minutes ago, Harry Harrison said:

It is strange, I think it depends upon how you come across the image, the type of search. If I search directly by Alamy code E9G7B2 for this image of a  comma butterfly then that section doesn't appear. If instead I search for 'nectar' then it appears on the first page of results and if I select it you do then get that section.

 

If I find an image via Tineye, such as when contributing to the "Have you found any..." threads, then the images by the same contributor do not appear. Ditto when I use the Advanced Search to find by contributor name. However, when searching by keyword, the images by same contributor set is there. Alamy probably has a reason for that distinction.

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3 minutes ago, DDoug said:

 

 

If I find an image via Tineye, such as when contributing to the "Have you found any..." threads, then the images by the same contributor do not appear. Ditto when I use the Advanced Search to find by contributor name. However, when searching by keyword, the images by same contributor set is there. Alamy probably has a reason for that distinction.

 

That's because it's highly unlikely that there's an image ref # in the caption or the keywords. In the case there is an image ref # there, it does show the other image(s) as Stock photos by the same contributor.

I have some but now where to find those. Hmmm.

It's all pretty simple: it is meant as a service to the client. So if you behave like a normal client, the site will behave normally too. 😉

Usually. 😉

 

wim

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Yes, I can see that if you do a search for 'honeybee lily' then your images appear on the first page of 136 results, then clicking on one of yours brings up that section with your two other images of that plantain lily. 

 

Just to throw in a googly though, I'm fairly certain that the first time I tried that it didn't appear, can't be sure though unfortunately.

 

 

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11 minutes ago, wiskerke said:

 

That's because it's highly unlikely that there's an image ref # in the caption or the keywords. In the case there is an image ref # there, it does show the other image(s) as Stock photos by the same contributor.

 

2 minutes ago, Harry Harrison said:

Yes, I can see that if you do a search for 'honeybee lily' then your images appear on the first page of 136 results, then clicking on one of yours brings up that section with your two other images of that plantain lily.

 

Both right, again. A little more investigation on my part before posting would have been a good idea. When buyers search by keyword, all works as it should.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I've always found it random whether more of mine of the same subject are shown, or a set of related or apparently random (maybe badly keyworded/captioned, maybe the usual malgorithms) pics by other artists..or a set of mine above the keywords and those from others below them

In the admittedly few times I've tried clicking on one of their images I never see one of mine reciprocated, but that is a very small sample.

 

I just looked at one of my pics. It has no related pics, by me or anyone else yet I have a small series, and I've seen rival pics of other examples from the same series. So who knows? Further clicking shows few of my recent pics have similars on the page.

Anyway, as noted in another thread, it seems that different people may see different search results, so it's possible (?) that different people might see different related/unrelated images by the same author/other authors, or no other pics at all.

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In a similar vein, I used Tineye this afternoon and alongside the resulting images there was a grid of 30 or so suggested alternatives from the stock agency associated with a large software firm that was named after a variety of soil.

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On 24/07/2019 at 05:31, wiskerke said:

Could it be you just don't have images with the same words in the caption?

Because when just I tried adult cookery class (one that was zoomed yesterday) I had none either. Nor had the next contributor. But when I left out adult, there they were. Only not with mine because I only had one image of a cookery class.

 

wim

 

 I think Wim has it right. I think the search is made by looking at the sameness of the captions. Images with the same caption as the original will come up under the similar stock images function. With this in mind I have started to copy captions onto new images from my old images taken of the same subject matter.

 

There is a river place in Toronto called "Highland Creek" that I photograph often. The similar function for my "Highland Creek a river in Colonel Danforth Park Toronto Ontario Canada" caption kept calling up images of creeks in the highlands of Scotland and no more of mine.

 

I started writing my captions as "Colonel Danforth Park in Toronto Ontario Canada has the river Highland Creek flowing through it.". Now the similar stock images are mostly mine, because "Colonel Danforth Park" is pretty unique and starts off the caption.

