Categories

[Nigel Kirby]

Currently adding categories on some images. When you go to the optional page in image manager there are about 25 to choose from, but if you look at the Alamy home page "browse images" by category, there are 56. Does anyone know how this works?

 

Nigel

Edited December 22, 2020 by Nigel Kirby

[MizBrown]

40 minutes ago, Nigel Kirby said:

Currently adding categories on some images. When you go to the optional page in image manager there are about 25 to choose from, but if you look at the Alamy home page "browse images" by category, there are 56. Does anyone know how this works?

 

Nigel

 

Try adding some of the others as keywords. 

[M.Chapman]

1 hour ago, Nigel Kirby said:

Currently adding categories on some images. When you go to the optional page in image manager there are about 25 to choose from, but if you look at the Alamy home page "browse images" by category, there are 56. Does anyone know how this works?

 

Nigel

 

One of the great mysteries of Alamy.... why don't the categories we can choose from in AIM agree with those the customer can select from on the home page???

 

It seems likely that the categories the customer can search within in serve up images from the collection which contain certain words in their captions or tags (and their maybe categories too). Who knows? It's probably got something to do with the masses of images Alamy has imported into the collection over the years from other agencies which may have only had captions and tags, but no category assignment. So Alamy has to assign categories to them, based on the caption and keywords or they would be excluded from search results. So that's the system they use for all searches.

 

Has anyone here tested whether the categories we spend time assigning actually get used?? Shouldn't be too difficult to prove with a few tests...

 

Mark

 

 

[Stokie]

I've never assigned categories to any of my images - am I missing out on sales!!?

 

John.

[wiskerke]

13 minutes ago, Stokie said:

I've never assigned categories to any of my images - am I missing out on sales!!?

 

John.

 

You may be missing out on being included in lightboxes that are being put out to clients.

Or any other promotional stuff.

 

wim

[Harry Harrison]

2 hours ago, Nigel Kirby said:

When you go to the optional page in image manager there are about 25 to choose from, but if you look at the Alamy home page "browse images" by category, there are 56. Does anyone know how this works?

I'd say that there is absolutely no correlation between the Categories that we can assign and those that are available on the 'Browse by Category' page. The latter are of two types, some are just curated images with no more than 1000 images and the remainder are just specific searches but with the addition of some curated images in the first few pages and possibly with a custom sort order. I believe the 'Optional' categories were introduced with the new AIM and so images in the library prior to that time won't have them unless anyone has added them retrospectively. Images added from other collections won't have them either. It's also clear that the two lists of categories don't match.

 

Alamy want us to fill them in but provide no guidance nor any information on how they are actually being used. Unlike captions and keywords we have no way of searching on them ourselves and so we are unable to gain any kind of feedback as to how effective they might be, or how well our choice of category might match those of others with similar images. Many have made suggestions as to how the list of optional categories might be improved but there has been no response.

[John Mitchell]

I assign categories as best I can, but I find the list in AIM to be really inadequate. Another topic for the next video perhaps? 😁

[Harry Harrison]

3 hours ago, Nigel Kirby said:

if you look at the Alamy home page "browse images" by category, there are 56. Does anyone know how this works?

 

These are the curated ones in 'Browse by category':

 

Art

Black & white

Entertainment & Celebrity

Fashion & Style

Live News & Reportage

Movement, Motion & Action

News & Entertainment

Pets

Royalty-free

Sport & Fitness

Teaching & Learning

Wonders of the World

[Allan Bell]

Thankless job trying to build a category list.

 

Allan

 

[wiskerke]

5 minutes ago, Allan Bell said:

Thankless job trying to build a category list.

 

Allan

 

 

Thanks for reminding me to thank Harry with a Thanks Cup.

😃

 

wim

[Harry Harrison]

41 minutes ago, wiskerke said:

Thanks for reminding me to thank Harry with a Thanks Cup.

Cheers! Whilst I'm on a roll here are the other categories, as you know the search criteria used are revealed once you click on the category but you do seem to get these curated/selected pages at the front. If you then use the same search criteria yourself these disappear and the number found goes down a little. Obviously I don't know for sure if the 'Optional' categories in AIM play any part and I'm not sure how test it.

 

Abstract

Agriculture

Architecture

Australia

Autumn

Backgrounds

Book covers

Business & technology

Christmas

Cities

colors

concept

cultures

cut out

Environment & Green Living

Everyday

Families

Flowers, gardens & plants

Food

Germany

Health & Beauty

Historical

Images for Print

India

Industry

Landscapes

Lifestyle

Love

Middle East

Music, Fans & Memorabilia

Nostalgia

Science & Healthcare

Small Business

Spring

Still Life

Stockimo

Summer

Transport

Travel

UK

US

Vectors & Illustrations

Wildlife

Winter

Edited December 23, 2020 by Harry Harrison

[Harry Harrison]

...and for comparison here are the AIM 'Optional' categories:

 

Abstracts and backgrounds

Animals and wildlife

Architecture and interiors

Archive or historical

Art and artwork

Business

Celebrations and life events

Concepts

Education

Entertainment and celebrities

Food and drink

Healthcare and medical

Industry and agriculture

Landscapes

Lifestyle

News and reportage

Objects and still life

Occupations

Plants and gardens

Science

Sport

Technology

Transport

Travel

Weather and seasons

[wiskerke]

54 minutes ago, Harry Harrison said:

Abstract

<>

Winter

 

These have been removed or changed since I last looked:

 

Black & white

Entertainment & celebrity

Fashion & style

Movement, motion & action
News & entertainment

Live news & reportage

Pets
Royalty-free

Sport & fitness

Teaching & learning

Wonders of the world

 

wim

 

[wiskerke]

And these are the categories from another well known agency:

 

Abstract
Animals/Wildlife
Arts
Backgrounds/Textures
Beauty/Fashion
Buildings/Landmarks
Business/Finance
Celebrities
Education
Food and Drink
Healthcare / Medical
Holidays
Industrial
Interiors
Miscellaneous
Nature
Objects
Parks/Outdoor
People
Religion
Science
Signs/Symbols
Sports/Recreation
Technology
Transportation
Vintage

 

wim

 

[Stephen Dwyer]

On 23/12/2020 at 02:09, Nigel Kirby said:

Currently adding categories on some images. When you go to the optional page in image manager there are about 25 to choose from, but if you look at the Alamy home page "browse images" by category, there are 56. Does anyone know how this works?

 

Nigel

From my recollection the people at Alamy use the categories we allocate to help them search for images on behalf of clients

[Harry Harrison]

16 minutes ago, Stephen Dwyer said:

From my recollection the people at Alamy use the categories we allocate to help them search for images on behalf of clients

I've heard that as well, though only anecdotally. however if they find it so useful I wonder why they don't allow the public to search in the same way. Given the shortcomings of the Category system (see above) I would have thought it was a fairly unproductive way of searching for images on behalf of clients.