What would you like to see in the new manage images / upload process?

[John Richmond]

Like a number of others I'd like to see a better batch editing / updating process.  That would certainly improve workflow for, I suspect, most contributors.

 

One other idea would be to have the ability to flag an image on mainstream uploads for special consideration by QC.  Not to bypass QC, but to ask their honest opinion on whether it - and similar images/treatments/etc - would be acceptable in future uploads.  Failure to be unpenalised.  For fairly obvious reasons any contributor would need a strict limit on flags - maybe 2 a year or one a quarter - but it would give contributors a chance to try something different without flying blind and risking a QC failure.

[Jools Elliott]

I can suggest a couple of things, one of which is likely to be controversial and possibly doesn't fit with the request:

 

1) Alamy has said that they have one of the best turnaround times for QC. This is absolutely true. What grates with people though is that once uploaded it says that the average time for QC is 24 hours. This is fine but as you know and we know things go up the creek and images either take longer due to a backlog at your end or it's fail. When it comes to both, you really need to say to people straight away that a submission has failed. This would stop a number of threads every month asking what has happened to a batch. If it's failed, devise a way of locking the upload priviledges of the user until the cooling off period has ended. 

 

2) Would it be possible to add some of way of us exporting a record of our images that are on Alamy? I know that I can emailed MS and ask for it but I'd much prefer to be able to do it myself. Currently, I have a need for it as my spreadsheet says that I have X number of images here but Manage Images says something different.

[wiskerke]

Manage-Measures, 3 suggestions:

 

1: bring back stemming

(modified to eliminate earlier stemming issues)

 

2: offer total views & zooms data for any of one's images after one enters a time range

(e.g., I can determine if any of my 2004-submitted images have NEVER been viewed or zoomed)

 

3: pondering, TBD

 

That means stretching the time range beyond the 11 months barrier.

I would want to know even what keywords have been used and how many times: 

I want All of Alamy the other way around, for my individual images. Including sales info. All for the whole range the image has been available. I'm sure it's there already. Bonus points when the images would be visible in the table. (Like in Summary.)

 

The best would be if I could see the zooms and sales where my images have not been chosen. I might even quit uploading or photography all together because of that info ;-)

- Or I could decide to improve my work.

 

wim

[Martin P Wilson]

 

Manage-Measures, 3 suggestions:

 

1: bring back stemming

(modified to eliminate earlier stemming issues)

 

2: offer total views & zooms data for any of one's images after one enters a time range

(e.g., I can determine if any of my 2004-submitted images have NEVER been viewed or zoomed)

 

3: pondering, TBD

 

That means stretching the time range beyond the 11 months barrier.

I would want to know even what keywords have been used and how many times: 

I want All of Alamy the other way around, for my individual images. Including sales info. All for the whole range the image has been available. I'm sure it's there already. Bonus points when the images would be visible in the table. (Like in Summary.)

 

The best would be if I could see the zooms and sales where my images have not been chosen. I might even quit uploading or photography all together because of that info ;-)

- Or I could decide to improve my work.

 

wim

 

 

I agree with that. I have achieved a small element of it by putting all my recent sports images in a dedicated pseudonym. Now I see the poor search outcomes and may think more than twice that Alamy is not the place for them; next question where might be? I am also doing the same with travel images. I have only been tracking my revised pseudonyms closely since 1 Septermber so it is early days but I should have a clearer idea by Christmas.

[Phil Robinson]

The ability to search by keyword within manage Images. So when you realise you should have added 'bike' to all your bicycle pictures, you can bring all the relevant ones up together.

 

[Phil Robinson]

I'd like a way for when keywording the word 'England', other variants could automatically be entered at the same time (in to the Main Keywords box). For example typing 'england' would also add 'english, gb, great britain, british, uk, united kingdom, europe, european' etc. etc. Also the same for Wales, Scotland, Ireland etc.

Maybe a personal preassigned custom button could do this ?

(could be useful for other variants too; transport, transportation, travel, journey etc).

 

And as others have said, a magnifier thing to help us find those tiny people in our images ! (for the number of people in image count).

 

Yes, very useful. Cycling again, but I'm sick of typing cycle, bicycle, bike, cycling, cyclist. What count as 'variants' however may differ widely from person to person. I don't always add English or British for images of England or Britain unless I think it is relevant. I'm for the 'person preassigned custom button' idea.

[wiskerke]

The ability to search by keyword within manage Images. So when you realise you should have added 'bike' to all your bicycle pictures, you can bring all the relevant ones up together.

 

You mean a search for bicycle NOT bike  doesn't work in your Manage Images? It does in mine.

What it doesn't do is allow a search within a pseudo for this. It always reverts to Pseudonyms - all.

