Pietrach Posted November 21, 2017 Share Posted November 21, 2017 Hi I returned to Alamy after a long long break, with the intention to regularly upload more images. I measured the average time it takes me to keyword my images and it is approx 3 minutes. With say 50 images this will be 150 min (over two hours). This is probably my entire "spare" time in a week... My question is, how do you streamline the keywording process? i looked at some people here, with over 50k images, surely they dont spend half of their life keywording each submission? Thank you Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
george Posted November 21, 2017 Share Posted November 21, 2017 add the keywords when you are editing, then they will go on automatically. then when they have passed, decide which ones you want as supertags Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jill Morgan Posted November 21, 2017 Share Posted November 21, 2017 I'm pretty sure I take more than 3 minutes keywording my images. Some maybe less, most more. As I do more and more images though, I keep files in Bridge to add certain keywords automatically to certain images. Keywording is the most important factor in selling your images. If a buyer can't find it, they can't buy it. Jill Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Posted November 21, 2017 Share Posted November 21, 2017 I have a few Lightroom presets that add groups of keywords that might be country or subject specific, it saves a bit of time. With the help of the above some subjects are quickly dealt with, but others require some research (both Internet and/or AOA) and can take way longer than 3 minutes. I don't think that you can afford to scrimp on this, it's the keywords that lead buyers to your photos. Further I refine my keywords over time, by looking over my views each day and picking up phrases that prospective buyers are using. (Just read JIll's post, seems we are in agreement!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trevor Chriss Posted November 21, 2017 Share Posted November 21, 2017 Yes as the others say much more time than 3 minutes spent here as well. Often too much research required to do in less time. The right tags are so, so important. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wiskerke Posted November 21, 2017 Share Posted November 21, 2017 3 hours. Non-native speaker and all that. wim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Southmind Posted November 21, 2017 Share Posted November 21, 2017 Lol, for me, as non-native speaker, it is also 3 mn but for each keywords. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kukkudrill Posted November 21, 2017 Share Posted November 21, 2017 3 minutes per photo sounds right for me, but like Bryan I refine my keywords over time. Then there's the time I've spent going over legacy images. This all adds up. If photography weren't already a hobby, stock wouldn't be worthwhile for me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Mitchell Posted November 21, 2017 Share Posted November 21, 2017 A lot longer than three minutes per image for me. I do the initial keywording in Photo Mechanic, but I always end up adding more tags after uploading. I also usually go back and do some tweaking later on. Then there are all those nagging "legacy" images that need fixing. Tagging is a continuous work-in-progress, I find, but then I'm not in a rush at my age. Plus I'm not exactly an image factory. I'm also starting to think that with the overwhelming number of images coming into Alamy every day, time spent on keywording / tagging is time well-invested. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt Ashmore Posted November 21, 2017 Share Posted November 21, 2017 3 hours ago, wiskerke said: 3 hours. Non-native speaker and all that. wim But nobody reading your posts on this forum would realise this! Most images take me longer than 3 minutes to keyword. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
imageplotter Posted November 21, 2017 Share Posted November 21, 2017 This is very tricky to generalise for different image categories. Batches with lots of similar elements (ie. same location, news images, cut outs) can be done pretty quicky. On travel images , I often spend longer than 3 minutes because there are fewer similars, they can vary hugely between each image. Bare in mind that some of those 50K+ contributors are likely to be either agencies or high volume news contributors. PS. Southmind - I'll be in your beautiful city for a few days next week. Haven't been for a good few years - any tips on interesting events happening that are worth shooting? Nice photography viewpoints that you feel happy to share? "Nice in winter" secret photo spots? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Southmind Posted November 21, 2017 Share Posted November 21, 2017 12 minutes ago, imageplotter said: This is very tricky to generalise for different image categories. Batches with lots of similar elements (ie. same location, news images, cut outs) can be done pretty quicky. On travel images , I often spend longer than 3 minutes because there are fewer similars, they can vary hugely between each image. Bare in mind that some of those 50K+ contributors are likely to be either agencies or high volume news contributors. PS. Southmind - I'll be in your beautiful city for a few days next week. Haven't been for a good few years - any tips on interesting events happening that are worth shooting? Nice photography viewpoints that you feel happy to share? "Nice in winter" secret photo spots? Welcome imageplotter ! You can have a look here : http://en.nicetourisme.com/events-calendar For the viewpoints, it depends on what you like, time and ... weather ! Last week we had the first snows on the mountains and I planned to take photos in the countryside but the weather has turned warm again and I changed my plans. if you stay in the city, you must go to "le marché aux fleurs" in the old part of the city, la colline du château, etc... At the beginning of december their will be the Christmas Market near la place Massena... Also, there are ton of interesting small typical villages around Nice. if you like trekking I can share some of my favorite treks . Just tell me what you would like to shoot . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joseph Clemson Posted November 21, 2017 Share Posted November 21, 2017 Three minutes per photo sounds somewhat inadequate. In the vast majority of cases I spend longer than that just researching the background to the subject of the image, simply to write an accurate and informative caption. Actual keywording, done using Lightroom, draws on some presets for commonly used terms, but mostly I need to spend 5 minutes or more making sure I have added all possible relevant keywords and keyword phrases, and that they are correct. Further input is needed when using AIM to select the right supertags and other optional info. I think fifteen minutes per photo is not far short of typical for me. As I rarely have more than two or three photos on any given subject, I spend more time preparing them for sale than I do actually behind a camera, and I consider it time well spent. I certainly wouldn't be comfortable at the other extreme, taking the shotgun approach as some contributors do, uploading hundreds of photos at a time and trying to automate the processing and keywording process to the utmost degree. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Morrison Posted November 21, 2017 Share Posted November 21, 2017 7,8,9,10 minutes for me... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Yarvin Posted November 21, 2017 Share Posted November 21, 2017 It's my same old story. It all depends on subject matter. Travel and outdoor subjects take longer to keyword, but sometimes foods and still life subject will require tedious multi-lingual spell checking. Fore me, the steady practice of keywording enhances my knowledge of subject matter and is an integral part of the process. I believe that photographers who see keywording as independent from the rest of the photographic process are like writers who distinguish between writing and re-writing. It's all part of our job, no matter how you label it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Betty LaRue Posted November 22, 2017 Share Posted November 22, 2017 I have templates saved in Bridge of flora and fauna. For instance, if I have a new image of an American robin or a trumpet vine, it takes me a few seconds to apply the template that has all the common tags. From there, I may add other relevant tags. It saves a lot of time. On ones I tag from scratch, I spend more than 3 minutes. Thats why I have a smallish port. I can go out and shoot 20 keepers in far less time than it takes me to PP and tag them. Shooting is the least of it. One shortcut, even if all the images you are tagging are different but all are shot in the same city/town, you can select them all and tag location and tags like day, daytime, nobody, horizontal, outdoors etc. Save, then to each image tag what’s in the image. Change horizontal to vertical where appropriate. Betty Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shergar Posted November 22, 2017 Share Posted November 22, 2017 Woops Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vpics Posted November 22, 2017 Share Posted November 22, 2017 17 hours ago, wiskerke said: 3 hours. Non-native speaker and all that. wim That doesn't show. For me, it tend to edit in batches. For news images, it's also in batches and I add the keywords in Photoshop before upload and add specific ones later on. 3 minutes seems a little long. But then, maybe that's why most of my images are "orange". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allan Bell Posted November 22, 2017 Share Posted November 22, 2017 Days! Allan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RedSnapper Posted November 22, 2017 Share Posted November 22, 2017 Keyword and caption in your head as you make the image km Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CM photo Posted November 22, 2017 Share Posted November 22, 2017 11 hours ago, Brian Yarvin said: It's my same old story. It all depends on subject matter. Travel and outdoor subjects take longer to keyword, but sometimes foods and still life subject will require tedious multi-lingual spell checking. Fore me, the steady practice of keywording enhances my knowledge of subject matter and is an integral part of the process. I believe that photographers who see keywording as independent from the rest of the photographic process are like writers who distinguish between writing and re-writing. It's all part of our job, no matter how you label it. This is my approach, too. I look on the keywording as research, which adds to the enjoyment of taking the photos; time spent reading around the subject is never wasted, in my opinion. Looking at the appalling keyword lists that accompany some photos, especially those from certain agencies, I can see why people who keyword sparingly but accurately probably get better returns. Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
imageplotter Posted November 22, 2017 Share Posted November 22, 2017 14 hours ago, Southmind said: Welcome imageplotter ! You can have a look here : http://en.nicetourisme.com/events-calendar For the viewpoints, it depends on what you like, time and ... weather ! Last week we had the first snows on the mountains and I planned to take photos in the countryside but the weather has turned warm again and I changed my plans. if you stay in the city, you must go to "le marché aux fleurs" in the old part of the city, la colline du château, etc... At the beginning of december their will be the Christmas Market near la place Massena... Also, there are ton of interesting small typical villages around Nice. if you like trekking I can share some of my favorite treks . Just tell me what you would like to shoot . Many thanks Southmind!! Please keep the warm weather there for a while. :-) The apartment will actually be right next to the flower market in the old town, so that'll be handy. The Christmas Market also sounds nice. I would love some advice on walks/treks in the vicinity, coastal or mountains, to shoot some panoramas. It's a shame that the old private message function is no longer available - I don't want to spam this thread too much before the others shout at me, but any tips on nice walking routes and things to do in winter are much appreciated! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed Rooney Posted November 22, 2017 Share Posted November 22, 2017 Three minutes an image is the fast track! It can take me an hour or more to clean up a dirty street scene here in NYC. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sultanpepa Posted November 22, 2017 Share Posted November 22, 2017 33 minutes ago, Ed Rooney said: Three minutes an image is the fast track! It can take me an hour or more to clean up a dirty street scene here in NYC. He's only talking about tagging though Ed not the whole editing process. Takes me about five minutes for something straightforward but can take much longer if research is required. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Southmind Posted November 22, 2017 Share Posted November 22, 2017 8 hours ago, imageplotter said: Many thanks Southmind!! Please keep the warm weather there for a while. :-) The apartment will actually be right next to the flower market in the old town, so that'll be handy. The Christmas Market also sounds nice. I would love some advice on walks/treks in the vicinity, coastal or mountains, to shoot some panoramas. It's a shame that the old private message function is no longer available - I don't want to spam this thread too much before the others shout at me, but any tips on nice walking routes and things to do in winter are much appreciated! I don't want to spam too . So sorry for the others, I just want to add these infos and will stop to spam. To shoot panoramas you have to go between Nice and Monaco . Stop to (the high) Eze village and visit the exotic garden (400 m over the Mediterranean sea !) For beautiful walks/treks in autumn/winter go to Esterel massif at the West of Cannes. It's mandatory :). Here an other site for general searches. it would be better with private messages... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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