Filling Caption section at image manager

[asarstudios]

What is the best way to fix the caption section at image manager for the images that are already live?

 

I have a bad batch of images that the upload gone wrong somehow. 

 

Thanks in advance. 

 

Update: I have a solution and my action plan at the end of this thread. 

Edited January 12, 2022 by asarstudios
added more clarity

[Betty LaRue]

On 08/01/2022 at 00:54, asarstudios said:

What is the best practice to fill the caption section at image manager?

 

do you leave empty, or do you enter the info one by one? if you have selected 500 image to activate, how do you fill that section. what ever i put in it is overwriting the image name.

 

i am a bit confused here and need some helpful assistance. 

 

Thanks in advance. 

Took a flying peek at the first page of your portfolio. I’m sorry to say, you will need to caption each image individually, unless you have a couple of similars of one person or a couple. The caption should contain all the information you know. Since what I saw are old images, if you don’t know the name of the towns, at least put the country name at the end of the caption.

”xxxx and xxxxxx last name posing for portrait in (or approximately) year. Germany (or wherever.

 

Example: Edwina and George Brown, Caucasian, ages approximate 50s, posing for formal portrait, approximate year, 1880, London, England.

or…”Unknown Caucasian man with handlebar mustache, approximately 60,  circa early 1900s, posing for formal portrait in

“country”.
When you caption, only highlight one image at a time, or more if they are similar. Be careful to save and deselect it before moving on to the next image, or you’ll get the wrong information on some. For instance, if you put all the correct information, Caption and tags on Image #1, then forget to deselect it in Image Manager, then go to Image #2 and put in different information, the information from Image #2 will overwrite the information in Image #1. It can be tricky, so proceed with care.

Betty

[meanderingemu]

as pointed out above, you might want to review section 4.4 of your agreement with @Alamy

 

 

4.4 You will ensure that all Metadata including, without limitation, any and all other information pertaining to the Content: (i) is and will remain accurate and factually correct; (ii) does not infringe the copyright or any other third party right; and (iii) is not indecent, obscene, pornographic defamatory or otherwise unlawful.

[asarstudios]

Thank you for the information. I prefer putting the IPTC info via lightroom or Adobe bridge. Which field will populate caption section in Alamy so i can fill correct section. Title or description?

[Betty LaRue]

23 minutes ago, asarstudios said:

Thank you for the information. I prefer putting the IPTC info via lightroom or Adobe bridge. Which field will populate caption section in Alamy so i can fill correct section. Title or description?

I do it in Bridge also. Description is what you want for the caption.

[John Mitchell]

Yikes! It looks as if you have almost 430K images to caption individually. Your keywords look to be inaccurate as well. For instance, the tag "flower" seems to be in almost every photo. No one will ever find those images in their current state. Hope you have a lot of time on your hands. Best of luck. 😲

 

 

Edited January 11, 2022 by John Mitchell

[Rebecca Ore]

1 hour ago, Betty LaRue said:

I do it in Bridge also. Description is what you want for the caption.

 

Caption in Lightroom Classic's Metadata section in the Library panel exports as captions for Alamy if you don't use Bridge.  It's easier to do captions and keywords before submissions so you don't have to ask for all your data and then cut and paste it in to LRC or Bridge later if you need it again. 

[asarstudios]

I wish i knew that information before. i will start revisiting them and start putting description . you are very helpful and i am very thankful. 

[Harry Harrison]

4 hours ago, asarstudios said:

I wish i knew that information before. i will start revisiting them and start putting description . you are very helpful and i am very thankful. 

If you have consistently entered the caption into the 'Title' field then I have an (admittedly rather vague) idea that you can map the fields from Lightroom on export using a plugin, Metadata Wrangler I think. May be just worth checking. LR/Transporter is also a possibility, you can export to a csv and then re-import switching the contents of the two fields.

[M.Chapman]

1 hour ago, Harry Harrison said:

If you have consistently entered the caption into the 'Title' field then I have an (admittedly rather vague) idea that you can map the fields from Lightroom on export using a plugin, Metadata Wrangler I think. May be just worth checking. LR/Transporter is also a possibility, you can export to a csv and then re-import switching the contents of the two fields.

Alternatively, I suspect the EXIFtool program can copy the information from one field into another for all images in a folder. It's not the easiest program to use though.

 

https://exiftool.org/

 

Looks like a portfolio of almost 1/2 a milllion images with identical captions and keywords?? Ouch!!

 

Mark

Edited January 11, 2022 by M.Chapman

[geogphotos]

These images should be marked as 'Public Domain'. 

 

Without captions and specific keywords/tags nobody can find the image that they want.

