gvallee Posted June 23, 2022 Share Posted June 23, 2022 Has anyone reported their findings to CR? If so, what was their answer? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lynchpics Posted June 23, 2022 Share Posted June 23, 2022 Just did a search using the editorial tab to see if any of my images showed up in the results. In the Alamy image manager i have 106 RM images with the keywords that i searched for AND i know that there are many other images from other contributors who would have had images from events that would also have shown up if the search had been done in the old search engine. The new search engine returns 1 page of images, 89 images in total, 10 of my images were there, all from 1 event. The NEW search engine is clearly not fit for purpose. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry Harrison Posted June 23, 2022 Share Posted June 23, 2022 (edited) 52 minutes ago, Inchiquin said: So if, as you've suggested above, some other criteria apart from the 'Editorial Only' flag are being used to determine what appears in Editorial, Well I'm just trying to work out what is going on, it might be a red herring, or operator error on my part. I'd never really thought about what makes that 'Editorial' warning flag appear by an image so it might always have been like this and there may be a good reason which someone can point out for me. I've identified some of your images of Sowerby railway station and they don't have that flag for me either so that's a surprise if they are tagged as Editorial only, and yes, if they are why are they not coming up under Editorial and instead appear in Uncut? Edited June 23, 2022 by Harry Harrison Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nodvandigtid Posted June 23, 2022 Share Posted June 23, 2022 43 minutes ago, MariaJ said: Even if they fix the search engine troubles, I don't see how my mainly editiorial set of images fits in with the avant garde creative agency that they are now branding themselves as on their home page (e.g., guy face down on a mirror). I would imagine their regular clients would be confused too. Valid point Maria - in an oversaturated market place is "Avant Garde" really the way to go? Businesses build on their tradition base and strengths - which Alamy does have - and need to expand/diversify so new areas/products/clients etc all need looked at but this new site seems such a mish-mash it's hard to fathom. Is it an expensive toe in the water - funded by us all, the majority not benefitting, before the July cash-grab comes along? 18 minutes ago, gvallee said: Has anyone reported their findings to CR? If so, what was their answer? Personally I wouldn't bother Gen - contributors have pointed out loads of things here that PA/Alamy are capable of noting and actioning. Any business wishing to do well and benefit takes customer feedback on the chin - there is a clatter of issues raised here. Again - the business should have sought feedback through a beta off-line version released to a sample number of both byers and contributors pre-launch. Maybe they did for buyers but maybe when they actually integrated it the old IT failings resurfaced. I am sad to see the way it has turned out - if it's difficult to navigate/understand as a buyer and riddled with tech problems it's the road to nowhere. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sooth Posted June 23, 2022 Share Posted June 23, 2022 (edited) 13 minutes ago, Nodvandigtid said: it's the road to nowhere. the David Byrne version with St Vincent and brass band is a really nice; the lyrics of the song fits in nicely with what's goin on lately with the website Edited June 23, 2022 by sooth Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lynchpics Posted June 23, 2022 Share Posted June 23, 2022 Think I may have sussed why i had a problem, images not listed in your image manager as being editorial will naturally not appear in editorial tab searches. I tend to just select RM and leave it at that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry Harrison Posted June 23, 2022 Share Posted June 23, 2022 So in AIM the 'Sell for editorial only' checkbox automatically checks 'Don't sell for advertising and promotion' and 'Don't sell for consumer goods'. Similarly checking both of those options automatically checks 'Don't sell for editorial only'. Suddenly that seems to have got a lot more important. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry Harrison Posted June 23, 2022 Share Posted June 23, 2022 (edited) Was that filter for Agency Collections there before? Just tried it on 'Prince William' for example, quite instructive. This new search engine is certainly being asked to do a lot. The single image that comes up for that particular search in the Ultimate collection is not quite what I was expecting. Apparently it was taken in the Prince William Sound. Edited June 23, 2022 by Harry Harrison Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lynchpics Posted June 23, 2022 Share Posted June 23, 2022 44 minutes ago, Harry Harrison said: So in AIM the 'Sell for editorial only' checkbox automatically checks 'Don't sell for advertising and promotion' and 'Don't sell for consumer goods'. Similarly checking both of those options automatically checks 'Don't sell for editorial only'. Suddenly that seems to have got a lot more important. I have amended my images so i will redo the editorial search on Friday when the system updates and see what happens. