So, I went over some "older" images recently

[chris_rabe]

When I say "old", I haven't been doing this very long. Only really made any effort to list photos for sale since last year. And before deciding to try and sell photos, I had a very haphazard approach to editing and managing my photos.

 

So, anyway, I recently went through a stack of my photos, since I feel this year I have started to hit a groove where processing my photos is concerned - for wildlife at least. All I can say is, I am appalled at so much of what I put out there. And it wasn't really even that long ago I did many - starting from early last year.

 

It's not that I think a photo needs to be a masterpiece to sell - I don't have many "exceptional" photos, but so many badly processed for colour, exposure, noise, crop, etc.

 

I am now in process of going re-doing almost a third(!!!) of my wildlife images I put out for sale.And will simply be deleting a chunk too.

 

I dread the process of removing all these bad images from agencies and replacing  

 

Is there any quick way to remove from Alamy?

[David eastley]

I have been doing the same over the last three years , not only removing rubbish and lots of duplicates but correcting so many errors in captions and poor key wording from my earlier images. Not a fun job but doing a few most weeks with a cup of coffee.As a result  I have sold a few of my early images in the last year simply by improving captions and keywords. When I started there were nowhere as critical as they are now in the search engine. Captions and keyword improvement is the key task for me

[Bryan]

30 minutes ago, chris_rabe said:

I dread the process of removing all these bad images from agencies and replacing  

 

Is there any quick way to remove from Alamy?

 

If you re-process an image and upload an improved version Alamy will delete the older one on request. When asking I always supply the old and new image codes and insert the old code into the keywords of the new image. Mind you I've only done this a limited number of times, not sure how obliging they would be if you have myriads to delete.

Edited June 7, 2020 by Bryan

[chris_rabe]

3 minutes ago, Bryan said:

 

If you re-process an image and upload an improved version Alamy will delete the older one on request. When asking I always supply the old and new image codes and insert the old code into the keywords of the new image. Mind you I've only done this a limited number of times, not sure how obliging they would be if you have myriads to delete.

 

Talking about 1500 photos that I'm really not happy with 😕 What a mess.

 

19 minutes ago, David eastley said:

I have been doing the same over the last three years , not only removing rubbish and lots of duplicates but correcting so many errors in captions and poor key wording from my earlier images. Not a fun job but doing a few most weeks with a cup of coffee.As a result  I have sold a few of my early images in the last year simply by improving captions and keywords. When I started there were nowhere as critical as they are now in the search engine. Captions and keyword improvement is the key task for me

 

Keywording is something else I will have to go over after all the processing.

[Avpics]

Quote

Mind you I've only done this a limited number of times, not sure how obliging they would be if you have myriads to delete.

Remember that Alamy is the long game, that those months waiting for deletion will soon pass. The benefit you'll hopefully get from sharpening up your port will be of benefit more in years to come, rather than next week.

[spacecadet]

1 hour ago, Bryan said:

 

If you re-process an image and upload an improved version Alamy will delete the older one on request.

Wim was saying the other day that they won't do this anymore. I had been recommending it willy-nilly, but realised it had been years since I'd actually done it.

Just mark them for deletion, they become unsearchable after a couple of months and gone after 6.

Considering the meagre returns here, I certainly wouldn't be bothering to reprocess.

 

Edited June 7, 2020 by spacecadet

[MDM]

2 hours ago, chris_rabe said:

When I say "old", I haven't been doing this very long. Only really made any effort to list photos for sale since last year. And before deciding to try and sell photos, I had a very haphazard approach to editing and managing my photos.

 

So, anyway, I recently went through a stack of my photos, since I feel this year I have started to hit a groove where processing my photos is concerned - for wildlife at least. All I can say is, I am appalled at so much of what I put out there. And it wasn't really even that long ago I did many - starting from early last year.

 

It's not that I think a photo needs to be a masterpiece to sell - I don't have many "exceptional" photos, but so many badly processed for colour, exposure, noise, crop, etc.

 

 

 

 

Forgetting about Alamy and selling stock images, I think you are taking the right approach in relation to your work and being really self-critical. This is how you advance as a photographer - not being happy with how you processed images in the past and that could be 10 years or 10 months ago. I think one has to push oneself to be a decent or even half-decent photographer. Resting on laurels or simply having a that will do attitude may be ok for some but it is never going to bring anyone from the poor to the acceptable or from the good to the great. So be appalled by your older work (even if there is no obvious reason to be so). Be a perfectionist and take real pride in your work - it's a good thing. Never stop learning. 