 

wim

[Johnnie5]

The ability to search by keyword within manage Images. So when you realise you should have added 'bike' to all your bicycle pictures, you can bring all the relevant ones up together.

I would like to add being able to search within manage images by the date taken.  I often want to add or modify keywords to a group of images taken at the same time and it would be nice to be able to bring up the entire group.  The folders in my computer are labeled by date and subject that the folder contains which facilitates finding images,  but I have to guess where that date range will appear in Manage Images.  It would be nice to be able to but in a specific date and have it take me to the page where it appears in Manage Images.  It would be nice to have month/day/year search with month/year being an option also. 

[TokyoM1ke]

Clearly we are all trying to fix something but I am not sure what should be being fixed.  If it's only keywording and the interface (the stated intention of this thread) then fine, perhaps we should all be thinking more narrowly.

 

It appears to me that ultimately the a combination of keywording, search and buyer experience need to be considered. The Alamy search approach has to appeal to the buyer or sales will suffer.  Perhaps that's a different discussion?

[wiskerke]

Thank you for asking Alamy!

 

I hope we will all be invited to test drive the beta. And maybe allowed to shoot holes in it before it's rolled out.

 

Please keep Manage Images 1.0 alive. Just in case.

 

 

Design

No tabs: everything flat on one page: all choices must be visible on the same page at the end of the process.

This enables quick and reliable checking. (Like Manage 1.0)

No tabs, fly outs or drop downs.

All windows large enough to fit all choices; text or other input. Make every window scalable.
 

Share functionality and design between the client side and the contributor side.

You will probably design and develop modules.

A benefit will be that when the clients' module gets updated the equivalent contributor module gets the same look or functionality.

 

24 inch monitors are being phased out as work horse monitors. Professionals have massive screen real estate: many work on 2 or 3 monitors.

OTOH tablets are being used professionally too:

Please build a separate app for smartphones and tablets.
Please do not try to design a one size fits nobody.

Behaviour and use are very different on mobile. Design has to reflect that.
However mobile behaviour has design implications for desk, because of the viral nature of successful apps. Think Twitter: text input. Tinder: swiping. Use of sliders.

 

Compatability
Make it comply with the colour management system of browsers. (Clients and contributors tend to use colour managed systems including colour managed browsers.)

Make it comply with the dictionary settings of the browser. Allowing the choice between US English and UK English (or any other language one wants to use) with the dictionaries and vocabularies one wants to use.

Basically comply with standards. Because you're ditching Flash this will be a lot easier.

 

Upload

The old Upload had drag and drop. Somehow that disappeared between the old and the new. It's not a big deal, but it would be nice to see it return.

 

Have an option to request an update of an existing image with a new, revised, image. While keeping Alamy reference; keywords and attributes the same.

(Can only be one image at a time, may take longer to process.)

 

A consulting phase would be really useful. Submit an image and get it back within 24 hours with just a yes or no, without consequences for upload privileges.

If it needs a cap or throttle, put that in place later.

 

If there are questions about Upload it's mostly: How do I upload News or Archival. How can I delete an image already uploaded. Pretty basic stuff, covered in your info pages.

There is no search function on the site for information other than Image Search for clients.

A FAQ and a search box for both clients and contributors would be useful. Context aware would be nice.

Consider a wiki. (You all know the thing about a learning organisation.)

That could include comprehensive, current, QC samples of what to do or what not.

 

Manage Images search and batch function

The old simple edit button throughout the system was good, because it offered a choice between looking at the client side and opening the edit window everywhere.

 

The Manage 2.4 opening screen with the batch window has good functionality. So how come I see No images found so very often? How come people don't know how a search works?

Why not use the clients search interface? Add pseudonyms and on sale/not ready/ready/waiting for deletion status.

Share a new visible pseudo box with the client side.

Allow mouse over zooms.

 

Use a lightbox for the batch panel.

 

On the client side:

Have a lightbox as a panel to the right of the search result.

Some people will move it to their second monitor. Some may even want to move it to the left.

Make the divider for the lightbox movable and the thumbnails scalable (think Bridge).

Make thumbs swipeable.

Make the thumbnails freely positionable within the lightbox and have a lock for position (think Layer lock in Photoshop).
Allow a lightbox within a lightbox: for further selection.
Allow even a lightbox within this lightbox. (longlist - shortlist - choice)
Let all lightboxes have the same functionality.

Allow the owner of the lightbox to set it to public; invitation; friends or private (think Dropbox; Google+; Facebook)

 

Let a lightbox have a button: Buy all of this / quote me for all of this, with one group/project usage form. No need to fill in all those forms per image.

(Maybe have automatic discount tiers: machines give less discount than people do.)

