Alamyimages.fr

[gvallee]

I’ll be going away shortly for 4 weeks in French Polynesia. Keen to do my homework, I analyzed Alamy Measures to see what clients are looking for that destination. Got some results, but being a French destination, I wondered if there would there be more searches in French on the French Alamy website.

 

What I discovered is that I cannot log on to it, it recognizes my credentials but only allows access to the main UK website. OK, so no access to Measures there.

 

I did some image searches on the French website and saw that only 10 tags seem to be chosen out of whatever were in the original image. How are they chosen is a mystery. But horror of all horrors, they are full of typos. 3 tags out of 10 on one image had typos. Unsearchable. Also some Spanish tags were in the mix. Why? Which leads me to wonder how useful the French website is. I’m now out of the distribution scheme but no wonder I was seeing sales to the French market via a distributor.

 

This will be of little interest to most of you, there is no questions, it’s more about sharing an observation of mine.

[Steve F]

Hey Gen,

Bon Voyage. Question - are the typo errors due to Alamy website translation from English, or from French speakers doing typos with their keywording?

 

I also hardly ever see France licenses. Many more to Germany, but I think Alamy has an office there.

 

Steve

 

p.s. guess you can do a search on one of your images to see how good the translation is...

Edited April 8 by Steve F

[gvallee]

18 minutes ago, Steve F said:

Hey Gen,

Bon Voyage. Question - are the typo errors due to Alamy website translation from English, or from French speakers doing typos with their keywording?

 

I also hardly ever see France licenses. Many more to Germany, but I think Alamy has an office there.

 

It was obvious super crap automated translation very close to gibberish. One of my images had a tag 'awa' ???? The closest I can think of is that I keyword WA for Western Australia but how it got to that is a mystery. Sorry I can't remember which images I checked to give you an example. It was simply beyond shocking.

 

I just had another quick peep, it appears that only my images from the main website are being limited to 10 tags. French contributors can enter as many tags as they like. I had a chuckle when I saw a translated tag of a rusty car wreck in the Outback as 'foutaise'. A coloquial/slang word meaning 'rubbish'. 

Edited April 8 by gvallee

[Sally Robertson]

16 minutes ago, gvallee said:

 

It was obvious super crap automated translation very close to gibberish. One of my images had a tag 'awa' ???? The closest I can think of is that I keyword WA for Western Australia but how it got to that is a mystery. Sorry I can't remember which images I checked to give you an example. It was simply beyond shocking.

 

I just had another quick peep, it appears that only my images from the main website are being limited to 10 tags. French contributors can enter as many tags as they like. I had a chuckle when I saw a translated tag of a rusty car wreck in the Outback as 'foutaise'. A coloquial/slang word meaning 'rubbish'. 

 

Hi Gen,

 

That is terrible that your images are so badly represented on the French version of the site. It could affect some of us if our images are being accessed by the version of Alamy in another country.

 

I have learned there are definite differences between the Australian version of Alamy and the British version. The only way you can see this is if you log out of Alamy, close your browser, quit the browser application, then re-open it and search on the Australian version (which will be what automatically comes up if you follow the above steps when using the internet in Australia). I don't know if you have done this before, but the individual images appear much larger on the screen in the Australian version which in my view doesn't look great because they look lower res. But I have noticed other differences as well.

 

I had uploaded a photo of a male Australian Wood Duck, also known as an Australian Maned Duck. First of all I noticed that if I did a search for the duck under either of those keywords, or the Latin name, it simply didn't appear in the Australian searches, only the British ones. I emailed Alamy for an explanation. It turns out that certain keywords in the Australian version of Alamy are not accepted. I had used the keywords "mottled breast" to describe how the front of the duck looks. Alamy were able to confirm that the word "breast" was included in their "nasty words filter" as it could involve inappropriate content, so was unsearchable. But this rule only applied to the Australian version of Alamy. The image remained searchable on the British version. I subsequently removed the offending keyword.

