Vital / Uncut Collections - what's the criteria?

[meanderingemu]

3 minutes ago, Harry Harrison said:

No shortage of storms and in sunsets there - but I did a few Live News uploads and looking at those I am able to uncheck the 'Sell for editorial only' check-box, would that not suffice? However there surely needs to be a corresponding attribute filter in AIM, there is a 'Restricted images' attribute but I don't sell for personal use so that wouldn't work for me as everything comes up. Is there another way of finding them?

 

based on test i did, they seem to stay in Editorials- have a few wildlife images now listed as such, doing more checks just to make sure. 

[Harry Harrison]

7 minutes ago, meanderingemu said:

based on test i did, they seem to stay in Editorials- have a few wildlife images now listed as such, doing more checks just to make sure.

Mine weren't of that type so I can't test myself, it may not happen on the first server update I suppose. Also they may not be re-assessed for Ultimate/Vital etc., PAL Media suggested that he would need to re-upload but we don't know what evidence that was based upon, wouldn't surprise me though.

[Harry Harrison]

13 minutes ago, meanderingemu said:

based on test i did, they seem to stay in Editorials

As I posted in another thread, a normal (not Live News) image moved out of Vital once I checked 'Sell for editorial only' but only after a couple of days, then moved back in once I unchecked it, I don't remember how long that took though. 

Edited October 31, 2022 by Harry Harrison

[meanderingemu]

1 hour ago, Harry Harrison said:

Mine weren't of that type so I can't test myself, it may not happen on the first server update I suppose. Also they may not be re-assessed for Ultimate/Vital etc., PAL Media suggested that he would need to re-upload but we don't know what evidence that was based upon, wouldn't surprise me though.

 

mine were generally changed once they moved to Stock, all before the Introduction of the new Collections, and i just had a look and they are all in Editorial still.  So i guess as PAL Media said i will have to re-upload them 

 

so these images can be licensed for Commercial usage, that part works, but will never be found thanks to Alamy's structure. 

 

Edited October 31, 2022 by meanderingemu

[Harry Harrison]

2 hours ago, meanderingemu said:

and i just had a look and they are all in Editorial still

Interesting, must be a hidden database field then I suppose. It would be simple for them to code it so that it was ignored once 'Sell for editorial only' was unchecked I would have thought, I suppose they might have their reasons for not doing so. Images will still appear in All Images search but will never be promoted to Vital etc. and never found in Creative.

[meanderingemu]

1 hour ago, Harry Harrison said:

Interesting, must be a hidden database field then I suppose. It would be simple for them to code it so that it was ignored once 'Sell for editorial only' was unchecked I would have thought, I suppose they might have their reasons for not doing so. Images will still appear in All Images search but will never be promoted to Vital etc. and never found in Creative.

 

the issue is more based on what Clients are told, which comes back to issue number 1: the total lack of guidance from Alamy 

[Harry Harrison]

10 minutes ago, meanderingemu said:

the issue is more based on what Clients are told

Yes, and from the Home page you would never know that there was a way to find any Editorial images on Alamy, let alone what you might expect to find there - Ultimate, Vital, Uncut, Foundation & Live News all have a large presence and a direct link to continue to search within those sections.

[Harry Harrison]

20 hours ago, meanderingemu said:

i just had a look and they are all in Editorial still

Actually not a hidden field at all in fact, I should have realised. The 'Image type' is 'News image' and cannot be changed in AIM, neither can you remove the "This image could have imperfections as it’s either historical or reportage" flag that goes with that image type. However if you uncheck the 'Sell for editorial only' checkbox then the buyer no longer sees "Available for editorial use only. Get in touch for any commercial  or personal uses", which I would have said was an anomaly.

 

So this would be why they cannot be moved out of Editorial to Creative and would need to be uploaded again as PAL Media suggested.

 

Is it OK to upload an identical image at a later date, or even at the same time? Perhaps this is something that Live News photographers do all the time but I don't know. Certainly I've seen images in Live News uploaded by an agency and exactly the same images uploaded by the photographer by the normal route shortly afterwards.

