Sell for Editorial Only (tick box)?

[Jansos]

Advice needed, please. I used to pretty much always tick the box (Sell for Editorial Only) for every photo submitted, apart from those that no one could claim rights/ownership of and were close-ups of leaves on a tree etc. Now I'm not so sure if this is the best way to proceed, especially if you have already clearly marked that you do not have a property/model release. Am I needlessly limiting my potential sales/licences by ticking the Sell for Editorial box? Any advice much appreciated.

[spacecadet]

I don't tick the box. No releases is a default setting so I don't proactively tick those boxes either.

Edited July 14, 2023 by spacecadet

[Steve F]

I don't tick the box editorial box, I just tick the releases / no releases boxes. Ticking the editorial box seems an extra unnecessary step unless you really really want to make sure it is licensed only for editorial.

 

Alamy has very strict requirements on when a release is required - e.g. a finger of someone really small in the bottom corner of an image and you need a release. Purchasers may take a more relaxed view. But in any case, it is the purchaser that is responsible for the correct use of the image and I believe Alamy can provide a lot of advice to the purchaser.

[Harry Harrison]

Because I usually have people I tend to routinely tick the box because I can't see them selling for 'advertising and promotion' or 'consumer goods' anyway. I'd probably do the same for obvious shop fronts and logos. I'm not sure of the downside really, though they won't get into Vital or Ultimate I suppose. A possible upside is that they will appear if anyone actually searches in Editorial and they won't be spaced out at 19 image intervals, they will all be together if they were taken at the same time, at the same event say. It would help if Alamy mentioned that they actually sell Editorial images on the Home Page and maybe supplied a link to the Editorial images search.

 

The only practical difference is that the buyer might see the box on the image details page that says "Available for editorial use only. Get in touch for any commercial use."

Edited July 14, 2023 by Harry Harrison

[Harry Harrison]

31 minutes ago, spacecadet said:

No releases is a default setting so I don't proactively tick those boxes either.

Probably not a concern but your images won't go into Vital or Ultimate unless you check those boxes in Optional even though they may quite clearly not contain either people or property. 

[spacecadet]

46 minutes ago, Harry Harrison said:

Vital or Ultimate

I'm blissfully unaware of what that even means. I'm certainly not going to review 10,000 images anyway.

[Harry Harrison]

54 minutes ago, spacecadet said:

I'm blissfully unaware of what that even means.

You mean you missed all that publicity last year, surely not? In fact looking at the Home page today their prominence is significantly reduced and there is no longer any explanation of what they're supposed to be for. Instead you are invited to 'View the collections' which takes you to to the Creative Collections search page. Today that seems to consist mainly of monochrome map images, not very creative in fact.

[Jansos]

1 hour ago, spacecadet said:

I'm blissfully unaware of what that even means. I'm certainly not going to review 10,000 images anyway.

I must admit that I too 'tuned out' when all that publicity was churned out last year. In my mind it created too much additional confusion for buyers and sellers to have to grapple with. If I was a buyer I would want a simple keyword search facility with some further sub-classification to make the searching more relevant. Too much complexity IMHO but presumably PAlamy must see it as an improvement or they wouldn't be doing it.

[Harry Harrison]

50 minutes ago, Jansos said:

presumably PAlamy must see it as an improvement or they wouldn't be doing it

Maybe they're changing their minds, the home page is just a confusing mess at the moment. They do seem to be putting a lot of effort into their 'Fresh pics', also confusingly called 'Featured collections', but you only see them if you go right to the bottom of the home page and then you have to go somewhere else to see more of them, and then you have to keep clicking to see more, and then...etc.

 

Edit:

Actually if you click on the 'Photography - Discover global content' link at the top that also takes you to the 'Fresh picks' page.

Edited July 14, 2023 by Harry Harrison

[Jansos]

53 minutes ago, Harry Harrison said:

Maybe they're changing their minds, the home page is just a confusing mess at the moment. They do seem to be putting a lot of effort into their 'Fresh pics', also confusingly called 'Featured collections', but you only see them if you go right to the bottom of the home page and then you have to go somewhere else to see more of them, and then you have to keep clicking to see more, and then...etc.

 

Edit:

Actually if you click on the 'Photography - Discover global content' link at the top that also takes you to the 'Fresh picks' page.

I've just done a search for London+Lambeth (Newest) and have been bombarded with cricket pics taken at the Oval, presumably. The search algorithm is quite puzzling at times. Why would someone searching for London+Lambeth want to see pics of a Lancashire cricket match?

[geogphotos]

23 minutes ago, Jansos said:

I've just done a search for London+Lambeth (Newest) and have been bombarded with cricket pics taken at the Oval, presumably. The search algorithm is quite puzzling at times. Why would someone searching for London+Lambeth want to see pics of a Lancashire cricket match?