 

Then another difference I noticed was in the similar images that show underneath. In the British version of my duck image there were logical pictures of other Australian Maned Ducks in the similar images, plus some other ducks and birds which were at least actual birds. However, in the Australian version there were these pictures of hunky men with long hair that obviously the keywords "male" and "maned" were bringing up. 😂 The only explanation I could think of is the Australian version is using some kind of experimental AI algorithm to interpret similar images but getting it drastically wrong, but I have no idea if that is correct. Or perhaps the reverse, the British version has a smarter algorithm than the Australian version.

 

I haven't explored this much further as I spend nearly all the time logged in so I am nearly always looking at the British version. It does concern me a bit how drastically different the Alamy website and content can appear in different countries and what you've found with the French version further demonstrates this.

 

Anyway, I hope you have a wonderful trip to French Polynesia and capture many beautiful images!

 

 

[John Mitchell]

Quelle horreur! I checked my Montreal images on the French website. What a mess.

No wonder I seldom see any sales to France.

 

P.S. The search engine is odd as well. For instance, a search for "montreal" brings up 12 images, only two of which are actually of Montreal. You have to use "montreal quebec" to see all of the Montreal images.

 

 

Edited April 8 by John Mitchell

[gvallee]

23 hours ago, Sally Robertson said:

 

Hi Gen,

 

That is terrible that your images are so badly represented on the French version of the site. It could affect some of us if our images are being accessed by the version of Alamy in another country.

 

I have learned there are definite differences between the Australian version of Alamy and the British version. The only way you can see this is if you log out of Alamy, close your browser, quit the browser application, then re-open it and search on the Australian version (which will be what automatically comes up if you follow the above steps when using the internet in Australia). I don't know if you have done this before, but the individual images appear much larger on the screen in the Australian version which in my view doesn't look great because they look lower res. But I have noticed other differences as well.

 

I had uploaded a photo of a male Australian Wood Duck, also known as an Australian Maned Duck. First of all I noticed that if I did a search for the duck under either of those keywords, or the Latin name, it simply didn't appear in the Australian searches, only the British ones. I emailed Alamy for an explanation. It turns out that certain keywords in the Australian version of Alamy are not accepted. I had used the keywords "mottled breast" to describe how the front of the duck looks. Alamy were able to confirm that the word "breast" was included in their "nasty words filter" as it could involve inappropriate content, so was unsearchable. But this rule only applied to the Australian version of Alamy. The image remained searchable on the British version. I subsequently removed the offending keyword.

 

Then another difference I noticed was in the similar images that show underneath. In the British version of my duck image there were logical pictures of other Australian Maned Ducks in the similar images, plus some other ducks and birds which were at least actual birds. However, in the Australian version there were these pictures of hunky men with long hair that obviously the keywords "male" and "maned" were bringing up. 😂 The only explanation I could think of is the Australian version is using some kind of experimental AI algorithm to interpret similar images but getting it drastically wrong, but I have no idea if that is correct. Or perhaps the reverse, the British version has a smarter algorithm than the Australian version.

 

I haven't explored this much further as I spend nearly all the time logged in so I am nearly always looking at the British version. It does concern me a bit how drastically different the Alamy website and content can appear in different countries and what you've found with the French version further demonstrates this.

 

Anyway, I hope you have a wonderful trip to French Polynesia and capture many beautiful images!

 

 

Thank you for this detailed post Sally, I didn't realise there was an Australian version. At least it needs no translation!

[NYCat]

 

18 minutes ago, gvallee said:

Thank you for this detailed post Sally, I didn't realise there was an Australian version. At least it needs no translation!

 

I do turn on the captions for "Miss Fisher". There are always a few words I miss. I'm better in Australia than New Zealand though. I think Edo could use some captioning in Liverpool.

 

Paulette

[gvallee]

45 minutes ago, NYCat said:

 

 

I do turn on the captions for "Miss Fisher". There are always a few words I miss. I'm better in Australia than New Zealand though. I think Edo could use some captioning in Liverpool.