 

Presumably it has taken quite a few years to build this vast huge collection. Has the OP any sales to report?

 

I find it all a bit puzzling.

Edited January 11, 2022 by geogphotos

[M.Chapman]

1 hour ago, geogphotos said:

These images should be marked as 'Public Domain'. 

 

Without captions and specific keywords/tags nobody can find the image that they want.

 

Presumably it has taken quite a few years to build this vast huge collection. Has the OP any sales to report?

 

I find it all a bit puzzling.

Indeed. Alamy really should start doing some QC on image metadata. What's the point in failing images for a 1 pixel width CA fringe when the metadata means the images are unlikely to be found or sell? It just clutters up the servers, slows down searches, and shows customers irrelevant images. Is it any wonder Alamy keep having to lower their prices??? Maintaining higher prices relies on maintaining quality...

 

Mark

Edited January 11, 2022 by M.Chapman

[geogphotos]

I have nothing against Public Domain images ( at first I wrote Pueblo Domain -  have been busy on my Spain images!! 😃) being used - I have a small number myself and it is the buyer's choice. 

 

But I really do think that Alamy needs to supervise what is happening and lay down some rules. As I've said in the past  PD on Alamy is like the 'Wild West' not least the amount of duplication that happens. 

 

On my own part I select images carefully, work them in PS if necessary, translate and research captions, spend time creating relevant keywords etc. I know that should provide its own rewards in comparison with others who don't do so BUT even so. 

 

Perhaps being able to submit PD should be a privilege and one that is subject to ongoing scrutiny? The whole thing needs sorting IMHO.

 

 

Edited January 11, 2022 by geogphotos

[spacecadet]

17 minutes ago, M.Chapman said:

Indeed. Alamy really should start doing some QC on image metadata. What's the point in failing images for a 1 pixel width CA fringe when the metadata means the images are unlikely to be found or sell? It just clutters up the servers, slows down searches, and shows customers irrelevant images. Is it any wonder Alamy keep having to lower their prices??? Maintaining higher prices relies on maintaining quality...

 

Mark

Indeed. Someone should report it

[M.Chapman]

6 minutes ago, geogphotos said:

I have nothing against Public Domain images ( at first I wrote Pueblo Domain -  have been busy on my Spain images!! 😃) being used - I have a small number myself and it is the buyer's choice. 

 

But I really do think that Alamy needs to supervise what is happening and lay down some rules. As I've said in the past  PD on Alamy is like the 'Wild West' not least the amount of duplication that happens. 

 

On my own part I select images carefully, work them in PS if necessary, translate and research captions, spend time creating relevant keywords etc. I know that should provide its own rewards in comparison with others who don't do so BUT even so. 

 

Perhaps being able to submit PD should be a privilege and one that is subject to ongoing scrutiny? The whole thing needs sorting IMHO.

 

 

Maybe it was a bulk import of images from here https://www.asarstudios.com/ that's just gone wrong?

 

Mark

[meanderingemu]

26 minutes ago, M.Chapman said:

Indeed. Alamy really should start doing some QC on image metadata. What's the point in failing images for a 1 pixel width CA fringe when the metadata means the images are unlikely to be found or sell. It just clutters up the servers, slows down searches, and show customers irrelevant images. Is it any wonder Alamy keep having to lower their prices??? Maintaining higher prices relies on maintaining quality...

 

Mark

 

based on number of characters in caption, i don't think any of these images would have gone through QC. 

[geogphotos]

6 minutes ago, meanderingemu said:

 

based on number of characters in caption, i don't think any of these images would have gone through QC. 

 

No they have gone through Archive -  a route which is only given at Alamy's discretion. 

 

How has that happened without any checks made until collections of this size have been added?

[M.Chapman]

33 minutes ago, geogphotos said:

 

No they have gone through Archive -  a route which is only given at Alamy's discretion. 

 

How has that happened without any checks made until collections of this size have been added?

Jumping to page 800 still shows images starting with 7 character Alamy ref 2??????. So most have been added quickly I suspect. Looks like a bulk upload/import that's gone wrong. It's one heck of a collection. If they were properly captioned and keyworded it could be a valuable addition to Alamy library, so long as there are no copyright/intellectual property issues.

 

Mark

Edited January 11, 2022 by M.Chapman

[spacecadet]

10 minutes ago, M.Chapman said:

Jumping to page 800 still shows images starting with 7 character Alamy ref 2??????. So most have been added quickly I suspect. Looks like a bulk upload/import that's gone wrong. It's one heck of a collection. If they were properly captioned and keyworded it could be a valuable addition to Alamy library, so long as there are no copyright/intellectual property issues.