This would be Batch for clients.

Maybe this project form already exists, I'm not a client. IQ may be exactly this.

 

For contributors the lightbox would work the same: here the form would be the batch functionality.

It could be a floating form, or, preferably, a toolbar. If it floats, make it dockable (think Photoshop).

Please include append and find and replace.

Offer a tick box: append or overwrite. Maybe a choice between text overflow or truncate.

This would lead to the images edit window.

 

Manage Images edit window

All flat on one page (think Manage 1.0).

All boxes large enough to fit all text.
Have text overflow beyond the allowed character count (think Twitter). Character counter; characters left and character overflow warning in red.
Colour code choices in Attributes: yes: a green; no: a red.
Have a remark by system as yellow and orange text marker line or background colours.

 

Keep the 3 tier keywording order.

Make the boxes overflow automatically, when populating automatically from IPTC fields.

Clever people will soon discover how many xxx-s they have to put in to get the keywords in their designated boxes.

This system is the only way to have some control over in what order your images come up in a given search.

And it's the only thing that gives individual contributors a slight edge on agencies.

 

Have tick box: keep my punctuation.

This will allow the use of exact search phrases. (This would probably be the default for agencies.)

Have a warning box: be careful: are you sure you want this? (With do not show in the future tick box)

Consider a help page for using exact phrases.

 

Let the user set defaults: for this job only; for all jobs.

Let the user choose which and how many attributes to use as a default set.

Show a warning similar to the filter warning on client side.

 

Consider a context aware help function for setting restrictions.

 

Make the whole page including the image available for export to Excel.

Offer some more model Excel spreadsheets for downloading.

 

 

Sorry I didn't keep my promise to offer only my top 3 tips.

OK my number 1: Please keep Upload 1.0 alive - just in case.

 

wim

[Guest dlmphotog]

Alamy, thank you for the opportunity to contribute my opinion.

 

No matter what changes are implemented PLEASE keep the “Old Version” of manage image available. As it is a good way to see all the metedata fields of an image at once without having to hop from tab to tab.

 

The “New Version” of manage image is good for batching processing Attributes but everything else I do in the “Old Version”. The everything else consists of cutting and pasting metadata into the proper fields.

 

If Alamy could produce a costume IPTC or XMP template for use in Adobe Bridge and Lightroom so metadata could be placed in the correct fields offline for seamless importing to Alamy and subsequently less need for online processing of the metadata.

 

David L. Moore

[losdemas]

Thank you for asking Alamy!

<snip>

Crikey, a loong "three" tips followed here...

</snip>

wim

 

Grand suggestions, Wim.  I'll give you two greenies for an excellent contribution and -1 for not sticking to the 3-tip limit!  Oh, and have a job in the Alamy development department .

[silverange]

1 Keywords to be put directly into Main Keywords rather than comprehensive 

2 Ability to drag words rather than having to cut and paste

3 ability to delete images before passing QC

[Foreign Export]

Also to move from one image to the next by using arrow keys - not clicking the next button

 

I'm fact far more keyboard than mouse strokes please

[dov makabaw]

Ability to batch add a keyword with a default if the space field is insufficient for a particular image(s) to accommodate. This to allow one add the keyword manually by making space by deleting a less useful keyword where appropriate.

 

A deferral of the fixing of the Attributes page until say the image is transferred from Images Ready to on sale pseudo(s). Currently the page freezes the RM?RF field the minute you move off it. This is a problem if you want to check something, say if there are people in the background, before finalising.

 

The removal of the no images message when all images have been key worded in the new version.

 

That the new version page opens in half screen with 96 images default.

 

dov

[DDoug]

I'm not sure whether or how this would work, but I would like a button added to the attributes that checks off whether or not people are recognizable. We can put "unrecognizable" in the keywords, but it might help buyers as well as sellers to be able to indicate that in the attributes.

[wiskerke]

One more thing: make it functional first; pretty later.

 

This is the contributor side: it's not that bad when things are a bit rough on the edges.

Sharing most modules with the client side will mean that functionality for the client side can be tested on this side without losing much face on the client side.

 

wim

[Barking]

My three pennorth.

 

1 Ability to delete in QC waiting list.

2 remove need to determine how many 'people' ( i.e. either people or no people) if model releases are available, allow separate upload facility

3 allow default options e.g. photograph, not digitally altered, pseudonym etc

4 predictive keywording software

[paul_walker]

1. Replace the drop down lists with radio buttons wherever practicable. A radio button only takes one click to select, whereas a drop down list takes at least two clicks. This is not so important when doing a few images for submissions, but it becomes more important when submitting images in the double or triple digits.
 
