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Correcting others' mistakes


Phil Robinson

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I've just done a search for 'Teresa May' and found a pic of Harriet Harman, incorrectly captioned.

Part of me thinks this a good thing as my correctly captioned pics of Harriet Harman stand a (marginally) better chance of selling, but on the other hand it doesn't give a very good impression of Alamy's captions, which might damage its reputation and sales for all of us.

Natural history subjects are an area of particular concern with so many wrongly-captioned images. If I were a buyer looking for insect pictures, I wouldn't start with Alamy.

Would it be good to have a system of reporting such finds so they can be corrected - either by Alamy or directly by the photographer? I know we can IM the photographer concerned, if they use the forum, but that takes time and there's no guarantee they'll get the message. 

 

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As annoying as this may be, I wouldn't worry about it myself . . . to me that would be the same as letting Alamy know every time I found a really, really, REALLY, embarrassingly poor photo of <insert subject>, one that certainly wouldn't give a very good impression of the quality of Alamy's images.

 

dd

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I did email member services once about completely incorrect keywords on an image that was part of a group featured by Alamy. I don't know if they ever corrected it. They just replied that they do sweeps looking for that sort of thing.

 

Paulette

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Good idea! I do send emails or PM to people whenever I can help them fix the words. Even this morning I contacted some Spanish guy by sending him email through his website. He was grateful for help and fixed it happily. I wish there is some easy/ fast contact button to help with words. Yes, Alamy is good with descriptions or keywords, but still could be even better. It's in our nature to go into perfection direction, not opposite ;)

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The problem certainly exists.  I had a situation earlier this year when an image of mine was used in a Guardian (UK newspaper) blog.  I found the use through a reverse image search so read the blog and comments.  My image was not the first choice.  However, a reader had pointed out that the original Alamy image used was not as described.  The writer then substituted my image and apologized to the obviously knowledgeable readership.  I don't know which image was originally used and, given the usual delay in reporting, the contributor may not even know that their image description is wrong.  But it does highlight the problem that can be caused by incorrect labeling, both to the reputation of the contributor and to Alamy itself.

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for me, a few users have indeed helped me without asking,

 

eg, i have had photos of some old cars, vintage, and back then it was a case of body of car supplied by X and fitted to Y, and some good guys have really helped as the badges arent always accurate on 80-110 year old cars lol

 

and ive seen plenty of help when people HAVE explicitly asked for "what is this flower" or animal latin name etc.

 

and tbh, thats another good alamy plus point for me, the people on the forums (although we may compete for same money / sales), have always been helpful and never too "cliquey"..

 

so pat on the back for us as friendly contributers lol

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I know of one stock photo website (it's not really an agency ) that has an error alert system for captions. It sounds like a good idea to me. If I've possibly made a mistake identifying a subject, I'd certainly appreciate knowing about it.

 

Hello John,

 

When i use firefox for keywording all my wrong spelled words are underlined in red. If you are in the keywording area click on the right mouse button and there should be a option for automatic spellcheck. All errors will be from that moment underlined in red. If you want to correct one of the underlined you simple rightclick on it and choose a suggestion. This is also working for the caption by the way.

 

I hope i understood the previous posts and that my answer is fitting.

 

Mirco

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I know of one stock photo website (it's not really an agency ) that has an error alert system for captions. It sounds like a good idea to me. If I've possibly made a mistake identifying a subject, I'd certainly appreciate knowing about it.

 

Hello John,

 

When i use firefox for keywording all my wrong spelled words are underlined in red. If you are in the keywording are klick on the right mouse button and there should be a option for automatic spellcheck. All errors will be from that moment underlined in red. If you want to correct one of the underlined you simple rightklick on it and choose a suggestion. This is also working for the caption by the way.

 

I hope i understood the previous posts and that my answer is fitting.

 

Mirco

 

Thanks for the tip, I was wondering how to turn it off as it uses American spelling.

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I know of one stock photo website (it's not really an agency ) that has an error alert system for captions. It sounds like a good idea to me. If I've possibly made a mistake identifying a subject, I'd certainly appreciate knowing about it.

 

Hello John,

 

When i use firefox for keywording all my wrong spelled words are underlined in red. If you are in the keywording area click on the right mouse button and there should be a option for automatic spellcheck. All errors will be from that moment underlined in red. If you want to correct one of the underlined you simple rightclick on it and choose a suggestion. This is also working for the caption by the way.

