Submission Procedures

[bainbru]

I recently joined and submitted multiple images. One of the images failed, and the others were marked as also failed because one of the images failed. What is the submission process? Is it necessary to submit one by one waiting for QC. If that is the case, it is very time consuming and not worth the effort.

[Steve F]

Hi Bruce,

Welcome to Alamy. Submission procedure is:

https://www.alamy.com/contributor/how-to-sell-images/alamy-quality-control/?section=5

 

• We’ll just spot-check a few of your images per submission 
• If the images we check are ok, your whole submission will pass 
• If we find a problem with one image, your whole submission will fail 

Alamy get over 100,000 uploads a day and do not have the resources to check every image and also expect contributors to do their own QC and submit a high quality product. 

 

This might assist with passing QC as well:

https://www.alamy.com/contributors/alamy-how-to-pass-qc.pdf

 

 

Long story short, no, you can submit as many images as you want in one go - but don't fail QC. If you fail regularly, your images will be very scrutinised and you will spend a lot of time being blocked from uploading. 

 

Had a quick look at your captions, they're far too short. They are searchable by clients. Aside from that, clients will be reading captions on search pages by hovering over an image. If they're looking for e.g. a certain place and neither the place nor the country is mentioned in the caption, they will probably move swiftly on to one of the hundreds of other images available.

Include the Latin as well as the common name of plants, insects and the location (including the country). Some helpful links:

https://www.alamy.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Captions-and-Tags-checklist.pdf

https://www.alamy.com/blog/tips-for-your-captions-from-the-sales-team

https://www.alamy.com/blog/captions-and-tags

 

Suggest you have a deeper look on the main website and Forum for guidelines and tips, there's a lot of great resources.

 

Good luck,

Steve

 

[Brian Yarvin]

Yes, processing, keywording, and captioning stock photos is very time consuming. But ... if you're actually making and posting compelling images, the process can be gratifying. Indeed, most of what I know about the things and places I've photographed has come from the research required. 

 

Stock photography can be an amazing adventure, but you have to put in the effort.

[Mr Standfast]

Some help here

 

https://www.alamy.com/blog/captions-and-tags?utm_campaign=1921875_Blog update - April 2021&utm_medium=email&utm_source=contributoremail&dm_i=2SWW,156XF,12IMQ4,4EQ47,1

 

and here

 

https://ablog.wpengine.com/captions-and-tags

[Roy Q]

Agree with all the above from far more experienced contributors than me, but as a relative newcomer who has also had a couple of QC fails, I'd also advise making relatively small submissions and awaiting QC before making another. That way you will gain experience and better understand where the QC boundaries are and what might be causing the failure (eg a postproduction issue rather than an in-camera one).

Good luck!

[Ognyan Yosifov]

3 hours ago, Roy Q said:

Agree with all the above from far more experienced contributors than me, but as a relative newcomer who has also had a couple of QC fails, I'd also advise making relatively small submissions and awaiting QC before making another. That way you will gain experience and better understand where the QC boundaries are and what might be causing the failure (eg a postproduction issue rather than an in-camera one).

Good luck!

There are no QC boundaries... Every file must be perfect!

[Steve F]

21 minutes ago, Ognyan Yosifov said:

There are no QC boundaries... Every file must be perfect!

 

I suspect there's some latitude for e.g. noise with night time shots. But broadly I agree, yes!

[Stuart E]

Hi, I've recently joined too and I had the same problem with my first few submissions. 

 

I've found the best way is to view the photos on your computer, preferably with a big screen (I use a 32" 4k) and zoom right in to see if the subject is sharp. If not I bin it, since I started doing this I've had no rejections.

 

However, I've not uploaded many images, and when I do it's in small batches.

[Colin Woods]

Hi Bruce, you have to look at each image at 100% and check it thoroughly for dust spots, marks, and sharpness. Take a photo of an everyday object in bright light with your lens at f8. Look at the detail in that image at 100% - that's how every file should look. If your image is not as sharp as that bright light reference photo don't submit it. And also, before yo go much further you  really need to look at your captions and keywords. Titles like Bus tell the buyer nothing and they will give your image no attention at all. Captions should answer the question: Who is doing what - how, why, where and when. Keywords the same, plus any descriptions such as predominant colours and any emotional words like funy, sad, power, etc.

[Jeffrey Isaac Greenberg]

its OK to submit hundreds at a time, I do;

but check every image for dust, shake, focus;

99% of my 1" 20mp sensor shots are f4.5;

higher f stops could bring sensor dust into focus;

I also reduce JPGs down to 27MB to ?naturally?
improve sharpness without introducing artifacts...

 

[sb photos]

Welcome to Alamy Bruce. All good advice above, take note and regularly upload. Aside from submission issues, to me the 2 vehicles are composed very tightly, I would have left more space around them. Also, if it was feasible, also shoot the vehicle in landscape mode showing the locality, this gives a potential purchaser more options. You will soon get to grips with your QC and shooting will be second nature.