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inchiquin Posted June 23, 2022 Share Posted June 23, 2022 1 hour ago, Harry Harrison said: I've identified some of your images of Sowerby railway station and they don't have that flag for me either so that's a surprise if they are tagged as Editorial only, and yes, if they are why are they not coming up under Editorial and instead appear in Uncut? No they don't have that flag (I've just added it to one of them to see if it makes a difference tomorrow), which was really my point. My images without 'editorial only' flag are not appearing, but other images without it are. I've just done some more research and it's even more confusing. Most of the non-editorial-only pics that appear in Editorial are all marked historical/reportage, and since they appear to have been taken this year that would suggest reportage. But the historic photos that are also in Editorial are also marked historical/reportage and they are presumably archive pics. Yet when I search for other subjects under Editorial none of my own archive pics appear. This seems to suggest that either there is some other criterion that we haven't yet identified, or that some contributors are uploading historical images as reportage. I would be inclined to believe the latter. But this doesn't solve the main problem, which is that Creative and Editorial are now mutually exclusive, so if you have pictures that are suitable for both, tough. Also, my searches so far show that archive pics don't appear in either category. You just have to hope that customers will leave the search on All. On top of this the site doesn't even work properly. We've all seen how excruciatingly slow it is. But it gets worse. As Matt Ashmore says, you can search for all images using an asterisk, but if you then type a contributor name into the filter box, it starts the search after a random interval regardless of whether you hit Return, so if you take more than a couple of seconds to enter the name it starts the search before you've finished! And of course you get zero matches. Then, if you complete the name and hit Return again, it does the search... but removes the filter so you get 165m results and have to start all over again. All in all, a total pig's ear. Alan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inchiquin Posted June 23, 2022 Share Posted June 23, 2022 I've now managed to extract a URL for my own pics, so I can update my own website with the link. The URL has a parameter "sortBy=relevant" which seems to simply list the images in the order of date taken, most recent first. I suppose this is OK, but I did like the old system where they were shown in the order in which they went on sale, so I knew I could hold back better images for a little while to make sure they appeared before lesser ones. Has anyone seen any other parameters for sort order? I don't think the filters are any help because they just filter images out, not put them in any order. Alan 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Foreign Export Posted June 23, 2022 Author Share Posted June 23, 2022 This new website just doesn't seem to work, I have tried various searches over the past couple of days - and all have problems that Im sure will be a major turn off for buyers For example I have searched Byron Bay surfer - in "Vital" 38 images turn up eventually and only a handful even have a glimpse of a surfer How can something be vital when it completely misses the point of the search? 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Robinson Posted June 23, 2022 Share Posted June 23, 2022 Awful new homepage. Distracting, irritating, simply awful. I hope none of Alamy's potential customers are epileptic. 1 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zxzoomy Posted June 23, 2022 Share Posted June 23, 2022 (edited) 2 hours ago, Foreign Export said: This new website just doesn't seem to work, I have tried various searches over the past couple of days - and all have problems that Im sure will be a major turn off for buyers For example I have searched Byron Bay surfer - in "Vital" 38 images turn up eventually and only a handful even have a glimpse of a surfer How can something be vital when it completely misses the point of the search? In some of those the photographer has put 'popular with surfers' in the caption and versions of 'surfer' in the tags so the search finds them. Edited June 23, 2022 by zxzoomy correction 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andreas Posted June 23, 2022 Share Posted June 23, 2022 I searched for 'germany aerial view river', creative, result in ultimate section: one ultimate picture of a television tower. New search, creative, for 'germany aerial view lake', result: 6 existing ultimate pictures. See all Ultimate images for ‘germany aerial view lake’ returns 113 pages, 11297 pictures. Ultimate nonsense, ultimate mess ? 