[Harry Harrison]

Having just seen a very nice sale reported on here of an archive film scan it's worth noting that images uploaded via the archive route won't get into Creative either, whereas if they go up the normal way they will do, unless marked for Editorial of course. 

[Harry Harrison]

This is perhaps an illustration of your point, I've captioned this image as having 5+ people, no model releases, so it could never be considered for Vital. If I hadn't mentioned the people, if I was uploading it today, then it could be. I'm not saying it should be in Vital of course, but as it happens it's a better image than the 43 that I have actually got in Vital.

 

[meanderingemu]

9 minutes ago, Harry Harrison said:

Having just seen a very nice sale reported on here of an archive film scan it's worth noting that images uploaded via the archive route won't get into Creative either, whereas if they go up the normal way they will do, unless marked for Editorial of course. 

 

i am still not convinced of Alamy's statement that the notice "may contain imperfection" is a major deterrent to clients to be honest.  Clients buy based on what they see.  My highest priced licence picture of birds, prior to change, were loaded as LN-following what the team was promoted on Twitter. So i'm not sure why Alamy has decided to not include these in collection.  I'll probably rework them now and upload again

[Harry Harrison]

3 minutes ago, meanderingemu said:

i am still not convinced of Alamy's statement that the notice "may contain imperfection" is a major deterrent to clients to be honest

I've noticed that quite a few people upload scans via the normal route, possibly but not always by downsizing, and careful retouching of course. Risky though, may lose 5* status.

[meanderingemu]

2 minutes ago, Harry Harrison said:

This is perhaps an illustration of your point, I've captioned this image as having 5+ people, no model releases, so it could never be considered for Vital. If I hadn't mentioned the people, if I was uploading it today, then it could be. I'm not saying it should be in Vital of course, but as it happens it's a better image than the 43 that I have actually got in Vital.

 

 

exactly. 

 

I just did some test with stock images that i had marked with Property that only had non-design non-identifiable largely immaterial property, ie They could be used commercially no problem, change the note as "Does not have property". Overnight many of them are now "Vital".  Did i now "Mark my image correctly", not based on an extreme interpretation, but plenty of similar images had been selected as Vital by Alamy from people who used a more lax view of the "Property question" and treat it more like the MS definition is it "Commercially usable or not?"  

 

So i stand by me statement then yes people are being told to game the system by Alamy's lack of guidance. 

 

 

 

[meanderingemu]

3 minutes ago, Harry Harrison said:

I've noticed that quite a few people upload scans via the normal route, possibly but not always by downsizing, and careful retouching of course. Risky though, may lose 5* status.

 

but these are now the instructions from Alamy at least on the Reportage side, go fail QC a few times then we will consider giving you access to Reportage.  so for some of us this would be the way. 

[Harry Harrison]

Just now, meanderingemu said:

Overnight many of them are now "Vital"

Now that is interesting, they are re-assessed within Creative for Vital as soon as their model/property status is changed. Not true for Archival or Live News, but for everything else.

 

That image is just an illustration, but it surely it means that the goal posts have moved in terms of deciding what constitutes models or property, I don't think any of those people would be identifiable so perhaps I should have ignored them anyway.

[meanderingemu]

Just now, Harry Harrison said:

Now that is interesting, they are re-assessed within Creative for Vital as soon as their model/property status is changed. Not true for Archival or Live News, but for everything else.

 

That image is just an illustration, but it surely it means that the goal posts have moved in terms of deciding what constitutes models or property, I don't think any of those people would be identifiable so perhaps I should have ignored them anyway.

 

 

the issue is the AIM question for People is more specific than for Property. 

 

People:  "Number of people in the image even if they are unrecognisable or not fully visible (eg. just a hand) "

Property: "Is there Property in image, Property includes cars, building, brands,logo, etc "

 

 

So does my image of a bird at a random bird feeder "Include property" ? My extreme interpretation said Yes, but plenty of similar were included in Vital, and today mine also (Have to figure out if i reverse the change that i just did as a test) 

 

[Harry Harrison]

17 minutes ago, meanderingemu said:

Overnight many of them are now "Vital"

I don't mean to pry but is there any indication as to why they didn't all go into Vital?