 

I am the same in relation to my older work and cannot be any other way. I had a request a little while back from someone for an unspecified print from a certain area of Ireland. So I started to go back through my image collection and ended up reprocessing loads of images as I just wasn't happy with how I had processed them back in 2010 or 2014. For one thing the raw processor (LIghtroom/ACR) has improved a lot over the years. In addition,  my vision, my taste and my understanding of post-processing has changed and improved a lot over the years. I am also using a much better monitor now than I was back then. I have spent a lot of time reprocessing and am way happier now with the images. It probably won't lead to any financial reward but it has given me a really good feeling and sense of achievement. Hopefully I won't come back to the same batch of pictures in 10 years time and be appalled. Whether it is worthwhile replacing ones I have on Alamy is another thing given that it is not likely to lead to any financial reward but, having said that, it is about pride in my own work. So I may well do that but it is not a priority.  

Edited June 7, 2020 by MDM

[chris_rabe]

As you say MDM, it's not purely a sales thing. I like to think I have learned a fair amount - and I'd like to apply that to some of the pics I worked on before. And just cull some of the stuff that really never had any redeeming qualities! 

 

For a while my processing was so basic I was reluctant to do much more than the most basic of adjustments. It was even as bad as me being reluctant to do very much cropping, and I always shied away from adjusting colour - may be down to be being Red/Green color blind, and never sure I could trust myself!

 

But, on sales, those images that I have done better work on more recently already sell better than a lot of my older stuff ever did, so who knows, maybe it will be worthwhile...

 

 

[Bryan]

8 hours ago, spacecadet said:

Wim was saying the other day that they won't do this anymore. I had been recommending it willy-nilly, but realised it had been years since I'd actually done it.

Just mark them for deletion, they become unsearchable after a couple of months and gone after 6.

Considering the meagre returns here, I certainly wouldn't be bothering to reprocess.

 

 

Last time I asked was May 17th this year Mark, and the deed was done for a single photo. When did Wim say they were no longer offering the service?

[spacecadet]

Last week.

[M.Chapman]

17 hours ago, Bryan said:

Last time I asked was May 17th this year Mark, and the deed was done for a single photo.

 

I contacted Contributor Services on 1st of June with a query about a high value sale, and got an automated response which included the following in bold.

 

Temporarily, we’re unlikely to be able to answer your email due to a reduction in team size whilst we respond to the global Covid-19 pandemic.

 

So it may be best at the moment to delete images manually (it might be quicker in the end...)

 

Mark

Edited June 8, 2020 by M.Chapman

[Ed Rooney]

Chris, I've fretted over this problem in the past. Now, what Ive decided to do, is NOT delete any images, but be more deliberate when uploading any new stuff. I am also very slowly editing tags and caps on older material. So my advice is to move forward, work towards the future, rather than redoing the past. 

 

Your wildlife images look very good to me. 

 

Edo

Edited June 8, 2020 by Ed Rooney

[Allan Bell]

21 hours ago, Ed Rooney said:

Chris, I've fretted over this problem in the past. Now, what Ive decided to do, is NOT delete any images, but be more deliberate when uploading any new stuff. I am also very slowly editing tags and caps on older material. So my advice is to move forward, work towards the future, rather than redoing the past. 

 

Your wildlife images look very good to me. 

 

Edo

 

Good morning Edo & Chris,

 

I have purposely duplicated images in the past by improving an older image and uploading the new image as well as keeping the old image on Alamy. Believe it or not the older original image has sold but the new improved image has not.

 

It is important to put a link to each of the images in the details in AIM so the customer can see both if they wish.

 

Allan

 

[spacecadet]

2 hours ago, Allan Bell said:

 

Good morning Edo & Chris,

 

I have purposely duplicated images in the past by improving an older image and uploading the new image as well as keeping the old image on Alamy. Believe it or not the older original image has sold but the new improved image has not.

 

It is important to put a link to each of the images in the details in AIM so the customer can see both if they wish.

 

Allan

 

I haven't reprocessed more than a handful of images, but I only keep the original if it has sold. But, as Allan suggests, the new version should still have the old reference number in its tags, even if deleted, in case someone searches by reference. It happens.

[Ed Rooney]

A lot of pointless work, I think, Allan and Mark. I have no evidence that a new edit works better for sales, price, zooms, or CTR. That is zero, NONE. I see it as moving the deck chairs around on the Titanic. Reviewing and reworking tags and caps, on the other hand, is very important. I should do a lot more of that. 

 

Also, I don't think my LR and PS edits were ever terrible—although I've changed my mind about the look I might want on some. 

 

I've been going for a more snappy look, more contrast and saturation than "normal." I think I will dial back on that, Most of my sales on Alamy are for online sites, and I think that look seems to work for that. 

 

As the Romans say, boo (a verbal shrug of the shoulders).

