New Alamy website layout

[Harry Harrison]

8 hours ago, sb photos said:

Early today from the Alamy home page I selected All Images, then Photographs, and the search term Margaret Thatcher statue Grantham

I've tried this search this morning and all seems well.

 

All images - 180

 

All creative - 91

of which

Ultimate - 0

Vital -0

Uncut - 91

Foundation - 0

 

Editorial - 89

 

And, gratifyingly for you, your 4 images take up poll position in Editorial. The entire front row!

 

This does lead me to wonder if this is because they are the most recent, and more generally the sort order/ranking of images now in each of these sections.

 

 

[Harry Harrison]

I'm beginning to forget what we had before but one thing I do remember was that the three main headings were New, Relevant & Creative, these could be modified by check-boxes and drop-downs along the top, some of which are replicated in the new sidebar, and now there are new options as well.

 

Relevant & Creative I think had been the same for a while but we don't seem to have a way of seeing New images any more, in other words images sorted by 'Date taken'. Even that changed from 'Date taken' to 'Date uploaded', or was it the other way round?

[Harry Harrison]

4 hours ago, ReeRay said:

What intrigues me is that if you search from your dashboard using "all" you will get an entirely different set of images using the same criteria from the Alamy homepage

I haven't found that myself, maybe it was a glitch.

[geogphotos]

14 hours ago, Alamy said:

 

 

Unfortunately we weren't able to update you on the Forum earlier than this as any advance notification to contributors would not have been appropriate as we needed to protect the marketing plan we have in place for customers.

 

Thanks,

 

Alamy

 

 

It was announced on Twitter wasn't it?

Edited June 25, 2022 by geogphotos

[Harry Harrison]

Alamy:

"We've made these changes to appeal to our creative customer base and it has meant that there is a slightly different look and way to navigate the site, with an additional four ready-made collections."

 

Interesting that they refer to 'four ready-made collections'. Ultimate is said to be hand-picked and so presumably at any one time is a finite collection. The others are surely a way of segregating the images by some combination of search algorithms that define which are Vital, which are Uncut (Foundation might be curated as well). I think Uncut is in effect 'the rest' but goodness knows what governs how images get into Vital, the results that I've seen so far don't live up to the name.

 

 

[Harry Harrison]

Quite bizarre mixed messaging from Alamy on Twitter yesterday "Organic photography equals creative opportunity. ⁠ ⁠Take inspiration from our 'Vital collection' and create authentic content." and then a link to their old 'Fresh pick' lightbox of 150 images. No link to search for Vital images or explanation of how Creative images are now segregated into Ultimate, Vital, Uncut & Foundation.

 

https://twitter.com/AlamyContent/status/1540264970012737536

 

[Harry Harrison]

1 hour ago, geogphotos said:

It was announced on Twitter wasn't it?

June 21st - Alamy Content Team Twitter feed

 

https://twitter.com/AlamyContent/status/1539258085671174144

 

June 21st Alamy Twitter feed

 

https://twitter.com/alamy/status/1539222874598293508

 

Edited June 25, 2022 by Harry Harrison

[geogphotos]

25 minutes ago, Harry Harrison said:

June 21st - Alamy Content Team

 

https://twitter.com/AlamyContent/status/1539258085671174144

 

https://twitter.com/alamy/status/1539222874598293508

 

 

So how does that make sense if they wanted to protect the 'marketing plan' by not telling contributors?

 

After all,  we are the people that produce the images? Shouldn't we, in theory at least, have some glimmer of idea about what they are now trying to promote just on the off-chance that at least some of us might be able to help?

 

I'm puzzled by all this.

Edited June 25, 2022 by geogphotos

[sooth]

10 hours ago, meanderingemu said:

 

 

Also, the "we couldn't advise before release".  I have been in plenty of business where this is true, we still had the Announcement to our Partners ready for distribution AT TIME of release, with most times Q/A ready for the fronting staff to communicate the impact to PARTNERS.....  

 

 

partners equates having an equal footing in matters; as contributors, we are not on equal footing, we are not partners. mushrooms, yes. 

 

[imageplotter]

1 hour ago, geogphotos said:

 

 

It was announced on Twitter wasn't it?

Rest assured that almost nobody sees or reacts to their Twitter feed, except *contributors.    (*those who have the spare time to look at the Alamy Twitter feed)

[Harry Harrison]

It was announced both on the main Alamy Twitter feed (20K followers) and the Alamy Content Team Twitter feed (16.7K followers). This rather undermines their assertion that there were marketing reasons for them not also announcing it on this forum considering the quite major implications these changes have for contributors.