 

Paulette

 

I needed a translation 😀 By captions, you mean subtitles. I also had to Google what Miss Fisher was. I don't watch TV. Having said that, as we're housesitting for 2 weeks, we had a look at Netflix and discovered Monk. Love it, so funny.

 

 

Edited April 9 by gvallee

[Bryan]

On 08/04/2024 at 11:15, gvallee said:

 

It was obvious super crap automated translation very close to gibberish. One of my images had a tag 'awa' ???? The closest I can think of is that I keyword WA for Western Australia but how it got to that is a mystery. Sorry I can't remember which images I checked to give you an example. It was simply beyond shocking.

 

I just had another quick peep, it appears that only my images from the main website are being limited to 10 tags. French contributors can enter as many tags as they like. I had a chuckle when I saw a translated tag of a rusty car wreck in the Outback as 'foutaise'. A coloquial/slang word meaning 'rubbish'. 

 

Hi Gen, this is worrying, I suggest that you contact Alamy and let them know with some examples.

 

I've loads of French images and do get occasional sales, but not many in proportion to the number of photos.

[NYCat]

2 hours ago, gvallee said:

 

I needed a translation 😀 By captions, you mean subtitles. I also had to Google what Miss Fisher was. I don't watch TV. Having said that, as we're housesitting for 2 weeks, we had a look at Netflix and discovered Monk. Love it, so funny.

 

 

 

There is a newer "Miss Fisher" that takes place in the 1960s and is not as fabulous as the original. The original took place in the 1920s and most of my female friends adored the fashions. Miss Fisher is an amateur detective who can do everything brilliantly. I saw it described as "competence porn". By the time the hero arrives to save her she usually has the villain totally under control. Lots of fun. Yes, the subtitles are called "closed captioning" on our TVs here.

 

Paulette

[gvallee]

6 hours ago, Bryan said:

 

Hi Gen, this is worrying, I suggest that you contact Alamy and let them know with some examples.

 

I've loads of French images and do get occasional sales, but not many in proportion to the number of photos.

 

I will take another look when I can. Today is mowing day at our housesit. I'm still trying to figure out how to drive straight and not zigzag with the zero turn mower. We have to do a field at the back, a large garden at the front and a long wide strip along the road. We did warn the owners that their lawn might look funny 😄 

[gvallee]

8 hours ago, Bryan said:

 

Hi Gen, this is worrying, I suggest that you contact Alamy and let them know with some examples.

 

I've loads of French images and do get occasional sales, but not many in proportion to the number of photos.

 

I tried to look for your images of France on AlamyImages.fr but could not find them. I'm not sure which pseudo you use for them. Your WI pseudo with 30 images of France on the UK site does not seem to have been transferred onto there. Perhaps because you already keyword in French? I don't know.

[Bryan]

6 hours ago, gvallee said:

 

I tried to look for your images of France on AlamyImages.fr but could not find them. I'm not sure which pseudo you use for them. Your WI pseudo with 30 images of France on the UK site does not seem to have been transferred onto there. Perhaps because you already keyword in French? I don't know.

Thanks for taking an interest Gen. I have 3 pseudos, the one most used for my French shots is Belle Vue. I typically use a mix of English and French keywords. I have just over 1500 images with France as a keyword. My wife and our elder son both speak French reasonably fluently, but it was my worst subject at school, and, despite trying to get to grips since then, have not succeeded. For Alamy, Google translate is my friend !

[gvallee]

4 hours ago, Bryan said:

Thanks for taking an interest Gen. I have 3 pseudos, the one most used for my French shots is Belle Vue. I typically use a mix of English and French keywords. I have just over 1500 images with France as a keyword. My wife and our elder son both speak French reasonably fluently, but it was my worst subject at school, and, despite trying to get to grips since then, have not succeeded. For Alamy, Google translate is my friend !

 

On AlamyImages.fr:

Belle Vue and 'France' = 0
WI and 'France' = 0

Belle Vue and 'French' = 1,512
WI and 'French' = 48

Results have no rhyme nor reason.
While I do not know why 'France' is not picked up (I can see it either in your captions or tags), I cannot see 'French' mentioned anywhere.

