Ludicrous keywords

[Travelshots]

Image Image ID: 2A4APF6. This contributor has no idea how to keyword.

[MizBrown]

It's also not "no property" as I'm sure that versions of that promotional figure are intellectual property of the company that created them.

[Steve F]

Errmmmm.... Wow...!! That's not even from a keyword generator. Unfortunately the atrocious keywording and captions seem to go all the way through the contributor's collection. Oh well, less competition for us!!

[Thyrsis]

Alamy should do something about this collection. Looks like an agency that have dumped over 4500 incorrectly captioned and keyworded images! 

[sb photos]

I wonder how many of the huge number of daily image uploads are like these.

 

As well as keyword issues, many portrait images display as landscape, they haven't been rotated. Can can anyone explain this oddity - I click on the contributor name to view their collection. I select one captioned Provinssi Festival, all that shows is Provinssi Festival. I obtain its URL and do a Google image search. It's only shown at Alamy, but as  'Provinssi Festival · The prominent American turntablism and 2 time US Disco Mix Club champion DJ Klever is seen live on stage with at a Yelawolf concert in ...' I click on the link to the contributors image and again the only caption is 'Provinssi Festival', none of the information seen in the Alamy link, why? I'm just naturally curious.

Edited October 26, 2019 by sb photos

[JaniMarkus Hasa]

I wonder what has happened... Images of demonstration and newly opened mall in Helsinki are all captioned Mall of Tripla. Tags seem to be even more mixed. Based on some misspellings of Finnish tags I'd say not a native speaker.

[Cryptoprocta]

On 26/10/2019 at 01:58, MizBrown said:

It's also not "no property" as I'm sure that versions of that promotional figure are intellectual property of the company that created them.

Property: No means that they don't have a property release.

Unless you can see, which I can't, that they've indicated that the image doesn't need a release?

 

It's very unfortunate for the collection as a whole when Alamy ingests images wholesale like this with no checking for even orientation far less keywording. It's like it's only to boost numbers they can boast about. They'll never be found for what they really are, and will pollute searches for what they aren't.

Edited October 27, 2019 by Cryptoprocta

[wiskerke]

Damage done by spreadsheet?

 

wim

[MariaJ]

13 hours ago, Travelshots said:

Image Image ID: 2A4APF6. This contributor has no idea how to keyword.

 

Wow, even Lady Gaga is in there  . 

[Bob J]

I noticed the image inside the airport terminal (all chrome and glass) that had the keyword " autumn leaves". I tend to agree that this has every indication of a large 'dump' of images - perhaps there is an intention to clean the mess up later.

[sb photos]

43 minutes ago, Bob J said:

I noticed the image inside the airport terminal (all chrome and glass) that had the keyword " autumn leaves". I tend to agree that this has every indication of a large 'dump' of images - perhaps there is an intention to clean the mess up later.

 

I believe it's usually more efficient to keyword before uploading, if only the minimum generic to suite the subjects, then customise later. There didn't appear to be any images in the dump that were time critical, so why the rush, and they won't be easy, if possible at all, to search for. My gut feeling they will add to Alamy's figures, will take up storage space for for ever, and never be corrected.

[Richard Baker]

I like how they've put Lady Gaga and Wilko in together.

[Mr Standfast]

 

[John Mitchell]

Hopefully, Alamy will do something about this. They shouldn't allow themselves to become a dumping ground for another agency's junk.

 

I'm amazed at how little some agencies seem to care about keywords. Even those that do the keywording for their contributors often do a miserable job. Has the stock photo business really become this cynical, one has to wonder.

[Robert M Estall]

I know etiquette discourages criticism, but in this case I feel free to describe most of this collection as rubbish. Just painful! I have a fondness for Finland and Fins. So many images keyworded as London and Helsinki . I suppose almost none of this will be seen never mind sold, but it is pretty dire.

[Marianne]

I had a bunch of my images transferred to G from 5..p and they re-keyworded them so as to make them nearly unfindable. A couple of a church in Chatham, a popular town on Cape Cod with a mass of fall pumpkins in front has been keyworded "Christianity, church, religion...."  no fall, autumn, pumpkins, Halloween, Chatham, Cape Cod...the same image has sold here a couple of times.

 

I work so hard on my keywords and the image had been keyworded properly, and it and others have been used in travel articles about the Cape, fall getaways, and Halloween...but it won't be found for any of those concepts there. The worst thing is they took a cache of my Cape Cod photos and then ruined the keywords.

 

So yes, agencies can make a real mess of things because many now use AI for keywording. I just uploaded a bunch on one such agency and one of my images (from Cape Cod, in fact), to my surprise, had only one keyword. So, the AI suggested a bunch. Some were good but others were totally wrong, such as "Europe," probably generated because of other images I'd uploaded in the batch, although a similar shot that was completely and properly keyworded was uploaded with it, but it pulled place names from dissimilar images in the batch. That's why people matter. If someone is lazy and relies on an agency's AI, that's what will happen. 

