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Key-wording: How long do you take for one image?


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Anyhow, I try to take account as much of the researchers shortcomings as my my own (and, God knows, I have plenty :D!)

Apologies - I just realised I've gone totally off-topic..sort of

 

No worries. And anyway, my bandstand is better than your bandstand.  :D  :D

 

ROFL - now let's not get into bandstand envy!  :D (You're right though - the people help - I'm off out to get a band on mine tomorrow!)

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The way I see it is that I'm already earning a living which involves taking the photographs I take, though only a small percentage are used for my work.  Because of what we shoot - avoiding people shots which date, but taking people shots which are less likely to date and countless people-free images which will never date - I believe that our keyworded work will sell as long as there are outlets able to use it, which right now means as long as Alamy exists.

 

If I look at the sales made now, and the pattern of use of older images, I do not believe that our entire collection will fall off a date-sensitivity cliff. On current performance, Alamy will have a good chance of fully matching the state pension which Shirley and I will receive (together) in the UK. To get that, we've had to do 45 years of full time employment each, and fill in at least as many forms and tax returns and other documents as a lifetime spent keywording... so it's really quite worthwhile.

 

Some people do crosswords, for fun. Some play games on Facebook. Why not treat keywording the same way?

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I've been taking about 5 mins on average on each image. My last set of 90 images from Edinburgh Zoo took me 4 hours to keyword. I made a point of 'doing it right' or paying more attention based on reading up on here. 

 

The true test is not how well I've key-worded them. It's whether I've taken pictures that people find interesting and worthy of licensing :) 

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The true test is not how well I've key-worded them. It's whether I've taken pictures that people find interesting and worthy of licensing :)

 

I can't agree with that. A portfolio of pix may be eminently saleable, or little better than junk (and there are plenty of both here at Alamy...), but no-one will discover whether they're "interesting" or "worthy of licensing" unless they're keyworded appropriately...

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I've been taking about 5 mins on average on each image. My last set of 90 images from Edinburgh Zoo took me 4 hours to keyword. I made a point of 'doing it right' or paying more attention based on reading up on here. 

 

The true test is not how well I've key-worded them. It's whether I've taken pictures that people find interesting and worthy of licensing :)

 

But if you don't keyword them accurately then no matter how interesting they are people won't find them to license.

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The true test is not how well I've key-worded them. It's whether I've taken pictures that people find interesting and worthy of licensing :)

 

I can't agree with that. A portfolio of pix may be eminently saleable, or little better than junk (and there are plenty of both here at Alamy...), but no-one will discover whether they're "interesting" or "worthy of licensing" unless they're keyworded appropriately...

 

SNAP!

 

John.

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I normally spend 1 to 3 minutes, sometimes a bit less, but occassionly get waylayed when I need to do research and find myself reading about the subject. Just spent a couple of hours trying to find out what a "clam shell" excavator was called, but much of that was time reading about excavators, their history, etc. Fun, interesting but totally unproductive.

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I wish alamy had a offline keywording app (if I had my old pre-depression head back  I would write one myself) so I could keyword etc images offline, then just bulk upload them for QC.

 

The current system I find really bad, having to upload, then wait ages, then use that awful manage images flash thing, with tiny thumbnails etc.

 

Much better to have it on your own pc, so you can build up a data base of keywords etc, and do them as you process each image, rather than in steps.

 

Plus, if alamy ever goes under, I would hate to lose all the work done on keywording etc...

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I have always keyworded offline (using PhotoMechanic) and upload. Then in Manage Images just scroll through the images doing a cut and paste from (preloaded) Comprehensive Keywords to Essential and Main. Takes perhaps a minute or so for each image. Where possible I do them as batches, so even quicker. I do the attributes and Location as batches.

 

BTW that is why I hate LR sorting keywords alphabetically rather than leaving them as entered; I have gone back to Capture 1 Pro fas a result.

 

That way my own master library is keyworded (to standard IPTC) so no need to redo it when I upload to my own site and the work is protected should anything happen to Alamy or I decide to move on.

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David I don't think they've invented a drug that would induce a feeling of fun in me as I keyword, but I like your positive attitude and comparison to the pension. :-) 

I find my keywording takes a lot less time if I upload a batch of similar images. It sounds obvious, but if they are all city skyline shots from different angles most of the keywords will be the same.  But there are times like today when I was editing a folder of images from a previous trip and I know keywording will be a headache, because they are all quite different. Yesterday 82 images took me just over 2 hours. When this batch of 32 gets through It could take the same time, maybe longer.

 

Is anyone else revising keywords because of the basic searches now ignoring the location field?

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Is anyone else revising keywords because of the basic searches now ignoring the location field?

 

I have done the job of working through my collection and checking location keywords.

 

The further I got through the exercise, the more thought I began to put into it.   For many images, the locatiom seems important (eg a particular stately home) in others it is completely unimportant (eg hand tool on a white background)  those are easy.   But a third category is more difficult, pictures that are generic in nature but could happen in many places (eg Sky reps in the High Street selling satellite TV packages) here I think a specific town name could be counterproductive so I might put "...in an English town"  in the caption.

 

Any thoughts on this?

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Is anyone else revising keywords because of the basic searches now ignoring the location field?

I have done the job of working through my collection and checking location keywords.

 

The further I got through the exercise, the more thought I began to put into it. For many images, the locatiom seems important (eg a particular stately home) in others it is completely unimportant (eg hand tool on a white background) those are easy. But a third category is more difficult, pictures that are generic in nature but could happen in many places (eg Sky reps in the High Street selling satellite TV packages) here I think a specific town name could be counterproductive so I might put "...in an English town" in the caption.

