photogearch Posted May 2, 2014 Share Posted May 2, 2014 Hi, I am new to Alamy and confused by the following matter: My photographs are mostly cityscapes, which frequently include people. However, in many cases those people are perfectly unrecognizable and I used to submit such images to microstocks as Royalty Free, providing they do not show any copyrighted content, etc. I have an archive of such images with already remowed signage, etc. When attributing such images I must specify "how many people are in this image" and the according explanation, which pops up if clicking the "people" link looks to be extremely strict and states that one should count unrecognizable people as well, which in turn makes RF licensing to be impossible. It looks as if one cannot offer even an aerial view on a city as RF image. Is this vision correct? A confusing factor: I made a search for cityscapes with "RF" criteria + "0 people" filter and got plenty of results contradicting to this vision. Are there any suggestions? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
digi2ap Posted May 2, 2014 Share Posted May 2, 2014 Welcome. The way it works (for me) is that if there are any people in the image, even seen as dots in an aerial or distant view, then a model release is required and without it the image becomes RM. This is different to micro stock libraries as I understand it. From the cityscape search you describe I imagine some contributors are content to say that there are no people (identifiable?) in the image. Personally I prefer to supply RM so it doesn't become an issue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dov makabaw Posted May 2, 2014 Share Posted May 2, 2014 Personally I treat everything as RM unless I am certain that it is not an issue. Even then I have been caught out with images of National Trust properties and cars and pets. That said I have not seen a difference in prices of my RF images compared to my RM but that may be because my RF images are not commercial! Good luck - it gets easier as it goes on. dov Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Jordan Posted May 2, 2014 Share Posted May 2, 2014 All my images are RM, and I am careful to mark the number of people and whether or not (usually not) I have an MR. In the past I have had an e-mail from Alamy identifying images which had people in but had not been attributed with people no./ no MR. In some of these only a small piece of a person was visible. Whatever any other agencies do, on Alamy you must identify if people (or parts thereof!) are visible. So no RF for your cityscapes.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
photogearch Posted May 2, 2014 Author Share Posted May 2, 2014 Thanks to everyone. Actually, I also came to the decision that one should not use RF for cityscapes with unrecognizable people - as the ruses say, despite the confusing factor mentioned. There was a slight hope that there might be some addition to the rules not reflected in that popup help or something like that. A related question: I have an archive of cityscapes made to be RF in microstock - with signage, etc. removed. I suppose that as long as they still cannot be offered as RF if the image shows people then it makes no sense to upload images modified in this way to Alamy and unmodified versions should be used instead. Or there can be some realistic context in which images with people but without other protected content may be preferred? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Jordan Posted May 2, 2014 Share Posted May 2, 2014 If you were to upload cityscapes with signage removed, you would, of course, have to attribute them as "digitaly altered". You do not need to alter images in that way, leave the signs in, set them as RM, mark them as requiring a property release, and that you don't have one... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andy Holmes Posted May 2, 2014 Share Posted May 2, 2014 If you were to upload cityscapes with signage removed, you would, of course, have to attribute them as "digitaly altered". You do not need to alter images in that way, leave the signs in, set them as RM, mark them as requiring a property release, and that you don't have one... Doesn't this create another problem, relating to the etiquette of not making the same image available as RF and RM at the same time ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
photogearch Posted May 2, 2014 Author Share Posted May 2, 2014 If you were to upload cityscapes with signage removed, you would, of course, have to attribute them as "digitaly altered". You do not need to alter images in that way, leave the signs in, set them as RM, mark them as requiring a property release, and that you don't have one... I have an image of such kind among my first four ones, marked it as digitally altered and wrote "... with signage removed" in the description for now, going to delete it and replace with the unmodified version. Which seems to be also the solution for the potential etiquette problem mentioned in the post above. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