Edited October 26, 2019 by Marianne

[John Mitchell]

3 hours ago, Marianne said:

I had a bunch of my images transferred to G from 5..p and they re-keyworded them so as to make them nearly unfindable. A couple of a church in Chatham, a popular town on Cape Cod with a mass of fall pumpkins in front has been keyworded "Christianity, church, religion...."  no fall, autumn, pumpkins, Halloween, Chatham, Cape Cod...the same image has sold here a couple of times.

 

I work so hard on my keywords and the image had been keyworded properly, and it and others have been used in travel articles about the Cape, fall getaways, and Halloween...but it won't be found for any of those concepts there. The worst thing is they took a cache of my Cape Cod photos and then ruined the keywords.

 

So yes, agencies can make a real mess of things because many now use AI for keywording. I just uploaded a bunch on one such agency and one of my images (from Cape Cod, in fact), to my surprise, had only one keyword. So, the AI suggested a bunch. Some were good but others were totally wrong, such as "Europe," probably generated because of other images I'd uploaded in the batch, although a similar shot that was completely and properly keyworded was uploaded with it, but it pulled place names from dissimilar images in the batch. That's why people matter. If someone is lazy and relies on an agency's AI, that's what will happen. 

 

 I agree. AI is exactly what its name says it is -- artificial.

 

Alamy did the right thing allowing us fallible humans to curate our own keywords, captions, etc.

[Betty LaRue]

3 hours ago, John Mitchell said:

 

 I agree. AI is exactly what its name says it is -- artificial.

 

Alamy did the right thing allowing us fallible humans to curate our own keywords, captions, etc.

Yes, and as miserable as mine were when I started out, at least I got the subjects and places right. Probably the best thing that happened to me is when the new AIM came out and made such a complete mess of my keywords and phrases. It forced me to fix them, thereby deleting many like “tree” when one was barely seen in the background.  That was caused by advice I read to someone on the old forum that said to only use keywords that fit what’s in the picture. So I named everything in the picture! 😁 

Of course, addressing thousands of images...well, I’d just as soon had my fingernails pulled out. Once it was done, though, I had great satisfaction.

Betty

[Travelshots]

Well lots of replies here.!  This collection should be removed. Any new contributions should not go online unless they been opened in the  image manager. Agencies would not then be able to upload  thousands of images by just sending them in with an XLS spreadsheet  of unchecked keywords.

[John Mitchell]

13 hours ago, Betty LaRue said:

Yes, and as miserable as mine were when I started out, at least I got the subjects and places right. Probably the best thing that happened to me is when the new AIM came out and made such a complete mess of my keywords and phrases. It forced me to fix them, thereby deleting many like “tree” when one was barely seen in the background.  That was caused by advice I read to someone on the old forum that said to only use keywords that fit what’s in the picture. So I named everything in the picture! 😁 

Of course, addressing thousands of images...well, I’d just as soon had my fingernails pulled out. Once it was done, though, I had great satisfaction.

Betty

 

AI is no doubt a wonderful tool for rote tasks, but it still takes a human brain to do something as nuanced as keywording images. That said, the robots are definitely coming to get us. 🥴

[John Morrison]

Thankfully, Alamy offers contributors 'two bites at the cherry': first by uploading saleable pix and then by adding the keywords will will enable buyers to find them. Collections that fail to perform will be ranked lower and lower, until, in most searches, they'll never be seen at all. This is what will happen to pix with gibberish for tags...

[meanderingemu]

15 minutes ago, John Morrison said:

Thankfully, Alamy offers contributors 'two bites at the cherry': first by uploading saleable pix and then by adding the keywords will will enable buyers to find them. Collections that fail to perform will be ranked lower and lower, until, in most searches, they'll never be seen at all. This is what will happen to pix with gibberish for tags...

 

 

but the issue is if it affects clients who now come for a search for "Photobooth Helsinki"  end up with this

 

https://www.alamy.com/search.html?qt=photobooth helsinki&imgt=0

 

and decides that Alamy is useless...  

[vpics]

I do wonder how most of the images even passed QC. Some aren't even the right way up. 

[John Morrison]

1 hour ago, meanderingemu said:

 

 

but the issue is if it affects clients who now come for a search for "Photobooth Helsinki"  end up with this

 

https://www.alamy.com/search.html?qt=photobooth helsinki&imgt=0

 

and decides that Alamy is useless...  

 

Alamy decided to live with this entirely predictable outcome when they allowed contributors to do their own keywording. It's likely that millions of pix in the collection are wrongly or inadequately tagged and captioned (including a few of mine, no doubt). What can we do about it? Nothing...

[sb photos]

2 hours ago, John Morrison said:

Thankfully, Alamy offers contributors 'two bites at the cherry': first by uploading saleable pix and then by adding the keywords will will enable buyers to find them. Collections that fail to perform will be ranked lower and lower, until, in most searches, they'll never be seen at all. This is what will happen to pix with gibberish for tags...

 

Probably best left as it is, there's no easy answer to resolve the issue unless Alamy could conduct random checks when another agency uploads large numbers of images, and if like the ones we are discussing, then rejects them. They are likely from another agency, as if a contributor QC would have seen the issue. Even after observing the mess, still keywording by the contributor is best. How would an automatic keywording system know who people in my images are, who they represent, who the organisations are organising an event, or how to customise the keywords if someone pictured later becomes newsworthy etc.