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry Harrison Posted June 23, 2022 Share Posted June 23, 2022 If 'Ultimate' really is hand-picked how on earth could anyone, or any team, or any algorithm for that matter, ever predict to come up with the 'Ultimate' image or images for any particular as yet unknown search. The results that people, including myself, have found are farcical and of course most searches don't include any 'Ultimate' images at all, and that doesn't look good either. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CarloBo Posted June 23, 2022 Share Posted June 23, 2022 Sure the concept "less is more" is unknown to Alamy designers And why is that the Editorial filters brings news images? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
meanderingemu Posted June 23, 2022 Share Posted June 23, 2022 3 minutes ago, CarloBo said: And why is that the Editorial filters brings news images? Why shouldn't it? If anything most of news image should be Editorials... in fact it is Alamy default to set them as editorial only, which you need to remove after for some of the soft news subjects, and the couple i checked Alamy did exclude from Editorial Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CarloBo Posted June 23, 2022 Share Posted June 23, 2022 (edited) 32 minutes ago, meanderingemu said: Why shouldn't it? If anything most of news image should be Editorials... in fact it is Alamy default to set them as editorial only, which you need to remove after for some of the soft news subjects, and the couple i checked Alamy did exclude from Editorial All agencies I know differentiate Editorial and News. I just searched for "Paris snow" /Editorial and most of the results on first rows are irrelevant to say the least, If I was a customers I'd leave immediately. Edited June 23, 2022 by CarloBo grammar Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geogphotos Posted June 23, 2022 Share Posted June 23, 2022 5 minutes ago, CarloBo said: All agencies I know differentiate Editorial and News. I just searched for "Paris snow" /. Editorial and most of the results on first rows are irrelevant to say the least, If I was a customers I'd leave immediately. Getty has 'Creative' and 'Editorial' 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CarloBo Posted June 23, 2022 Share Posted June 23, 2022 15 minutes ago, geogphotos said: Getty has 'Creative' and 'Editorial' And News under Editorial, as it ought to be. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geogphotos Posted June 23, 2022 Share Posted June 23, 2022 8 minutes ago, CarloBo said: And News under Editorial, as it ought to be. I must have misunderstood. You said that all agencies you know differentiate Editorial and News. Getty have them all in together - undifferentiated. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Mitchell Posted June 23, 2022 Share Posted June 23, 2022 9 hours ago, MariaJ said: Even if they fix the search engine troubles, I don't see how my mainly editiorial set of images fits in with the avant garde creative agency that they are now branding themselves as on their home page (e.g., guy face down on a mirror). I would imagine their regular clients would be confused too. I feel the same way, Maria. With me it's a symptom of age. I don't even understand the type of imagery that Alamy is trying to promote. I see little there that attracted me to photography over 50 years ago. I too have to wonder how more traditional customers will react to all these changes. Will they go elsewhere, or simply click "All" and hope for the best... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CarloBo Posted June 23, 2022 Share Posted June 23, 2022 1 hour ago, geogphotos said: I must have misunderstood. You said that all agencies you know differentiate Editorial and News. Getty have them all in together - undifferentiated. Yes. I mean that on Getty you have "Editorial All" and "Editorial News", so you have a way to single out News from All Editorial. On Alamy this isn't possibile as far as I can tell, they will always be in the same bin. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marianne Posted June 23, 2022 Share Posted June 23, 2022 (edited) Days later it's still a mess - when I tried to see what "Ultimate" images there were I just get all the creative ones and no explanation of what these new and exciting categories mean. And the pages are super slow - I have extremely fast internet and i got bored waiting for the pages to load. The forum loads much faster than the website. I hope Alamy is aware of these problems. It looks like Ultimate pix are £19.99 for PU whereas regular creative are £9.99 (and I'm in the US BTW). Another 50% cut assuming the Ultimate pix are from an agency. It looks like advertising and website prices have been slashed as well for all but the Ultimate collection. So discouraging. Edited June 23, 2022 by Marianne 1 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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