Vital / Uncut Collections - what's the criteria?

[Harry Harrison]

10 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'.

Martin, you're by no means alone in doing this, I have done also, it's always been suggested as best practice. This particular thread has already teased out some information related to this that I wasn't aware of and so I'm going to do some tests myself. Of course we are having to do this because of the total lack of advice for contributors from Alamy since the new website changes.

 

I should say that this is about trying to find how images get into Vital, whether it is likely to help sales at all is a different matter but the whole purpose of the changes to the website was to promote buyers towards Creative - so Ultimate, Vital, Uncut & Foundation, Editorial has been sidelined to an extent, and Ultimate and Vital are promoted as being a cut above, well, Uncut.

Edited November 1, 2022 by Harry Harrison

[Martin L]

4 minutes ago, Harry Harrison said:

Martin, you're by no means alone in doing this, I have done also, it's always been suggested as best practice. This particular thread has already teased out some information related to this that I wasn't aware of and so I'm going to do some tests myself. Of course we are having to do this because of the total silence from Alamy since the new website changes.

 

I should say that this is about trying to find how images get into Vital, whether it is likely to help sales at all is a different matter but the whole purpose of the changes to the website was to promote buyers towards Creative - so Ultimate, Vital, Uncut & Foundation, Editorial has been sidelined to an extent, and Ultimate and Vital are promoted as being a cut above, well, Uncut.

Thanks Harry for testing this, it's all very useful info. 

[Harry Harrison]

3 minutes ago, Martin L said:

Thanks Harry for testing this

We can all have a go, but it's meanderingemu that got me to see the issue and he will be testing as well I think.

Edited November 1, 2022 by Harry Harrison

[meanderingemu]

18 minutes ago, Harry Harrison said:

We can all have a go, but it's meanderingemu that got me to see the issue and he will be testing as well I think.

 

i am trying something else now.  results in 2 days. 😉

Edited November 1, 2022 by meanderingemu

[Betty LaRue]

There have been some contributors who have stated they do not fill in “Optional” fields. I always have, based on some actions of Alamy in the past. Just because it was dubious whether those fields were important at the outset, I never knew if or when they might be.
Is this lack of filled-in Optional fields now coming back to bite those contributors in the rear in relation to these new categories?

[meanderingemu]

21 minutes ago, Betty LaRue said:

There have been some contributors who have stated they do not fill in “Optional” fields. I always have, based on some actions of Alamy in the past. Just because it was dubious whether those fields were important at the outset, I never knew if or when they might be.
Is this lack of filled-in Optional fields now coming back to bite those contributors in the rear in relation to these new categories?

Yes.  And even filling them in is biting contributors.   I have images being labeled "Unconventional Stock" because i said there was physical property as instructed. 

 

 

Note: though maybe being labeled Unconventional is a good thing

Edited November 1, 2022 by meanderingemu

[Harry Harrison]

36 minutes ago, Betty LaRue said:

Is this lack of filled-in Optional fields now coming back to bite those contributors in the rear in relation to these new categories

If you say there is either property or people but you have no releases it will not get into Vital or Ultimate - but it seems you might have to fill in some of the optional fields for the image to be eligible, I'm not sure which yet, maybe someone else knows. 'Sell for editorial only' are also excluded.

[meanderingemu]

8 minutes ago, Harry Harrison said:

If you say there is either property or people but you have no releases it will not get into Vital or Ultimate - but it seems you might have to fill in some of the optional fields for the image to be eligible, I'm not sure which yet, maybe someone else knows. 'Sell for editorial only' are also excluded.

I had a few image that were in "Unconventional Stock" (ie. Uncut) this morning and when i looked most I had forgotten to fill in "Optional " data.  These are part of my tests today

[meanderingemu]

Latest test. 

 

Had a image of an animal, marked as 0 person, no property, which for some reason was in Uncut, so obviously it felt like there was some form of selection process- and i was fine the image was nothing special and a subject that had much better examples in database, i would totally understand it not be considered "Vital". (though no idea what would make it "Unconventional")

 

 

Test:

Day one change Property to "Includes Property", let it go through a database refresh. Obviously no change in Status

Next day change back to "Does not include Property"

 

The image is now VITAL! 

 

 

so again tell me there is no manipulation of the system. 

 

 

 

[Harry Harrison]

2 hours ago, meanderingemu said:

Had a image of an animal, marked as 0 person, no property, which for some reason was in Uncut

I'm still pondering this, but I wonder how that initial pick was made for Vital, and if it is just, as I think Mark Chapman suggested, it didn't work that well so missed some. I don't think that it can be because your image wasn't particularly special, no one will surely be making that kind of assessment, and it's not because it hasn't sold, I don't think any of my Vital images from that first flush have sold, certainly the majority haven't. 