 

Edited June 9, 2020 by Ed Rooney

[spacecadet]

1 hour ago, Ed Rooney said:

A lot of pointless work, I think, Allan and Mark.

Oh I agree, Ed. Better things to do, like baking bread or making a pizza. I wasn't recommending it, just giving the advice if the decision was already made. Rather than being like the farmer asked for directions who replied "Well, I wouldn't start from here".

[Allan Bell]

3 hours ago, spacecadet said:

Oh I agree, Ed. Better things to do, like baking bread or making a pizza. I wasn't recommending it, just giving the advice if the decision was already made. Rather than being like the farmer asked for directions who replied "Well, I wouldn't start from here".

 

That reminds me of a trip in the fens with my wife and daughter. We were heading for a place (can't remember name but it was a long time ago.) We drove up to a T junction and the sign said xxxxxx was 5 miles to the right and 4.5 miles to the left. Took the left turn and after 4.5 miles we had not arrived but continued on and after a few more miles we were back at the T junction coming on from what would have been the right turn had we decided to go that way first time round. Gave up and went home.

 

Allan

 

[Cal]

Wait til you get a hiDPI monitor (4K, 5K) if you don't have one already. Boy was that an eye opening experience for me. At 5K native the photos from my 16.2MP camera are more or less viewed at 100% every time I open them. It doesn't seem that way because Mac OS runs "pixel doubled" (otherwise everything would be illegibly small) but in terms of pure pixel count the amount on the sensor is close to that on screen. The result is many photos I'd taken in previous years that had minute flaws (marginally out of focus, soft, motion blur, small amounts of CA) were all glaringly obvious when viewed on such a high res monitor. I am also mad at myself for binning some raws from previous years or having the genius idea to permanently downsize some images to save a few megabytes. Thankfully most of the historic stock-worthy content was salvageable but that was not clever on my part!

[Ed Rooney]

Allan, one of Yogi Berra's famous quotes was, "When you come to a fork in the road, take it." To get to his home in New Jersey, you could circle around from one side or the other. 

[chris_rabe]

Well, nearly two thirds of the way through.

 

There was a time not long after I started, I really started to question the effort, but the more I go through them the more sure I am it's the right thing to do. Especially as I have these listed on my own site

 

It will take a few weeks to get the old removed and updates uploaded - on most agencies anyway. Overall number of files will drop because some I am just deleting.

 

Doing it here will be more painful because can't instantly delete, and I doubt they will go through the effort of replacing  over a thousand files.

[chris_rabe]

Well, I'm all done on re-working my wildlife photos - YAY!

 

It was painful, but I am really glad I did it. I have also deleted over 500 photos as part of this process. 

 

I am just currently getting through uploading 1200 re-processed, and then will mark the old for deletion. 

 

I am also part way through de-activating myself on a few other agencies (just waiting for payouts), and all my image on here will go back to exclusive. It will be so much easier to manage. I was hoping to do all through Alamy Lightroom Bridge, but that has made a mess pulling data down.

 

Currently going through all of photos on here to look at keywording as well. That will be a bit by bit task over time, rather than driving myself mental trying to get through it ASAP - man, I can't believe badly I keyworded some stuff - like Rugby world cup match days, without keywords "world cup", "rugby" - Sigh

[Betty LaRue]

On 05/07/2020 at 04:45, chris_rabe said:

Well, I'm all done on re-working my wildlife photos - YAY!

 

It was painful, but I am really glad I did it. I have also deleted over 500 photos as part of this process. 

 

I am just currently getting through uploading 1200 re-processed, and then will mark the old for deletion. 

 

I am also part way through de-activating myself on a few other agencies (just waiting for payouts), and all my image on here will go back to exclusive. It will be so much easier to manage. I was hoping to do all through Alamy Lightroom Bridge, but that has made a mess pulling data down.

 

Currently going through all of photos on here to look at keywording as well. That will be a bit by bit task over time, rather than driving myself mental trying to get through it ASAP - man, I can't believe badly I keyworded some stuff - like Rugby world cup match days, without keywords "world cup", "rugby" - Sigh

Chris, take a look at your 2C5F0E0 caption. *branch* missing?

[chris_rabe]

3 hours ago, Betty LaRue said:

Chris, take a look at your 2C5F0E0 caption. *branch* missing?

Cheers.

 

I'm sure I have a bunch of broken keywords and captions. Will be fixing as I go through all my photos one at a time to sort out issues  

[gvallee]

On 05/07/2020 at 19:15, chris_rabe said:

I can't believe badly I keyworded some stuff - like Rugby world cup match days, without keywords "world cup", "rugby" - Sigh

 

It happens to me too. A photo of a tree. What tag is missing? Yeah 'tree'. It happens Chris, don't despair.