Export to Alamy from Lightroom CC

[Janet]

Hi All,

Is it possible to export to Alamy from Lightroom CC directly?

If not, how do others do it

TIA

Janet

[Steve F]

Hi Janet,

I export JPEGs from Lightroom Classic to folders on my C drive, with the folders sorted by month and year. I keyword photos in Lightroom now so they get put into smart collections (so I don't need to categorise them outside of Lightroom). Then I just use the Alamy upload tool, and if I have problems with that, I do the FTP route. Simples 🙂

Steve

[Harry Harrison]

There is also a Lightroom plugin, Adobe-Lightroom Bridge, it's not an official one but I gather it works well, it means that as well as uploading images the metadata can be both uploaded and downloaded to your Lightroom Catalogue. I don't use it though, I do broadly what Steve does, I keep my uploads in an 'Alamy Upload' Collection Set and that contains Collections for Upload1, Upload 2 etc., I also keep the actual jpegs which I think Alamy encourages us to do. You can also create an Alamy Export preset in Lightroom which can if you want to rename your upload files as well as setting the image quality parameters (e.g. sRGB, Jpeg Quality 90% (or whatever you prefer) etc. etc. I also keyword in Lightroom with enough to get them on sale but then of course go into AIM to 'do the optionals'.

Edited August 27 by Harry Harrison

[Janet]

Oh wow, thank you both, I will try Bridge but the other option sounds easier as I am a beginner in Lightroom.

Thanks again

Janet

[NYCat]

Your export from Lightroom will be very easy if you save those parameters after the first time you do it. Then it can just be the same each time. I've named mine Alamy and since I almost never export for any other reason it just opens that way when I click Export.

 

Paulette

[Janet]

That's great just need to work out how to set everything

Janet

 

[Nick Hatton]

Don't have lightroom, I just raw convert and edit in Elements then send the Jpegs  (keeping copies) to Alamy and do all captioning and key wording in Alamy image manager, sometimes wonder if I am missing something not having Lightroom but still making plenty of sales.  

[Steve F]

Hi Janet, I hope I don't make this sound too complicated, but it's a very smooth workflow and easy once you get used to it. There's other ways and I'm not an expert, but here goes:

 

Importing

1. Go to the Library tab at the top.
2. Import from your raw files from your media into a Lightroom catalogue using the Import button bottom left. Use a single Lightroom catalogue if you can, don't create lots of separate libraries for different image classes, it gets really unwieldy.
3. I have an import preset set up, it automatically puts the raw file into a folder by month and year. Can link to this Forum thread if you want (and if I can find it!)

Develop

1. Select your images for editing. You can flag the ones you like if you're deleting a lot of images. You can use edit presets if you do large photo batches, but I individually edit mine:
   1. Go on noise reduction on the Detail tab on the right hand side, if you have an image with noise (although it can do a good job on detail even on low noise images).
   2. Lens corrections - apply correction for your lens - if you're lucky, LR does it automatically for you. Remove chromatic abberation.
   3. Transform - make sure horizon is straight and buildings are not leaning at funny angles. You can get away with "Auto" in a lot of cases.
   4. Adjust the exposure. I do it by eye so it looks "right" to me, but you can also try and get the histogram so the 'bell shape' is in the middle and not skewed to the left or right.
   5. Adjust contrast by eye.
   6. Adjust the whites and blacks so that the histogram goes all the way to the left and right with no clipping. But check by eye as well, sometimes you don't want to go all the way to the edge.
   7. Adjust shadows and highlights by eye (sometimes necessary).
   8. Adjust the White Balance as necessary. Default is "as shot". Change it to "Auto" to see what it looks like. See what you think, adjust by eye as you see fit.
   9. Adjust vibrance and saturation. By the way, increasing the overall exposure a lot seems to automatically increase the saturation so you might actually need to apply negative saturation.
   10. Adjust saturation and luminance on individual colours if necessary, i.e. if one colour looks really garish or flat.
   11. Check for dust bunnies with the spot removal tool, and click on "visualise spots". It's a bit hit and miss though so I just tend to zoom in on the photo by eye and remove them.
   12. Sharpening - I just leave it as default and I believe that is alright for Alamy.
   13. Export as highest quality jpeg with sRGB or AdobeRGB colour space - don't apply additional sharpening.
   14. Congrats, you're done, next photo!
2. As you only have one lightroom catalogue, you can go to the Library tab again and go on 'Collections' above the Import button. Right click and create a new Smart Collection. e.g. Basingstoke. Create rule for Keywords containing 'Basingstoke'
3. Add a few keywords to your Basingstoke images, including e.g. Basingstoke, Hampshire, England etc. This will save you some time when you're keywording in Alamy Image Manager. And because you only have one Lightroom Catalogue, you can easily find your images in the relevant smart collection.