 

Anyway, I can confirm with my own tests that clicking on 'Select' in AIM to set both the number of people to 0 and the same to set Property to No will get newly uploaded or freshly edited images into Vital, and it does happen on the server update, has done so far anyway.

 

I'm being especially pedantic in describing what I did to achieve this because there is quite a big anomaly in my mind. If you download the data csv the value in the column "Number of people" will be '0', similarly the value in the column "Is there property in this image" will be 'N', whether or not you have clicked Select for these fields, which is why I have always maintained that this is the default. This looks to me as if they are processing the data csv incorrectly, if you don't click to Select I would expect the value in the respective database field to be blank. The totals in the csv for 1, 2, 3, 4, 5+ (actually MORE in the csv) are correct and tally exactly with the attributes filter in AIM, and also if you use the filter in the main Alamy search results page, there is no Property filter.

 

This also means that there is no way to find images where there are no people but you have not clicked 'Select' in either of those fields. There aren't many for me as I've usually entered this, but I'd like to find them.

 

As far as I can see entering Location or Primary & Secondary Categories makes no difference as to whether an image appears in Vital.

 

Edited November 3, 2022 by Harry Harrison

[Harry Harrison]

It is possible I suppose there is a hidden field in their database that records somehow whether you have set a value for both People & Property even if you don't change the default, still doesn't make the csv very helpful though.

Edited November 3, 2022 by Harry Harrison

[M.Chapman]

3 hours ago, Harry Harrison said:

It is possible I suppose there is a hidden field in their database that records somehow whether you have set a value for both People & Property even if you don't change the default, still doesn't make the csv very helpful though.

I suspect there must be some hidden fields in the database because Alamy also store the search tags used by customers when they zoom a particular image so that, if the search is repeated, the zoomed image is promoted in the search results.

 

Mark

[meanderingemu]

4 hours ago, Harry Harrison said:

It is possible I suppose there is a hidden field in their database that records somehow whether you have set a value for both People & Property even if you don't change the default, still doesn't make the csv very helpful though.

 

We were told by @Alamy over a year ago (see below link) that they would look to change report. Any updates? 

 

 

 

 

[Harry Harrison]

45 minutes ago, M.Chapman said:

I suspect there must be some hidden fields in the database

Yes, I imagine that we'll never know. I suppose it didn't much matter before the new Vital/Ultimate stuff, the image still displayed as having no property or model releases and the buyer doesn't get to see whether we think that it contains Property since there is no corresponding 'contains Property' filter, at the moment anyway. It's a bit of a headache trying to address it in AIM though, just as finding images tagged as 'Sell for Editorial only' is.

[Harry Harrison]

4 minutes ago, meanderingemu said:

We were told by @Alamy over a year ago (see below link) that they would look to change report. Any updates? 

I never realised you did that, good one, but I specifically looked at it as a csv in TextEdit and I think the csv has a '0', not a blank, for People.

[M.Chapman]

4 minutes ago, Harry Harrison said:

Yes, I imagine that we'll never know. I suppose it didn't much matter before the new Vital/Ultimate stuff, the image still displayed as having no property or model releases and the buyer doesn't get to see whether we think that it contains Property since there is no corresponding 'contains Property' filter, at the moment anyway. It's a bit of a headache trying to address it in AIM though, just as finding images tagged as 'Sell for Editorial only' is.

There might also be other fields for how many times an image has been viewed, zoomed, sold, total revenue etc.

 

Mark

[Harry Harrison]

10 minutes ago, M.Chapman said:

There might also be other fields for how many times an image has been viewed, zoomed, sold, total revenue etc.

I imagine so, but we wouldn't expect to see those, it's just that this issue seems to affect the interpretation of what we can see, i.e. the csv. Of course Alamy hasn't told us any of this anyway, it just follows on from the introduction of the new Creative collections, we've had to guess or discover for ourselves the criteria for those, or at least for Vital. I imagine that I'm not the only one who has not checked for People and/or Property in Optional on every image uploaded, but there is no way of finding them at the moment.

 

Perhaps I should say that I haven't discovered a way yet, I'm still thinking about it.

Edited November 3, 2022 by Harry Harrison

[meanderingemu]

12 minutes ago, Harry Harrison said:

I never realised you did that, good one, but I specifically looked at it as a csv in TextEdit and I think the csv has a '0', not a blank, for People.

 

Pretty bad that @Alamydidn't follow through since this was part of alleviating major uncertainties for contributors relating to the New Contract. 

 

Now that we find out the issue is bigger with the introduction of  Collections, can @Alamy Look into it urgently.   