 

I hope i understood the previous posts and that my answer is fitting.

 

Mirco

 

 

Mirco, I was thinking more along the lines of descriptive / factual errors in captions. 

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I know of one stock photo website (it's not really an agency ) that has an error alert system for captions. It sounds like a good idea to me. If I've possibly made a mistake identifying a subject, I'd certainly appreciate knowing about it.

 

Hello John,

 

When i use firefox for keywording all my wrong spelled words are underlined in red. If you are in the keywording area click on the right mouse button and there should be a option for automatic spellcheck. All errors will be from that moment underlined in red. If you want to correct one of the underlined you simple rightclick on it and choose a suggestion. This is also working for the caption by the way.

 

I hope i understood the previous posts and that my answer is fitting.

 

Mirco

 

 

Mirco, I was thinking more along the lines of descriptive / factual errors in captions. 

 

He John,

 

I knew that my answer was to easy and that i understood the question wrong. Maybe next time :) .

 

Mirco

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Lately I've found Polish Wilanów Palace described as Royal Baths Park - both very popular tourists places but a huge difference ;) I wish I could contact author...

MS might pass on the message, but you'd be helping a competitor you don't know. The forum is different. We're all mates here (cough).

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When I first started out in stock photography back in 2008, someone contacted me to let me know a photo I had from Edinburgh was captioned incorrectly - I'm not sure if it was via Alamy or another site - and as I have licensed the now correctly captioned photo several times here and elsewhere I'm so grateful. I've always prided myself on my research skills but even those of us who are careful and deliberate can make mistakes.

 

I've politely contacted people a few people when I've seen errors and they've always been grateful. 

 

So, having been on both sides of the fence, IMHO it's the right thing to do. 

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I know of one stock photo website (it's not really an agency ) that has an error alert system for captions. It sounds like a good idea to me. If I've possibly made a mistake identifying a subject, I'd certainly appreciate knowing about it.

 

Hello John,

 

When i use firefox for keywording all my wrong spelled words are underlined in red. If you are in the keywording area click on the right mouse button and there should be a option for automatic spellcheck. All errors will be from that moment underlined in red. If you want to correct one of the underlined you simple rightclick on it and choose a suggestion. This is also working for the caption by the way.

 

I hope i understood the previous posts and that my answer is fitting.

 

Mirco

 

 

Mirco, I was thinking more along the lines of descriptive / factual errors in captions. 

 

He John,

 

I knew that my answer was to easy and that i understood the question wrong. Maybe next time :) .

 

Mirco

 

 

Mistakes can be wrong descriptions as well as misspelled words. Ed once corrected me when I misspelled a Latin name of a bear species and I'm very grateful for that because many picture searchers look for the Latin names of fauna and flora. One wrong character and your picture will never be found.

 

On the other hand, editors can also make mistakes by reading only half the caption and thus placing a wrong picture in an article. This was the case for me with a picture of the statue Manneken Pis of which there are two in Belgium. One in Brussels and one in Geraardsbergen. Of course, a hasty editor mixed the two locations  :wacko: Funny thing is the picture was nicked several times and of course also the wrong caption  :lol:

 

Cheers,

Philippe

 

 

Yes, we can't do much about editors in a hurry. I once found an obituary of the tennis player Elena Baltacha on a French site, illustrated with a picture of THE WRONG PLAYER - she was playing Elena at the time so the image came up in a keyword search and was clearly downloaded without even reading the caption.

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Related issue: I routinely see Alamy photos that have clearly been digitally altered that have the NO box marked. As an example, look at the Alamy blog and find those letterpress type blocks spelling out words in English (edited: examples removed- seems people think we shouldn't show specifics) . Letterpress type is BACKWARDS when viewed. No problem if somebody wants to flip type so it reads right, but they should always indicate that they did so. Imagine if a textbook were to use one of these to illustrate the history of printing... that would be embarrassing!

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Would it be wrong of me to post an image I've found with a wrong caption?

 

John.

 

I think it would. OMD of course.

 

dd

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Would it be wrong of me to post an image I've found with a wrong caption?

 

John.

I think it would. OMD of course. Others might differ?

 

dd

 

 

I thought it would be wrong!

 

What does OMD mean? Others Might differ?

 

John.

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