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New Image management tools coming - what should I do?


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I have just returned form a photo trip and will be uploading a few hundred images in the next 2-3 weeks.

 

Should I wait to get the new tools before starting keywording, or should I just get on with it as usual and then change when I get access to the new tools?

 

What would you do?

 

Kumar

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I think I'd just carry on as normal. 

 

You already have 20,000 images or thereabouts; as Phillipe says, a few hundred more shouldn't make a big difference.  And Ray is correct, as well; we don't know for certain when these changes will start.

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Depends if your keywords are separated by commas or not. If they are not separated, you're most probably screwed .......... just like me. See here

Anyway, I just keep uploading and keywording as usual. Won't make much of a difference adjusting 42K images with or without 50 additional ones.

 

Cheers,

Philippe

Yes - I am screwed too...

 

Thanks for the advice - I think I'll just go ahead....

 

Kumar

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You'll have to review all your images anyway AFTER the new system is implemented, just to make the most of the 10 limit supertags. We now have a limit of 50 characters which is a whole lot less than 10 supertags - especially if they contain several double- or triple-word-tags like "national park" or "sailing ship". Hell, I've got Latin names which almost consume the whole 50 characters. In the new system, that would only count for ONE supertag :huh:  

 

Cheers,

Philippe

Philippe - I dont think that's right - reading the blog, we will be able to have up to 50 TAGS, not 50 characters, and a tag can have several words in it. We can also have up to 10 supertags, again presumably they can be phrases. So that doesn't seem too bad?

 

Or have I got the wrong end of the stick?

 

Cheers

 

Kumar

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You'll have to review all your images anyway AFTER the new system is implemented, just to make the most of the 10 limit supertags. We now have a limit of 50 characters which is a whole lot less than 10 supertags - especially if they contain several double- or triple-word-tags like "national park" or "sailing ship". Hell, I've got Latin names which almost consume the whole 50 characters. In the new system, that would only count for ONE supertag :huh:  

 

Cheers,

Philippe

Philippe - I dont think that's right - reading the blog, we will be able to have up to 50 TAGS, not 50 characters, and a tag can have several words in it. We can also have up to 10 supertags, again presumably they can be phrases. So that doesn't seem too bad?

 

Or have I got the wrong end of the stick?

 

Cheers

 

Kumar

 

 

 

 

At the moment, you can have 50 characters in the Essential field.  This is probably between 6 and 8 words.

 

When you transfer to the new system, these Essential keywords will become super tags.  Super tags will have more weight in searches, and you can have up to ten of these.  Presumably it is best to ensure that all of your images have ten super tags, but 20,000 or so of your images will only have 6-8 (unless you habitually use very short or very long keywords).  So you will want to go through your port looking for images with fewer than 10 super tags, and converting some of your old keywords into super tags.

 

That is if i am reading it correctly, and if Alamy don't reduce the number of super tags allowed between now and the full rollout.

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You'll have to review all your images anyway AFTER the new system is implemented, just to make the most of the 10 limit supertags. We now have a limit of 50 characters which is a whole lot less than 10 supertags - especially if they contain several double- or triple-word-tags like "national park" or "sailing ship". Hell, I've got Latin names which almost consume the whole 50 characters. In the new system, that would only count for ONE supertag :huh:  

 

Cheers,

Philippe

Philippe - I dont think that's right - reading the blog, we will be able to have up to 50 TAGS, not 50 characters, and a tag can have several words in it. We can also have up to 10 supertags, again presumably they can be phrases. So that doesn't seem too bad?

 

Or have I got the wrong end of the stick?

 

Cheers

 

Kumar

 

 

I'm only talking about the essential keywords which - for the moment - only accepts 50 characters. That box will be replaced by 10 supertags (if I read the blog correctly). Perhaps I didn't make that clear  ;)

Anyway, none of my 42K images has 10 supertags and if I want my images to be seen in an over-saturated field - as wildlife is - I can use each and every one of them.

 

Cheers,

Philippe

 

Sorry Philippe - I see what you mean now. My mistake. I dont know that I have the time to continue submitting/managing new images AND going back over 20K images to redo the tags.

 

I wonder what the best management option will be - re-keyword our best-selling images only, or at least first?

 

Cheers

 

Kumar

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I'm not sure about the issue of commas. Perhaps Alamy can explain. I have run into issues with commas and quotation marks because they could cause words in between to appear as phrases. It's been confusing so I have used a minimum of commas and now I don't know how our old keywords will appear if we don't use commas.

 

Paulette

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You'll have to review all your images anyway AFTER the new system is implemented, just to make the most of the 10 limit supertags. We now have a limit of 50 characters which is a whole lot less than 10 supertags - especially if they contain several double- or triple-word-tags like "national park" or "sailing ship". Hell, I've got Latin names which almost consume the whole 50 characters. In the new system, that would only count for ONE supertag :huh:

 

Cheers,

Philippe

Philippe - I dont think that's right - reading the blog, we will be able to have up to 50 TAGS, not 50 characters, and a tag can have several words in it. We can also have up to 10 supertags, again presumably they can be phrases. So that doesn't seem too bad?

 

Or have I got the wrong end of the stick?

 

Cheers

 

Kumar

I'm only talking about the essential keywords which - for the moment - only accepts 50 characters. That box will be replaced by 10 supertags (if I read the blog correctly). Perhaps I didn't make that clear ;)

Anyway, none of my 42K images has 10 supertags and if I want my images to be seen in an over-saturated field - as wildlife is - I can use each and every one of them.