2. Re-align all your keyword, caption, comprehensive, etc. categories to comform to the IPTC Standard. Additionally, provide a generic controlled vocabulary with hierarchy, with which we can initially keyword our images for quick transition to "images on sale". We can then supplement the images with greater detail when time permits.
 
3. Develop a "publishing service" as Adobe likes to call it for Lightroom and/or other software imaging programs so we can upload our images directly inside Lightroom without leaving the program to do so.

[Johnnie5]

1. Replace the drop down lists with radio buttons wherever practicable. A radio button only takes one click to select, whereas a drop down list takes at least two clicks. This is not so important when doing a few images for submissions, but it becomes more important when submitting images in the double or triple digits.

 

2. Re-align all your keyword, caption, comprehensive, etc. categories to comform to the IPTC Standard. Additionally, provide a generic controlled vocabulary with hierarchy, with which we can initially keyword our images for quick transition to "images on sale". We can then supplement the images with greater detail when time permits.

 

3. Develop a "publishing service" as Adobe likes to call it for Lightroom and/or other software imaging programs so we can upload our images directly inside Lightroom without leaving the program to do so.

Paul your number 2 got me thinking that to make it easier to go back to an image or group on images it would be nice to have a flag system like Lightrooms.  Something with color codes to keep it simple would be nice.

[Duncan_Andison]

1) Remove Essential, Main and Comprehensive boxes and use a standardised Keyword field but allowing keywords to be arranged in order of importance.
2) Batch append keywords to images
3) To be able to delete a submission prior to QC.

 

 

Edit. I really like the suggestion below that has already been put forward.... not sure if it applies for Manage Images or Measures though and, be able to filter all images that have been zoomed or sold in measures (in for a penny....)

 

"The best would be if I could see the zooms and sales where my images have not been chosen. I might even quit uploading or photography all together because of that info ;-)

- Or I could decide to improve my work."

[John Gaffen]

I would like the ability  to access and edit my Stockimo portfolio,   I would also like to have access to Alamy measures type  data on this collection too.

[KerinF]

 

Agree with many of the suggestions above, many of which boil down to finding a more efficient way to keyword. I do a lot of keyboarding in Lightroom first, but then spend an eternity cutting and pasting the words all around the place. Some or all of the following solutions (based on what's feasible) would be good.

 

1.  Ability to append keywords without overriding existing keywords in batch mode

2.  Perhaps an option along the lines of "copy previous keywords / title" if moving from one image to the next

3.  Auto populate Location data from files (where available)

4.  Don't know what the correct technical term is (stemming?) but automatically make US /UK spelling variations searchable without having to enter each

5.  Like the idea of predictive keywording like in Lightroom

6.  Also like the suggestions around either having a system that suggests related words / variants, or else ability to create customised lists.

7.  Some sort of system to avoid having to re-order words imported from Lightroom (which store alphabetically), at the very least having a drag and drop system

8.  Ability to set attribute defaults at contributor / pseudonym level

9.  And either ability to remove a batch Awaiting QC, or else see what's in it.  I have twice had batch upload drop out midway but then have no idea what made it through and what didn't, so wound up re-loading the lot again.

[Guest]

....

[SCWLee]

1 - Upload from mobile device

2 - Raw conversion

3 - Add info for newsfeed after the upload

 

Why the above?  Imagine your out on holiday, an hour away from the hotel, visiting the presidential palace.  Suddenly, a fuel tanker charges pass the security gate!  Your instinct takes over and you start to capture images of the tanker crashing into the front of the palace and subsequently exploding!

 

Currently, you would rush back to the hotel, transfer the images to your laptop, convert to jpg, add metadata, upload to Alamy.  [Oh no!  The hotel does not have wifi!  You spend 15 mins trying to tether to your phone, which fails because tethering is restricted on your data plan, so you transfer the images onto the mobile to upload from the mobile direct, but then realise the upload uses Flash.  So, you rush around finding an internet connection, wasting several hours.]

 

With the above changes [ plus a new camera with wifi ].  After taking the images you transfer the ones to be published onto your phone, then upload straight onto Alamy, who converts it to jpg, ready for you to immediately add the required metadata.  You stay to take more pictures, getting images of ...

 

Ok, so I have news FTP now, which removes some of the problems for me but how many contributors have FTP?

 

My proposal also removes the need for a laptop/PC.  We carry our mobiles and cameras with us, but rarely have the laptop in the camera bag.  The laptop is also an additional point for failure (mine would not charge up - flight damaged the charger!  ).

 

Note - no presidential palace or fuel tanker got hurt in the above semi-factual incident. 

Note 2 - I did not have an iPhone, but did have an Android phone capable of 13MP pictures. Hint hint!