Alamy's similar stock images

[Steve F]

So I was just going through my portfolio, checking recent captions and I started editing the caption for one of my poker images:

Looking down on a royal straight flush winning hand and a losing on a poker texas hold 'em playing mat with gambling chips in stacks and folded hands - Image ID: 2JFJAWC

 

And Alamy's suggested photos below were....

 

drumroll....

 

A picture of Henley Royal Regatta and a portrait of a Golden Retriever wearing a crown.

 

...Huh??! 🤔

 

Has anyone else experienced this? Is Alamy's algorithm broken?

[Harry Harrison]

I seem to remember Wim has a handle on what comes up under 'Similar stock images' but I can't remember the detail. If you click on your own pic of the "Carved panels engraved..." then the similar pics are all your own pics of that subject suggesting that it's using a limited set of keywords, "carved, panels, Basingstoke" perhaps. But with the one you've highlighted it is very weird. so far I'm seeing 'Royal' and 'looking' as common keywords across the 3 images but they would generate huge numbers of similars if it was that match alone. It does get the 'Stock photos by the same contributor' broadly right though.

 

That last option should really be called 'Similar stock photos by the same contributor' and it should also come up on the 'hover'  for 'Same contributor' on the thumbnail instead of the most recent images by that contributor.  Note that 'View all' is the road to nowhere.

Edited July 30, 2022 by Harry Harrison

[Harry Harrison]

Maybe this was the thread I was thinking about:

 

https://discussion.alamy.com/topic/11806-similar-stock-images/#comment-217016

 

[Steve F]

1 hour ago, Harry Harrison said:

I seem to remember Wim has a handle on what comes up under 'Similar stock images' but I can't remember the detail. If you click on your own pic of the "Carved panels engraved..." then the similar pics are all your own pics of that subject suggesting that it's using a limited set of keywords, "carved, panels, Basingstoke" perhaps. But with the one you've highlighted it is very weird. so far I'm seeing 'Royal' and 'looking' as common keywords across the 3 images but they would generate huge numbers of similars if it was that match alone. It does get the 'Stock photos by the same contributor' broadly right though.

 

That last option should really be called 'Similar stock photos by the same contributor' and it should also come up on the 'hover'  for 'Same contributor' on the thumbnail instead of the most recent images by that contributor.  Note that 'View all' is the road to nowhere.

 

Thanks Harry. Yes, I remember a recent thread, but couldn't find it, thanks for the link below. I just checked and I put 'royal flush' in the keywords, rather than 'royal' on its own. Seems it didn't work. Also seems there's no AI looking for similar images, just done on keywords then....

Edited July 30, 2022 by Steve F

[Harry Harrison]

37 minutes ago, Steve F said:

just done on keywords then....

I still think there must be something wrong, I've never seen it before and if you go to that regatta image then all seems to be back to normal, and the similar images for that one include some of mine so it's not all bad!

 

In a way the fact there there are only those two images found ought to mean it would be easy to discover what's going on, no luck so far though.

[Harry Harrison]

1 hour ago, Steve F said:

I just checked and I put 'royal flush' in the keywords

Just copied the keywords from each of the three images into a spreadsheet side by side,  pretty sure that the words 'looking' and 'royal' are all they have in common. 

 

Yes, does rather show that AI isn't a factor, or they need to ask for their money back.

[MariaJ]

What a strange combination of so-called "similars".  I looked at the dog one and it must have at least 100 keywords.  How is that possible?