Exporting.

1. I export JPEGs to the same folder where the raw files have been saved by Lightroom.
2. Select all the images you want to export when you are in the Develop tab again.
3. Right click and select 'previous export' if you have already exported to the correct folder previously.
4. Otherwise, right click on 'export' and select the correct folder:

 

5. Here are the file settings I use, you want the maximum quality. There's a whole set of conversations on here about whether you want Adobe 1998 or sRGB - I think Alamy converts all files to sRGB anyway, but at the risk of opening a can of worms, I don't think it makes a huge difference:

6. Upload to Alamy using the upload tool.

7. Relax

 

I hope this helps. Happy to answer some other questions if they're not too taxing!

Steve

Edited August 28 by Steve F

[Chuck Nacke]

16 hours ago, Janet said:

Hi All,

Is it possible to export to Alamy from Lightroom CC directly?

If not, how do others do it

TIA

Janet

Janet,

 

I'm afraid that I am "Old School" I only work with 36MP NIKON's in RAW, 16bit with aRGB color space.  I select the images that I want to process for Alamy or clients and import to LR.  I do all of my corrections and lighting adjustments, then export as 16bit TIFF to a separate folder.  Then I do any final cropping, spotting and my IPTC (File Info) and drop to a 8bit file as a JPEG for upload.  I do save all original RAW files, 16bit TIFF files and JPEGs in separate folders ( I have quite a few external drives ).  All TIFF and JPEG files are saved with all of the IPTC fields filled out.  I do not use presets at any point of the process and while I've played with Adobe's new AI retouching, I do not like it.  I still do everything by my own hand.  I guess that is why after almost twenty years contributing to Alamy I have less than 2,500 images online.

 

PS  I did take a look at a few images linked to you and the few I saw looked very well done.  I did not look at your IPTC info.

 

Best,

 

Chuck,

Edited August 28 by Chuck Nacke
grammer

[Janet]

Hi all,

Thank you all for the fantastic advice. I will be trying everything over the next few days.

I am a bit overwhelmed with the responses from you all, it’s great

Thank you again

Janet

[Matt Ashmore]

On 27/08/2024 at 13:27, Steve F said:

Hi Janet,

I export JPEGs from Lightroom Classic to folders on my C drive, with the folders sorted by month and year. I keyword photos in Lightroom now so they get put into smart collections (so I don't need to categorise them outside of Lightroom). Then I just use the Alamy upload tool, and if I have problems with that, I do the FTP route. Simples 🙂

Steve

 

I'm guessing you still go into AIM and select your 10 supertags on each image??

[Steve F]

2 hours ago, Matt Ashmore said:

 

I'm guessing you still go into AIM and select your 10 supertags on each image??

Hey Matt,

Yes, I try to select multiple images if I can and do all the supertags at the same time in AIM. I then go back and make a few small changes, e.g. if I have photos of the same subject with and without people in.

 

I wasn't aware that I can supertag in Lightroom if that's what you're suggesting, but I'm much better at editing than fiddling with metadata! If you mean I missed that step out, true, but I'd already written war and peace and was losing the will to live 😅

Steve

Edited August 30 by Steve F

[Matt Ashmore]

56 minutes ago, Steve F said:

I wasn't aware that I can supertag in Lightroom if that's what you're suggesting,

No, I don't think you can... I was more checking that you weren't missing out on selecting your supertags which would definitely harm your images positions in search results.

[Steve F]

3 minutes ago, Matt Ashmore said:

No, I don't think you can... I was more checking that you weren't missing out on selecting your supertags which would definitely harm your images positions in search results.

 

Thanks, yes, I've been doing them. Was wondering if they were a waste of time like everyone else, but then the keywording seminar confirmed they're important so glad I persevered!

[M.Chapman]

1 hour ago, Steve F said:

 

Thanks, yes, I've been doing them. Was wondering if they were a waste of time like everyone else, but then the keywording seminar confirmed they're important so glad I persevered!

With 375 million other images to compete against, using supertags is really important, unless shooting really unusual subjects.

 

Mark