 

Bill

Edited by Bill Brooks
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1 hour ago, Bill Brooks said:

 

 I think Wim has it right. I think the search is made by looking at the sameness of the captions.

I uploaded two images that were recently sold for Web use on my own site with no keywords or captions either in the html or image metadata.

When I ran through TinEye, one of them showed zero results, not even my own image on Alamy. With the other, the results included my images on Alamy, a similar one on Wikimedia commons, another on a Wordpress site, and a whole bunch with at least a vague resemblance from the other stock agency's site. Since I gave no verbal identifiers, it must have been doing it through image recognition.

Don 

P.S., I don't know what method Alamy uses, but in this similar case, keyword similarity would not be possible.

Edited by DDoug
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4 hours ago, DDoug said:

I uploaded two images that were recently sold for Web use on my own site with no keywords or captions either in the html or image metadata.

When I ran through TinEye, one of them showed zero results, not even my own image on Alamy. With the other, the results included my images on Alamy, a similar one on Wikimedia commons, another on a Wordpress site, and a whole bunch with at least a vague resemblance from the other stock agency's site. Since I gave no verbal identifiers, it must have been doing it through image recognition.

Don 

P.S., I don't know what method Alamy uses, but in this similar case, keyword similarity would not be possible.

 

Google and TinEye use image recognition. As you probably have seen, Alamy now has search by image as well. Where this function is being used we don't know yet. Maybe it is indeed used to populate the Similar stock images. And maybe we did witness some trial runs.

 

When I used the new function to see if the original of this one (found here) was on Alamy also:

Amsterdam canal Singel with dutch houses - Stock Image

I got this page. Very impressive. However it says: Visually similar results (100). But also: Page 1 of 621.

So yes it was on Alamy too.

My birthplace is just outside of the frame, 3 houses to the left.

 

wim

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15 hours ago, Ed Rooney said:

I have just one technical comment to make: Yikes!  🖐️

 

But near indestructible subject matter. (OK I'm a bit very biased here.)

When I looked at that first page of Visually similar results again I noticed that on the 5th and 7th position there are images of Honfleur. A bit further on Venice makes an appearance and even Verona, St Petersburg and New York pop up.

However when you click on that  thumbnail

Amsterdam canal Singel with dutch houses - Stock Image

you'll notice that all Similar stock images underneath are in fact from Amsterdam.

Which means populating Similar stock images is still done by keywords and/or captions. My bet now: it's done by supertags.

 

wim

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On 24/07/2019 at 12:11, wiskerke said:

 

That is very weird. Same photographer is working normally here. Like this.

 

wim

 

I've found that sometimes there are some of my own similar images, sometimes not ... not sure why though. Usually when I upload a batch of a similar topic or shoot, then the keywords are also similar (and sometimes the same). The times there are none of my own hasn't happened enough for it to really bother me though.

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8 hours ago, BidC said:

 

I've found that sometimes there are some of my own similar images, sometimes not ... not sure why though. Usually when I upload a batch of a similar topic or shoot, then the keywords are also similar (and sometimes the same). The times there are none of my own hasn't happened enough for it to really bother me though.

 

Next time you try this, make a note of which keywords you have used as search term. 10 to 1 it's those that are bringing up your own similars.  For instance: search with 6 of your own Alamy ref ## and click on one of them. The other 5 will appear as your similars.

 

wim

 

edit: so maybe that's all there is to it with the population of the ordinary similars too: just search term and keywords. 🤦‍♂️

edit2: strike that: supertags or caption are still my best bet.

Edited by wiskerke
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10 hours ago, wiskerke said:

 

Next time you try this, make a note of which keywords you have used as search term. 10 to 1 it's those that are bringing up your own similars.  For instance: search with 6 of your own Alamy ref ## and click on one of them. The other 5 will appear as your similars.

 

wim

 

edit: so maybe that's all there is to it with the population of the ordinary similars too: just search term and keywords. 🤦‍♂️

edit2: strike that: supertags or caption are still my best bet.

 

I think you are right Wim - it's probably the supertags :)

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