Edited June 25, 2022 by Harry Harrison

[ReeRay]

3 hours ago, Harry Harrison said:

I haven't found that myself, maybe it was a glitch.

The work in progress I referred to has now resolved that issue.  

[sb photos]

6 hours ago, Harry Harrison said:

I've tried this search this morning and all seems well.

 

All images - 180

 

All creative - 91

of which

Ultimate - 0

Vital -0

Uncut - 91

Foundation - 0

 

Editorial - 89

 

And, gratifyingly for you, your 4 images take up poll position in Editorial. The entire front row!

 

This does lead me to wonder if this is because they are the most recent, and more generally the sort order/ranking of images now in each of these sections.

 

 

 

Some good news. Could be as you say Harry, or that many of the images from the unveiling had abysmal tags last time I looked. Must leave this Oxford pub, my images are uploaded and I have some shopping to do for my wife or I'll be in trouble.

[BidC]

On 23/06/2022 at 15:33, Phil Robinson said:

Awful new homepage. Distracting, irritating, simply awful.
I hope none of Alamy's potential customers are epileptic. 

Went for a walk in Bicester Village today, Phil, and sad to say some of the shops had similar projections on their walls ... (I don't shop at BV - I just walk on by/ Its very photogenic if I can get good angles etc to disguise people ...). 

[Colin Woods]

I have lived with the new look for a while now and, while its well put together, it just screams "cheap and cheerful" to me. The lurid colours, zany fonts and flickering faces lack class and gravitas and looks like its aiming at the lower market. As also shown by the 70% off banner front and centre. The older version was better for my eyes, but then again I am old codger and not in the target audience.

Edited June 25, 2022 by Colin Woods

[Michael Ventura]

This new site design and interface is just awful.  I can only see it via Microsoft Edge browser...can't get on with Chrome.  I cannot find images at all.  I have a new issue of National Geographic History magazine with lots of Alamy uses and I can't post them the "found images" thread as I can't search or just too complicated to search for photos.  I give up.

[Harry Harrison]

Just logging what appears to be a bug:

 

Searched for 'disabled' in Editorial - 62,066 results

Noticed that first image was of a lady in a wheelchair arriving at Glastonbury today.

 

Filtered for 'Last week' - 90 results but not this image

 

Tried to enter date range for today, so 25/6/22 to 25/6/22 - slightly clunky as the system seems to prevent you from entering the end date, however it seems to default to the same day anyway and performs the search after a few seconds without prompting.

 

0 images - so image that was taken today is not found.

 

Edit:

In fact I suppose there is possibly a simple explanation, the system won't have indexed images added today, except it has indexed it enough for it to appear as an editorial image?

 

 

Edited June 25, 2022 by Harry Harrison

[Harry Harrison]

I was searching for 'disabled' as I noticed that quite a few of the 'Vital' sample images were around this theme.

 

Searching for 'disabled' in Creative:

 

Ultimate - 55

Vital - 48,177

Uncut - 130.032

Foundation - 17,700

 

So very large numbers in both Vital & Foundation - almost as if those sections are populated according to a register of 'super' keywords because up to now my searches have yielded very few images in either of those sections.

 

 

[Harry Harrison]

Or maybe it's just that there are a lot more images returned than for my previous searches as with...

 

Searching for 'love' in Creative:

 

Ultimate - 2789

Vital - 2,028,338

Uncut - 3,618,889

Foundation - 296,116

[wiskerke]

4 hours ago, Harry Harrison said:

I was searching for 'disabled' as I noticed that quite a few of the 'Vital' sample images were around this theme.

 

Searching for 'disabled' in Creative:

 

Ultimate - 55

Vital - 48,177

Uncut - 130.032

Foundation - 17,700

 

So very large numbers in both Vital & Foundation - almost as if those sections are populated according to a register of 'super' keywords because up to now my searches have yielded very few images in either of those sections.

 

 

Just searched for disabled and I'm getting 254,929  images.

 

Clicking the Creative tab it takes a while and then I get 195,857 images.

Ulytimate and Vital are the same as yours.

Uncut - I get 129,827

Foundation again the same 17,700.

 

Clicking the Editorial tab again takes a while.