 

 

"Oval is an area in south London, in the London Borough of Lambeth. It is part of Kennington near The Oval cricket ground"

Edited July 14, 2023 by geogphotos

[John Mitchell]

6 hours ago, Harry Harrison said:

Because I usually have people I tend to routinely tick the box because I can't see them selling for 'advertising and promotion' or 'consumer goods' anyway. I'd probably do the same for obvious shop fronts and logos. I'm not sure of the downside really, though they won't get into Vital or Ultimate I suppose. A possible upside is that they will appear if anyone actually searches in Editorial and they won't be spaced out at 19 image intervals, they will all be together if they were taken at the same time, at the same event say. It would help if Alamy mentioned that they actually sell Editorial images on the Home Page and maybe supplied a link to the Editorial images search.

 

The only practical difference is that the buyer might see the box on the image details page that says "Available for editorial use only. Get in touch for any commercial use."

 

Interesting. I hadn't thought about Editorial searches. I only click the 'editorial use only' box for images that I absolutely wouldn't want to be used non-editorially -- e.g. works of art, murals and the like.

[Harry Harrison]

17 minutes ago, John Mitchell said:

Interesting. I hadn't thought about Editorial searches. I only click the 'editorial use only' box for images that I absolutely wouldn't want to be used non-editorially -- e.g. works of art, murals and the like.

I'm probably just clutching at straws, after all who's going to manage to find the Editorial Search. On the other hand I don't see that there's much of a disadvantage to doing so either unless the logic is that if the buyer isn't told that it shouldn't be used for advertising & promotion or consumer goods then they might just buy it for that purpose.

[Jansos]

7 hours ago, geogphotos said:

"Oval is an area in south London, in the London Borough of Lambeth. It is part of Kennington near The Oval cricket ground"

Yes, of that I am aware, but surely if you wanted pics of cricket at the Oval you would search for 'The Oval'+'cricket ground' and not go for something as random as London+Lambeth. I understand that The Oval is located in Lambeth/London and might appear lower down in your results, because of the keywords used, but to get 5 consecutive pages of cricket seems inappropriate to the main search term(s) used. If I had typed sport +London +Lambeth I would not have an issue. The priority given to cricket in the search results is peculiar IMO.

[Harry Harrison]

14 hours ago, Jansos said:

I understand that The Oval is located in Lambeth/London and might appear lower down in your results, because of the keywords used, but to get 5 consecutive pages of cricket seems inappropriate to the main search term(s) used.

 

Edit:  See Mark's reply below, nothing to do with Editorial, simply a consequence of choosing 'Newest' as the Sort order.

 

In fact this is because you are searching in 'Editorial', possibly without realising it. Editorial search results are presented in strictly chronological order, latest first of course. Since there is a Test match going on and 'Lambeth' has been added to those images as a keyword you will see these cricket images for a search on 'London Lambeth'. Probably anyone using the Editorial search regularly would learn to make their search more specific and then all the pictures from a particular event would be seen together from whatever source, so a sporting event, a 'Red Carpet' function etc.

 

It's interesting because you are seeing this as a potential buyer might and they also might be perplexed at first. I think Alamy could helpfully provide potential buyers with some guidance.

Edited July 15, 2023 by Harry Harrison

[M.Chapman]

18 hours ago, Jansos said:

Yes, of that I am aware, but surely if you wanted pics of cricket at the Oval you would search for 'The Oval'+'cricket ground' and not go for something as random as London+Lambeth. I understand that The Oval is located in Lambeth/London and might appear lower down in your results, because of the keywords used, but to get 5 consecutive pages of cricket seems inappropriate to the main search term(s) used. If I had typed sport +London +Lambeth I would not have an issue. The priority given to cricket in the search results is peculiar IMO.

The problem is you used "newest" as the search order which overrode everything else and just shows the newest images which happen to have London and Lambeth in their tags and captions. Change to the sort order to relevant, and set a 12 month date taken filter and the results are perhap more in line with typical expectations.

 

This does raise an important point. It's often assumed that badly tagged (AI/spammed) image portfolios will sink to the bottom of search results because the contributor's Alamy rank will fall. But this example suggests that selecting "newest" as the sort order might override Alamy rank and cause newly submitted images full of spam tags to appear, as a single block (no dispersal agorithm), before other more relevant images... Another reason for Alamy to start addressing some of the awful keywording, especially as AI tagging becomes more widespread.

 

Mark

Edited July 15, 2023 by M.Chapman

[Harry Harrison]

1 hour ago, M.Chapman said:

The problem is you used "newest" as the search order which overrode everything else and just shows the newest images which happen to have London and Lambeth in their tags and captions.

Thanks, that is the correct answer, I'll edit mine accordingly. I've not knowingly changed the sort order over on Editorial, perhaps 'Newest' is the default there, never even noticed the options in fact. Any idea how 'Relevant' works?

[Jansos]

On 15/07/2023 at 11:41, M.Chapman said:

The problem is you used "newest" as the search order which overrode everything else and just shows the newest images which happen to have London and Lambeth in their tags and captions. Change to the sort order to relevant, and set a 12 month date taken filter and the results are perhap more in line with typical expectations.

Yes, you have nailed it, I think. I'm going to go and double check. Thanks :-)