 

Cheers,

Philippe

Sorry Philippe - I see what you mean now. My mistake. I dont know that I have the time to continue submitting/managing new images AND going back over 20K images to redo the tags.

 

I wonder what the best management option will be - re-keyword our best-selling images only, or at least first?

 

Cheers

 

Kumar

I don't expect "damages" in the short term, but if I don't do anything to my old stock, I'll pay eventually in the long run. I'd be lying through my teeth if I say I don't worry. Easy to fix for those with small archives but I don't know where to begin .... and I have to keyword new images on a daily basis :( Having to compete with 5-6 supertags against images with 10 supertags is an unfair fight.

 

Cheers,

Philippe

The blog said the new system would show if your images were optimised suggesting that images with fewer tags / supertags would be highlighted in some way. Hopefully if this is the case we'll be able to see which images have less than 10 super tags and start updating the least optimised images first.

 

But easier to say with 2k images!

 

Cheers,

David

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Personally I will not be worrying about what to do until Alamy actually announces the new tools and makes them, and associated help, available. Until then everything is speculation. I will continue to use commas and quotes when I keyword offline (to keep it compatible with everybody else) and take a view in due course.

I am not expecting my past use of commas and quotes to have any impact whatsoever, for good or ill. I am sure Alamy will be storing images and metadata in the form they require, which is with all that stripped - as it appears in the current Manage Images. That said I could resubmit it all of course, if I can be bothered.

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I would like to know whether words within multi-word tags will show up in searches. Will a search for "beaver" pick up images tagged only with "beaver" as a single word tag, or would the search also pick up images which happen to be tagged only with "European beaver" (but not the single word "beaver" as a separate tag)? Presently, if there is something that works as a sequential pair of words, as well as individual words, I make sure that the keywords appear in that order, which automatically covered both possibilities.

 

Graham

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I know everyone has a different opinion.

 

I would just go on with your work and get them online. Why leaving them and loose potential sales for few months. I am almost sure you will be pleased about the transission and personally i dont believe that anyone will be "screwed".

 

Mirco

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It would be really helpful if Alamy told us NOW whether to use comas or quotation marks etc to create phrases so that any new images will be better prepared for the new system.  Might save a little bit of time going over the images I will upload between now and getting the new MI.

 

The information we have been given seems to have created more questions than it has answered.

 

Pearl

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It would be really helpful if Alamy told us NOW whether to use comas or quotation marks etc to create phrases so that any new images will be better prepared for the new system.  Might save a little bit of time going over the images I will upload between now and getting the new MI.

 

The information we have been given seems to have created more questions than it has answered.

 

Pearl

+1

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In the last couple of days I have discovered that a wide variety of my pictures with various upload dates over several years are now completely missing all tags in Main, Comprehensive and Location fields.  Caption and Essential fields are fine but the other keywords have vanished.    If affecting others could this be related to some reporting recent drop in views?  My zooms, CTR and sales are always stable and do not appear to be impacted over the last few months but I have no idea how long these keywords have been missing  -  could just be one or two days.

 

Can Anybody / Alamy connect this with new in-process tools implementation.

 

I do not want to have to review all my images and rewrite / replace keyword fields.

 

Anybody else seeing this or do I just have to make another discreet payment to the cyber fairies?

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Anybody else seeing this or do I just have to make another discreet payment to the cyber fairies?

 

Just had a check back through random pages throughout my collection but I don't see what you've described, David. I know you said the gaps were affected in random upload dates but is it possible you've wiped them during a batch change?

 

Richard.

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Anybody else seeing this or do I just have to make another discreet payment to the cyber fairies?

 

Just had a check back through random pages throughout my collection but I don't see what you've described, David. I know you said the gaps were affected in random upload dates but is it possible you've wiped them during a batch change?

 

Richard.

 

Richard,

 

No, I don't do batch changes here.  These are inconsistencies I found on "Manage Your Images".  A quick search also seems to show some live search results are also only showing 5 or 6 word "essential" tags as opposed to the more normal extended coverage.

 

There is probably a rational explanation due to personal sun spots but if others see similar then our solar system might be quietly exploding.

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I would have thought a mass amend by Alamy to replace spaces with commas should be possible in advance of the update.

There may be implication in doing this but it would seem to be the way to go and save contributors hours of time if they are going to need to do this manually.

 

I agree that Alamy should inform us if we should be using commas on all new images with immediate effect.

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This might answer some of the queries.  A very prompt reply from Alamy just now when I enquired whether I should start using commas as separators with immediate effect.

 

Hi John

 

You don’t need to do anything differently to what you have previously been doing.

 

All your keywords will transfer over to the new tools whether they are separated by a space or a comma so you don’t need to worry.

 

The only punctuation our system recognises is a space so all your keywords that are separated by a space will be transferred as separate tags.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Thanks a lot,

Shelley

 


Alamy Contributor Relations.

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This might answer some of the queries.  A very quick reply from Alamy just now when I enquired whether I should start using commas as separators with immediate effect.

 

Hi John

 

You don’t need to do anything differently to what you have previously been doing.

 

All your keywords will transfer over to the new tools whether they are separated by a space or a comma so you don’t need to worry.

 

The only punctuation our system recognises is a space so all your keywords that are separated by a space will be transferred as separate tags.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Thanks a lot,

Shelley

 

Alamy Contributor Relations.

 

But it doesn't help us deal with phrases.

 

Pearl

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