 

Any thoughts on this?

"in an English town" in the caption

and the name of the town in the description and keywords (main or comprehensive - depending on the popularity of the name) -

 

I think I would...

 

And I often do random and more organised checks to complete and improve insufficient captions, descriptions and keywords. For most images the location was included already before the change, I think.

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Is anyone else revising keywords because of the basic searches now ignoring the location field?

I have done the job of working through my collection and checking location keywords.

 

The further I got through the exercise, the more thought I began to put into it. For many images, the locatiom seems important (eg a particular stately home) in others it is completely unimportant (eg hand tool on a white background) those are easy. But a third category is more difficult, pictures that are generic in nature but could happen in many places (eg Sky reps in the High Street selling satellite TV packages) here I think a specific town name could be counterproductive so I might put "...in an English town" in the caption.

 

Any thoughts on this?

"in an English town" in the caption

and the name of the town in the description and keywords (main or comprehensive - depending on the popularity of the name) -

 

I think I would...

 

And I often do random and more organised checks to complete and improve insufficient captions, descriptions and keywords. For most images the location was included already before the change, I think.

 

I am thinking of the situation where customers might be searching for something in a specific town, so I put the location names only in images that portray that place specifically avoiding spurious returns.  I would leave it in the location or description boxes,but not in main or comprehensive keywords. 

 

If a customer searches for the picture without the location name, the search will be more targetted and the name in the location or description box will give them hopefully useful secondary info.

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Is anyone else revising keywords because of the basic searches now ignoring the location field?

I have done the job of working through my collection and checking location keywords.

 

The further I got through the exercise, the more thought I began to put into it. For many images, the locatiom seems important (eg a particular stately home) in others it is completely unimportant (eg hand tool on a white background) those are easy. But a third category is more difficult, pictures that are generic in nature but could happen in many places (eg Sky reps in the High Street selling satellite TV packages) here I think a specific town name could be counterproductive so I might put "...in an English town" in the caption.

 

Any thoughts on this?

"in an English town" in the caption

and the name of the town in the description and keywords (main or comprehensive - depending on the popularity of the name) -

 

I think I would...

 

And I often do random and more organised checks to complete and improve insufficient captions, descriptions and keywords. For most images the location was included already before the change, I think.

I am thinking of the situation where customers might be searching for something in a specific town, so I put the location names only in images that portray that place specifically avoiding spurious returns. I would leave it in the location or description boxes,but not in main or comprehensive keywords.

 

If a customer searches for the picture without the location name, the search will be more targetted and the name in the location or description box will give them hopefully useful secondary info.

You are probably right that you would get some unintentional views, but that is more or less unavoidable if you do extensive keywording as the system is now. Placing these keywords last in comprehensive keywords will probably avoid some of the spurious views. But that is a personal choice depending on how high you value your CTR, but you never know how customers search and what they would like from that specific location. Entering the name in the caption only will give even less spurious views as the significance here is low.

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Is anyone else revising keywords because of the basic searches now ignoring the location field?

I have done the job of working through my collection and checking location keywords.

 

The further I got through the exercise, the more thought I began to put into it. For many images, the locatiom seems important (eg a particular stately home) in others it is completely unimportant (eg hand tool on a white background) those are easy. But a third category is more difficult, pictures that are generic in nature but could happen in many places (eg Sky reps in the High Street selling satellite TV packages) here I think a specific town name could be counterproductive so I might put "...in an English town" in the caption.

 

Any thoughts on this?

"in an English town" in the caption

and the name of the town in the description and keywords (main or comprehensive - depending on the popularity of the name) -

 

I think I would...

 

And I often do random and more organised checks to complete and improve insufficient captions, descriptions and keywords. For most images the location was included already before the change, I think.

I am thinking of the situation where customers might be searching for something in a specific town, so I put the location names only in images that portray that place specifically avoiding spurious returns. I would leave it in the location or description boxes,but not in main or comprehensive keywords.

 

If a customer searches for the picture without the location name, the search will be more targetted and the name in the location or description box will give them hopefully useful secondary info.

You are probably right that you would get some unintentional views, but that is more or less unavoidable if you do extensive keywording as the system is now. Placing these keywords last in comprehensive keywords will probably avoid some of the spurious views. But that is a personal choice depending on how high you value your CTR, but you never know how customers search and what they would like from that specific location. Entering the name in the caption only will give even less spurious views as the significance here is low.

 

I am finding keywording is becoming my Sistine Chapel ceiling.. it's taking forever! (not that I am worthy of any comparison to Michelangelo) I am getting better at it but I don't think I'll ever finish it! I have just bitten the bullet and started revising and re-keywording everything I have on Alamy. I am doing it by region and subject to minimise the pain. 

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I dont seem to take a long time or put an hour into it like some. Most of my stock seems to be pretty obvious, and only a few keywords seem to apply.

 

That might be because you've uploaded so many similars: 70 pix of the same owl, for example. It will kill your ranking...

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I dont seem to take a long time or put an hour into it like some. Most of my stock seems to be pretty obvious, and only a few keywords seem to apply.

 

That might be because you've uploaded so many similars: 70 pix of the same owl, for example. It will kill your ranking...

And some seem to be virtually identical, e.g. four pics of a lady washing clothes in a river etc etc etc.

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