[meanderingemu]

1 minute ago, Harry Harrison said:

I don't mean to pry but is there any indication as to why they didn't all go into Vital?

 

i have to analyse, couldn't remember how many i changed, i was having a frustrated day after another $0.24 rarity sale,  so it may be all 😀.  I was just playing it safe in my statement 😉

[meanderingemu]

My issue is now Alamy is giving a Lesser status in searches for those of us who followed their guidance to play it safe and let the client decide if people and property were material. 

[Harry Harrison]

1 minute ago, meanderingemu said:

the issue is the AIM question for People is more specific than for Property.

Yes, I guess it is. Clearly contributors are, intentionally or unintentionally getting images with people and no model releases into Vital because they feel that the people are not recognizable, or of course they don't fill in the Optional fields, but advice on the forum has always been to be pretty pedantic about doing this.

[meanderingemu]

9 minutes ago, Harry Harrison said:

Yes, I guess it is. Clearly contributors are, intentionally or unintentionally getting images with people and no model releases into Vital because they feel that the people are not recognizable, or of course they don't fill in the Optional fields, but advice on the forum has always been to be pretty pedantic about doing this.

 

 

Something i never noticed.  the uncut collection, ie all the images I marked that had property regardless if it was material or not get labelled in the Tab name as "UNCONVENTIONAL Stock", and the ones as Vital as "CURRENTLY TRENDING", including the image i just changed overnight.  So my bird on the feeder was Unconventional Stock yesterday and is Trending today. 

seriously @Alamy 

 

[meanderingemu]

21 minutes ago, Harry Harrison said:

Yes, I guess it is. Clearly contributors are, intentionally or unintentionally getting images with people and no model releases into Vital because they feel that the people are not recognizable, or of course they don't fill in the Optional fields, but advice on the forum has always been to be pretty pedantic about doing this.

 

I think if you don't fill in Optional is also disqualifies for collection.  I have found a few images that were "Unconventional" which seemed weird and when i look it seemed i missed filling the info (for which we were promised a Filter a few years ago, but oh well) .  So again so much for "Optional"

[Martin L]

Since the contract change if there are ANY people/parts of of people in the shot I always put the number of people and state no model releases, I also mark as sell for 'Editorial only'

If there are ANY buildings, cars or brand names in the shot I mark it as 'Property: Yes' and no releases. I also mark these as sell for 'Editorial only'.

 

The bit I am always confused is if you answer  Property/People: Yes. Property/Model Releases: No, do you need to click 'Sell for Editorial only' or is this implicit? 

I always do as felt is was a bit of extra protection in case something was misused. Based on this I am never going see any of my images in 'Vital'.

[Harry Harrison]

3 minutes ago, meanderingemu said:

I think if you don't fill in Optional is also disqualifies for collection.  I have found a few images that were "Unconventional" which seemed weird and when i look it seemed i missed filling the info (for which we were promised a Filter a few years ago, but oh well) .  So again so much for "Optional"

That was beginning to dawn on me so I've just done some test changes myself to try and find which Optional fields need to be filled in, "I may be some time".

[meanderingemu]

6 minutes ago, Martin L said:

Since the contract change if there are ANY people/parts of of people in the shot I always put the number of people and state no model releases, I also mark as sell for 'Editorial only'

If there are ANY buildings, cars or brand names in the shot I mark it as 'Property: Yes' and no releases. I also mark these as sell for 'Editorial only'.

 

The bit I am always confused is if you answer  Property/People: Yes. Property/Model Releases: No, do you need to click 'Sell for Editorial only' or is this implicit? 

I always do as felt is was a bit of extra protection in case something was misused. Based on this I am never going see any of my images in 'Vital'.

 

if you mark them as "Editorial Only" i am pretty sure they don't make it at all on the creative collections, even Uncut