I only checked a few pix at random and noticed more or less the same rubbish things as mine: typos/non-existant word/not translated. Example:

CTE8WK: lâeau (?), rurual (typo), reflected in water (not translated)
CTYWXP: instalassiaton (?)
F105M4: in addition to 3 typos out of 10 (sausagues, marcha, panier d) the caption on this one takes the cake: saucisses épicées guéri. Literal translation from 'cured sausages' but meaningless in French. Oh well, I'm glad your sausages feel better 😆

 

 

[Phil Robinson]

The keyword translation is hopeless - as is all computer translation of single words. English words have so many completely different meanings and there is no way a computer can distinguish between them out of context.

Take the word 'tip'. It can mean the point of something, a rubbish dump, a piece of good advice, the money you leave a waiter after a meal...

 

The tip left for a waiter in French is "pourboire" - 'for the drink'. 

Use that as a search term on the French site and the first results are: a rubbish dump; money left a table; a felt-tip pen; Cape York; a pencil; Red Tip (a flower); an Orange tip butterfly; another rubbish dump....
The results make no sense in a search for, basically, 'gratuity' to anyone who can't speak English and spot the connection. You get exactly the same results on the German site with "Trinkgeld"

Edited April 22 by Phil Robinson

[Steve F]

Thanks for the research everyone. I seem to remember that Alamy's advice a few years ago was not to put translations of words in foreign languages because it would confuse the search engine, but that we could include place names in foreign languages. Looks like search engine is hopelessly confused by the Alamy website translation anyway!

[Marianne]

On 10/04/2024 at 05:00, gvallee said:

 

On AlamyImages.fr:

Belle Vue and 'France' = 0
WI and 'France' = 0

Belle Vue and 'French' = 1,512
WI and 'French' = 48

Results have no rhyme nor reason.
While I do not know why 'France' is not picked up (I can see it either in your captions or tags), I cannot see 'French' mentioned anywhere.

I only checked a few pix at random and noticed more or less the same rubbish things as mine: typos/non-existant word/not translated. Example:

CTE8WK: lâeau (?), rurual (typo), reflected in water (not translated)
CTYWXP: instalassiaton (?)
F105M4: in addition to 3 typos out of 10 (sausagues, marcha, panier d) the caption on this one takes the cake: saucisses épicées guéri. Literal translation from 'cured sausages' but meaningless in French. Oh well, I'm glad your sausages feel better 😆
 

 

 

 

LOL Bring back the smilies! 

[Marianne]

I'm learning Spanish with Duo Lingo and on Fridays I'm in a 1 1/2 hour Zoom Spanish Conversation group. One woman in the group is  a native Spanish speaker (from Puerto Rico). She will correct us if we use Google Translate to try to say something we are unsure of on our own. Even with my rudimentary Spanish, I can sometimes spot the Google translate goofs. 

 

Duo Lingo will sometimes explain the different idioms used in different Spanish speaking countries. It's tricky. Sometimes when I watch a British show with my husband I find myself "translating" for him even though we Americans and Brits supposedly speak the same language.

 

I bet whatever it would cost to hire British and American and Australians who are fluent in French go through and correct the AI translations would be made up for in sales. It makes me realize why the time-consuming specialized vocabulary used by a certain competitor with macro and microstock offerings makes sense since specifying what is meant by, e.g. "tip" would mean that it is translated properly. Seeing pages of rubbish "tips" when you want to get photos of a pen tip would be annoying. Presumably you'd search for "nib" or if you want someone leaving a tip, "money on a table" which is why it's important for us to use a variety of keywords when we upload images. But having those keywords translated into words that make no sense and having a ton of misspelled or nonsense words is very disappointing to hear. 

 

I don't think I've ever had a sale to France but I've had sales to Germany and I'm guessing that having an office there is why those translations are correct. I also have sales to the UK and over the years have done my best to use British as well as American English in my keywords. I still forget things though or learn new ways of saying things from this forum.