Editorial - 52,885

third image:

File photo dated 26/01/18 of money, as disabled households in the UK are being pushed into debt by spiralling living costs, research suggests.

 

That's clever: PA Images

 

And when I go back to that first page 30 seconds later, it's gone. Maybe that's because new images are coming in in real time? So I go looking for that money shot. The images that went before and after do appear, but not this one.

So how does a client grab it?

And after a couple of refreshes and trying all the other tabs, there it is again on the third position.

Weird things are going on here. So if the client lost it the first time, how long would he/she try to get it back or go searching to find it somewhere else on Alamy?

 

wim

[Harry Harrison]

9 hours ago, wiskerke said:

Just searched for disabled and I'm getting 254,929  images.

Thanks for trying this one out, I'm guessing that the differences in our totals for 'All' & 'Uncut' and 'Editorial' must be down to the countries we are searching from though it's a bit surprising that this hasn't also affected the totals in Vital & Foundation.

 

Repeating the same search today:

 

All images - 264,570

 

All creative - 196,062

of which...

Ultimate - 55

Vital - 48,177

Uncut - 130,032

Foundation - 17,700

 

Editorial - 62,065

 

These are identical to my results from yesterday (well 62,066 for editorial but maybe that was a typo on my part). The coin shot is in position 4 for me but perhaps you don't get the Glastonbury picture which is still in first place for me (2JE6ADE). So far I haven't been able to get the coin picture to disappear though.

 

It would seem from these totals that for this search there are 6443 images that are in 'All images' but not in either Editorial or Creative.

 

This new system relies upon non-editorial images being automatically segregated into Vital & Foundation at point of entry into the library, assuming that Ultimate is curated. I'm somewhat fascinated by how this might be done, the results from searches with fewer results than this doesn't seem to give any clues. To me (and this is early days I suppose) the images offered up in Ultimate, Vital & Foundation don't seem to offer any obvious benefits to the picture buyer to those in Uncut. So why would anyone choose to just search within Vital or Uncut I wonder.

 

The bug I reported above from the 'All creative' search results page is still there. So if you click on "See all Vital images for 'disabled'" you instead get the full 'All creative' results but with the Vital tab highlighted.

 

Editorial seems to be presented in reverse 'Date taken' order, I've found some slight diversions from this but spot-checking is bit time-consuming.

[meanderingemu]

14 hours ago, wiskerke said:

Just searched for disabled and I'm getting 254,929  images.

 

Clicking the Creative tab it takes a while and then I get 195,857 images.

Ulytimate and Vital are the same as yours.

Uncut - I get 129,827

Foundation again the same 17,700.

 

Clicking the Editorial tab again takes a while.

Editorial - 52,885

third image:

File photo dated 26/01/18 of money, as disabled households in the UK are being pushed into debt by spiralling living costs, research suggests.

 

That's clever: PA Images

 

wim

 

 

This is always an issue with News Captions.  I remember looking for what "Math Professor" would return in a search in Image bank, and couldn't under stand why a few first page images were of a bodybuilder, not really what someone looking for a Stock Image of a Math Professor is looking for.  At first i thought "here we go again with KW spammer",  but then looking at LN caption it was about a Bodybuilding competitor's result in a competition, stating her profession as a Math Professor which is a fair practice in a News Caption- i don't think the set was appropriate for LN but that's another issue.....  

 

 

 

[Harry Harrison]

On 25/06/2022 at 22:55, wiskerke said:

Maybe that's because new images are coming in in real time

Just fyi, 2 days later and for me the total for All Images has gone up by 15, 10 in Uncut & 5 in Editorial. Ultimate, Vital & Foundation totals have remained the same.

 

Too few images added to make any conclusions but I suppose it is also possible that whatever processes steer images into Vital & Foundation are only run periodically. I wonder if it is possible for an image to be demoted from Vital or Foundation, or moved between them.

[Harry Harrison]

Tweet from Alamy Content Team over the weekend promoting the Foundation Collection and linking to the old 150 image Lightbox of sample images.

 

https://twitter.com/AlamyContent/status/1541115323239333889

 

As opposed to the new page with search option here:

 

https://www.alamy.com/category/Foundation/

[Rebecca Ore]

One of the things that makes it apparent that PA/Alamy searches for naive wannabes is this statement, "Because all photographers deserve to be seen."   Um, most only by their friends, and anyone who sat through slide shows by people back from vacation in the 1950s might even question that.