photogearch Posted May 2, 2014 Author Share Posted May 2, 2014 Somewhat unrelated question: while learning the attribution and the rules I made improper attribution of one of my images and saved it. The improper license type setting appeared to be irreversible. As a workaround I simply deleted that image and it immediately disappeared from my "on sale" images list. It is also not in the "awaiting deletion" list. However it still can be found on Alamy and is present in my portfolio accessible from the public interface. For now it is about 23 hours since the improper attribution with subsequent deletion took place. Should I do something about it or it is just a normal delay for a deleted image to disappear from the site? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed Rooney Posted May 2, 2014 Share Posted May 2, 2014 Did you delete the image right after it first appeared from QC? . . . or was it in your collection for a while? You did the right thing in deleting the image because we can't change the license type once we pick one. If you deleted it after it was in your collection for a day or more it will sit in the "awaiting deletion" area for six months. No joking. And may I suggest that you read through all the data Alamy has put on the Home Page for contributors. The best of luck to you on Alamy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
photogearch Posted May 3, 2014 Author Share Posted May 3, 2014 Did you delete the image right after it first appeared from QC? . . . Thank you for pointing. I did not manage to find the information which specifies from which moment 180-day term starts: from the moment of passing QC, from the moment of saving the attribution and also about a day for deletion available after that moment X. "Manage your files" simply mentions deletion possibility. The contract mentions 180 days but with no further specifications, if I am not mistaken. The image passed QC on 24th Apr. It was not attributed untill 2nd May. Deletion followed incorrect attribution immediately, without even closing the editor. The image is not present in the "awaiting deletion" list. Unlike the second one, which I deleted in approx. 24 hours after attribution and is now present in the "awaiting deletion" list (it is not really problematic). The first one is nowhere for me but is present on the public site. It was rather a mistake of a software user having to deal with new software and new logic behind it. At the moment of clicking the "Save" button I did not realize that I commit a transaction, which cannot be corrected even using the "Delete" button as the last resort. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Linda Posted May 3, 2014 Share Posted May 3, 2014 If you were to upload cityscapes with signage removed, you would, of course, have to attribute them as "digitaly altered". You do not need to alter images in that way, leave the signs in, set them as RM, mark them as requiring a property release, and that you don't have one... Doesn't this create another problem, relating to the etiquette of not making the same image available as RF and RM at the same time ? You should never make the same image RF on one site and RM on another or even on the same site. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Jordan Posted May 3, 2014 Share Posted May 3, 2014 If you were to upload cityscapes with signage removed, you would, of course, have to attribute them as "digitaly altered". You do not need to alter images in that way, leave the signs in, set them as RM, mark them as requiring a property release, and that you don't have one... Doesn't this create another problem, relating to the etiquette of not making the same image available as RF and RM at the same time ? Yes, it would indeed if you left them both on sale. What I meant was, do not waste time altering it, just offer it as an un-released RM. I am not sure about the benefits of offering RF rather than RM, as I decided very early on to make all of mine RM. I do know that I have had a good number of repeat sales which I would never have seen if they were RF. Unless of course the cutomers were sufficiently disorganised to repeat a purchase having forgotten they rights to use the image. There is another etiquette problem of offering the same image on Alamy as on microstock. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
photogearch Posted May 3, 2014 Author Share Posted May 3, 2014 In the meantime the image in question has finally disappeared from Alamy. Before that I had already contacted Alamy's support, whether these facts are related or not. I am not sure about the benefits of offering RF rather than RM... There is another etiquette problem of offering the same image on Alamy as on microstock. On the microstock market there is no RM, I believe. If something does not fit RF - it usually can be offered as "Editorial". Prices for buyers and author's revenues are the same, but obviously, possibilities of usage of an editorial image by the buyer are quite limited by its nature. Sales of editorial cityscapes on the microstock market are quite rare: if buyers there want cityscapes at all - they want RF cityscapes. In other words: according to my experience (not very extensive, though), non-RF cityscapes do not work on microstocks. At the same time, the effort necessary to make a typical cityscape to fit RF (microstock) requirements (starting from finding an according subject) can hardly be satisfied by the average revenue generated by such images. Having the same image on Alamy and in microstocks may be not only a problem of etiquette but also a commercial problem, I suppose. Considering the difference in the approaches to cityscapes it is probably solved automatically in this area: an editorial cityscape (for instance, showing signage, etc) is nearly hopeless on microstocks, while it seems that it makes no sense to spoil it by according modifications for Alamy, wasting ones time as well. One can even use a completely different approach to taking pictures - for microstocks it is mostly defined by "RF-ability" considerations. With cityscapes the area where the interests may cross appears to be rather small. Where to offer according images should probably depend on the answer to the "where they perform better and where it is more convenient" question. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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