[Cryptoprocta]

I did a search yesterday for which I knew there would be lots of files.

Somehow, my default had changed without me doing it, and it said no files.

I was confused, and it took me some time to see I had to scroll down several screens (on a computer, not a phone) to see there were no Ultimate, Vital or whatever, and I had to change my defaults to see all files, of which there were, eventually, thousands.

Is that a good buyer experience? How would they know to do that? Can they be bothered to do it?

[Harry Harrison]

4 minutes ago, Cryptoprocta said:

I was confused, and it took me some time to see I had to scroll down several screens (on a computer, not a phone) to see there were no Ultimate, Vital or whatever, and I had to change my defaults to see all files, of which there were, eventually, thousands.

I put in a post about this right at the beginning, looks really bad to have all that blank space at the top and the message that there are no files found, and that search takes longer as well. 

[wiskerke]

4 hours ago, Cryptoprocta said:

I did a search yesterday for which I knew there would be lots of files.

Somehow, my default had changed without me doing it, and it said no files.

I was confused, and it took me some time to see I had to scroll down several screens (on a computer, not a phone) to see there were no Ultimate, Vital or whatever, and I had to change my defaults to see all files, of which there were, eventually, thousands.

Is that a good buyer experience? How would they know to do that? Can they be bothered to do it?

Can they be bothered? Would you? Of course not.

They may come back to see if it's fixed. I might. First after a day or two, then after a week. Then after a year. Maybe google Alamy bankrupt?

 

And what do these zero views results look like in AoA or Pseudonym Summary? AS 100 views? As 0 views?

 

wim

 

[meanderingemu]

19 minutes ago, wiskerke said:

Can they be bothered? Would you? Of course not.

They may come back to see if it's fixed. I might. First after a day or two, then after a week. Then after a year. Maybe google Alamy bankrupt?

 

And what do these zero views results look like in AoA or Pseudonym Summary? AS 100 views? As 0 views?

 

wim

 

 

i am convinced 100 views is the system considering certain searches where each page viewed is considered a new search.  

 

I had one subject with 5 lines with 100 views this morning on same  specific search item for something i have extensive coverage.  each line saw different images, 

[Alamy]

Hi All, 

 

Images in the Vital collection are all model released, where there are people, and offer our customers a safe collection of up-to-date lifestyle and commercially usable imagery. We rely on contributors to add information about releases correctly so that they should appear in the Create collection that's most relevant to the data that has been added by the contributor. The Ultimate collection however, has been hand picked on an image-by-image basis to appeal to our most creative customers based on existing and emerging trends. Different customers will have different ways of searching and they will use the search filters, or not, according to their needs. The Create filters should be seen as a useful additional tool as any of the other filters, so that someone searching on the site can use these filters according to the search criteria that they need for their project. Anyone can still search through the whole Alamy collection as before by clicking 'All Images' and adding any of the standard filters. The four collections have been put together so that different types of customer can find the style of imagery they want, more efficiently and more quickly. If your images have not been chosen for Ultimate, Vital, Foundation or Uncut then customers will still be able to find them through the traditional way of searching. You don't have to search only in the curated collections and the traditional way of searching is still open to all.

 

Thanks, 

Alamy 

[Harry Harrison]

42 minutes ago, Alamy said:

Images in the Vital collection are all model released, where there are people, and offer our customers a safe collection of up-to-date lifestyle and commercially usable imagery.

 

Thank you for this information. A concern has been that images marked as 'Sell for editorial only' in AIM will not appear in the Creative Collections, and you have just confirmed this as they would not be 'safe' for commercial use, they will only be found under Editorial, or All images as you say. However many of us might want to review which images we have marked in that way in the light of these new Collections but there is no way in AIM to do so. Could you please consider an attribute filter to make that possible, or even perhaps include these restrictions on the csv, though many aren't comfortable with csvs and spreadsheets in general.

 

Similarly it has become clear that images with no people and no property, and so no releases, also appear in Creative, and in particular in Vital. However it would appear that this is only true of images where we have clicked on 'Select' in AIM for both People and Property and selected '0' and 'No' respectively, and it is worth remembering that this is in the Optional tab in AIM. The exported csv shows that '0' is the default for People and 'N' for Property whether or not we have clicked into these fields. This means that we have no way to find any images where we haven't clicked 'Select' for those optional parameters and so rectify the situation. Could we please be given a way to do so. 

[meanderingemu]

1 hour ago, Alamy said:

Hi All, 

 

Images in the Vital collection are all model released, where there are people, and offer our customers a safe collection of up-to-date lifestyle and commercially usable imagery. 

 

Thanks, 

Alamy 

 

How can release be obtained for any of these images?

 

Edited November 4, 2022 by meanderingemu