 

Mark

Exactly.

There's a century-old image of the Pfalzgrafenstein toll castle on the Mittelrhein at Kaub that even I recognise. A perfectly valid archival image. But no-one will ever find it.

Edited January 11, 2022 by spacecadet

[geogphotos]

Alamy does offer an image matching search function nowadays. You can upload an image and it produces close matches. It seems to work pretty well on the few trials I've just done. So the OP could hope for some success that way......maybe? But it would depend on the searcher already having a similar image.

[Rebecca Ore]

2 hours ago, geogphotos said:

I have nothing against Public Domain images ( at first I wrote Pueblo Domain -  have been busy on my Spain images!! 😃) being used - I have a small number myself and it is the buyer's choice. 

 

But I really do think that Alamy needs to supervise what is happening and lay down some rules. As I've said in the past  PD on Alamy is like the 'Wild West' not least the amount of duplication that happens. 

 

On my own part I select images carefully, work them in PS if necessary, translate and research captions, spend time creating relevant keywords etc. I know that should provide its own rewards in comparison with others who don't do so BUT even so. 

 

Perhaps being able to submit PD should be a privilege and one that is subject to ongoing scrutiny? The whole thing needs sorting IMHO.

 

 

 

Also, public domain is what now according to the international copyright treaty?   Life of the artist/writer/photographer?   Some 1960s photographs may not qualify.  Plus there's the Disney extension in the US.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries'_copyright_lengths suggests this is complicated.

 

[geogphotos]

1 minute ago, Rebecca Ore said:

 

Also, public domain is what now according to the international copyright treaty?   Life of the artist/writer/photographer?   Some 1960s photographs may not qualify.  Plus there's the Disney extension in the US.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries'_copyright_lengths suggests this is complicated.

 

 For photography in UK it is 70 years after the creator's death. There are obvious exceptions if the work was commissioned ( eg by a govt agency) and they, as copyright owners,  have released the image into the Public Domain. 

[asarstudios]

Thank you for adding more value to my post. 

 

This a bulk upload gone wrong and I WILL FIX IT.

 

FYI: I am well aware of Copyright and Public Domains. 

 

My fixes will be:

1. Mark PD images as PD (I was doing it. just the bad batch will be fixed)

2. The bad batch captions will be fixed with the tool below
https://www.marspremedia.com/software/photoshop/filename-to-description
 

This is a photoshop ad-on and it is fast and working. 

For the rest of IPTC metadata I use Adobe Bridge. So yes, before uploading to Alamy, I do work on them, enhance them for sale. 

 

I will fix them locally and re-uplaod them to Alamy via FTP. FTP will replace the newer version (overwrite feature)

My bad batch problem is solved. 

FYI: I am getting sales and i am happy with it. Alamy is great and they do check quality. I do have some rejects. So do not be alarmed. 

I am adding value to Alamy Library for sure. I do a lot of research and find only the sales worthy images in hi-res.

 

Thank you again. 

This post can be closed now since i got lots of helpful replies. 

[wiskerke]

9 hours ago, asarstudios said:

https://www.marspremedia.com/software/photoshop/filename-to-description

Thank you for that link!

 

wim

[M.Chapman]

On 12/01/2022 at 02:19, asarstudios said:

I will fix them locally and re-uplaod them to Alamy via FTP. FTP will replace the newer version (overwrite feature)

 

I'm not sure FTP upload would replace the images on Alamy's server? Won't they just be seen as a new submission by Alamy?

 

Mark

Edited January 13, 2022 by M.Chapman

[John Mitchell]

On 11/01/2022 at 02:38, geogphotos said:

I have nothing against Public Domain images ( at first I wrote Pueblo Domain -  have been busy on my Spain images!! 😃) being used - I have a small number myself and it is the buyer's choice. 

 

But I really do think that Alamy needs to supervise what is happening and lay down some rules. As I've said in the past  PD on Alamy is like the 'Wild West' not least the amount of duplication that happens. 

 

On my own part I select images carefully, work them in PS if necessary, translate and research captions, spend time creating relevant keywords etc. I know that should provide its own rewards in comparison with others who don't do so BUT even so. 

 

Perhaps being able to submit PD should be a privilege and one that is subject to ongoing scrutiny? The whole thing needs sorting IMHO.

 

 

 

It seems that the vast majority of archival/historical images on Alamy have not been marked as being sourced from the PD. I think Alamy should at least make doing so a rule. As you say, the duplication is often horrendous. However, that's a tougher one to deal with. It is a bit like the Wild West ('Shootout at the Alamy Corral'), good analogy. Then again, the whole stock photo industry is like that now.