Reimar Posted January 29, 2014 Share Posted January 29, 2014 I keep a close eye on sales and zooms, of course. But I can't for the life of me figure out to use Measures to adjust keywords. I hear people saying this quite a lot, and I wonder if someone could explain in simpler terms how this is done. An example may help. Once I finish keywording and annotating images, I rarely touch them again. I'd want to be sure any revisit would be worth the effort. Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dov makabaw Posted January 29, 2014 Share Posted January 29, 2014 I often scan keywords used to see if there are spelling variants or synonyms that I haven't used. Often there are singular/plurals that I have missed. examples - I have found 6 different spellings of Marrakesh. Umbrella searches include parasol and sonnenschirm. In summary I have scanned regularly and improved my keywording on a regular basis. Whether I have had more sales as a result - who knows! dov Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Morrison Posted January 29, 2014 Share Posted January 29, 2014 I find a lot of other people's pix for the 'Have you found any pix this month' thread. I search the Alamy database with the most obvious keywords, and I'm constantly amazed by the keywords that seem to be missing. Examples... words in both singular and plural, where applicable... Pic of a female doctor which didn't have 'woman' as a keyword... Another senior lady was just keyworded as 'grandmother'... Pic of banknotes that didn't include the keyword 'money'... Etc, etc... And these omissions are for pix that have sold... so they must have been found, one way or another. God only knows how many pix there in the collection which will never even get zoomed because the photographer doesn't know - or care - about keywording... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NYCat Posted January 29, 2014 Share Posted January 29, 2014 I take a look at my views to see if any pics have shown up that shouldn't have. I might realize I have put "water" on an image where the water is not really significant. Sometimes I also wonder why a particular image didn't show up and I'll check to make sure I have that keyword. Sometimes I have missed something obvious or forgotten to use the plural. I will occasionally see that I should have put something in the essential field because it is more important than a word I have put in that field. I see that you have a lot more images than I do. I might spend less time refining my keywords as I add more pics. Paulette Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reimar Posted January 29, 2014 Author Share Posted January 29, 2014 So Dov, I take it you are scanning the All of Alamy search terms. With more than 8000 images, how can you remember whether you used plural or not in a search term? Do you do a search in Manage Images to find these words that might be plural (or not plural) and then go through each image you find. Sounds like looking for a needle in a haystack. Paulette, I think I get the negative angle. But a look at My Alamy search term views general gets the images I would expect. This month I got a search for "dark net" (presumably the underworld internet) and my images of Cormorant fishermen on the Li river pre-dawn show up. Still, I will keep "dark" and fishing "net" in there because I think they belong. Perhaps not getting the value of this exercise is saving me a lot of headache anyway. Reimar Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Posted January 29, 2014 Share Posted January 29, 2014 I find a lot of other people's pix for the 'Have you found any pix this month' thread. I search the Alamy database with the most obvious keywords, and I'm constantly amazed by the keywords that seem to be missing. Examples... words in both singular and plural, where applicable... Pic of a female doctor which didn't have 'woman' as a keyword... Another senior lady was just keyworded as 'grandmother'... Pic of banknotes that didn't include the keyword 'money'... Etc, etc... And these omissions are for pix that have sold... so they must have been found, one way or another. God only knows how many pix there in the collection which will never even get zoomed because the photographer doesn't know - or care - about keywording... Yup same thing here. I sometimes think of pointing this out to those whose shots I have struggled to find; good photos but terrible key wording, missing the obvious! Another gripe concerns those folk who fail to correctly complete the number of people in the shot. This evening I have been unable to find a number of images appearing within the Mail Online, despite trying a number of combinations of keywords, and this is typical. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reimar Posted January 29, 2014 Author Share Posted January 29, 2014 Goodness, I would think editing our own image keywords would be plenty to take up our free time. I'm going to let the editing other photogs' keywords slide. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Robinson Posted January 29, 2014 Share Posted January 29, 2014 I don't look at All of Alamy as much as I should, but when I do I often find searches using keywords that I realise could apply to some of my images - often abstract concept words ('concept' for example) so I find the relevant images and add the keywords. But as I say, not as often as I should. I have just finished going through ALL my images, checking the keywords. I found lots of obvious (to me now) missing words and numerous spelling mistakes. It was worth the effort. I think. I hope. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reimar Posted January 29, 2014 Author Share Posted January 29, 2014 With your number of images Phil, going through each one is truly a heroic (if mind numbing) effort. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dov makabaw Posted January 30, 2014 Share Posted January 30, 2014 So Dov, I take it you are scanning the All of Alamy search terms. With more than 8000 images, how can you remember whether you used plural or not in a search term? Do you do a search in Manage Images to find these words that might be plural (or not plural) and then go through each image you find. Sounds like looking for a needle in a haystack. Hi Reimar - yes I scan the All Images down to about 4 zooms. I just look for words that could be relevant. Takes minutes but when done on a regular basis it works for me. I then do a search on my images to check that I have used that word. It may be that I have used a search word on some but not all of my relevant images. dov Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Robinson Posted January 30, 2014 Share Posted January 30, 2014 With your number of images Phil, going through each one is truly a heroic (if mind numbing) effort. Heroic, possibly. Mind-numbing, definitely. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skylineboy Posted February 3, 2014 Share Posted February 3, 2014 Ah! so alamy doesnt auto-pluralise (i dont think thats even a word but..) i now have some adjusting to do myself. newbie in learning mode! i have noticed that my images come up for very broad terms and some that a buyer wouldnt be interested in eg stingray 1970s blue was one recently, and that brought up a car, chevrolet stingray, a 11970s model i had. i only presume they were looking for the ocean creature, because of the extras defined such as PH WOP etc, who knows. as for cencepts, im convinced my mind doesnt work like that, maybe im more of a spade is a spade kinda guy, must try and see beyond the obvious. most of my images will be motoring based, so trying really hard to see past the obvious of Make..model,, year... etc anyone got any suggestions for any concepts or other descriptors i could use / or you have used for similar motoring images? also are quotes worth using, i think alamy gives an example of "golden gate bridge" would only return that specific phrase - the well known landmark instead of i dunno, a golden retriever next to a gate near a bridge. (stupid analogy i know but i drew a blank!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spacecadet Posted February 3, 2014 Share Posted February 3, 2014 I include quotes in case phrase the feature is ever implemented. It isn't at present. You can't avoid spammy searches which arise from a juxtaposition of random words and I don't even try. Your example is a good one that you can do nothing about. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KWheal Posted February 3, 2014 Share Posted February 3, 2014 When you find others photos and you say keywords are missing I think you only see essential so the ones missing may be in the rest Kevin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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