Multiple Delete Function for AIM

[Steve Valentia]

I made what I consider to be a major mistake of using a key-wording service, based in India, some years ago and before the upgrade to the current Alamy Image Manager. This resulted in each of the 3000 or so images, I had at the time, being flooded with dozens of useless keywords. I believe that this has greatly affected my ranking and sales.

 

Since the upgrade and the current requirement for no more than 50 tags, I have been working solidly through the older images, from around 2004, to try and delete all the redundant keywords. But, this is incredibly time consuming, trying to delete one word at a time, and finding the small x in the corner of the tag with my mouse.  I have tried a tablet and pen (I bought one especially for the job) but it is actually less effective than the mouse.

 

Despite contacting member services and pleading with them, it seems that a multiple delete function is no longer being considered - although my first reply suggested it was. Apparently it was trialed and some users found they deleted the wrong words.

I'm getting desperate now, as I can barely change 150 images in a full day and as I'm approaching older age, I may want to go outside into the sunshine occasionally. Can I ask that Alamy please reconsider implementing this function, or as an alternative ask ME to trial it? I am sure I would find some positive things to say about it.

 

Stephen

[NYCat]

Yes, I agree. That is one of the many things about this image manager that are maddening. Just having to read what I have in little boxes slows me down. The care I have to take in merging keywords so I don't wind up with a nonsense phrase and have to delete it and start over. Not being able to copy and paste but having to click on faded tags when I want to use keywords from an older image. Having to click "Add Caption" instead of just having a box where I can immediately start typing. Having the first part of the location disappear as I type so I can't see the whole thing until I'm done. It goes on and on and I know I only hurt myself by not uploading as often but I dread the darn thing. The old image manager also used to tell me when I had forgotten to put something in attributes. This one has me needing to proofread everything. It's a disaster as far as I"m concerned and it looks like we are stuck with it no matter what we say about it.

 

Paulette

[wiskerke]

Why not just open a new account and upload everything in one go with the right keywords attached?

Or ask member services to send you a spreadsheet?

 

For editing just a few images I do the following: I drag the tags on top of each other with a pen more or less randomly. After they've reached 10 keywords they become a black hole in which every next tag will vanish. In the end there will be only one tag left to kill by clicking the x.

However even with a pen, RSI is a real danger.

The designer of this tool should be forced to work with it for a month. Maybe you could let him practice on your images ;-)

 

wim

 

[Steve Valentia]

8 hours ago, wiskerke said:

Why not just open a new account and upload everything in one go with the right keywords attached?

Or ask member services to send you a spreadsheet?

 

Thanks for the reply Wim, it was actually your suggestion about the tablet and pen that got me to buy one, but I'm just admiring it unplugged most of the time as I found it less effective than the mouse. Probably because I'm not used to it.

 

I have over 6000 images with Alamy, contributed since 2004, and hundreds of thousands of others scattered across numerous external hard drives. It would take far longer to find the Alamy images to re-upload them than to work slowly on the re-keywording as I am now.

 

I did get a spreadsheet, but again not being familiar with it slowed me down. I found that I had to keep comparing the uploaded images with the image ID on the spreadsheet to know which one I was keywording.

 

8 hours ago, wiskerke said:

For editing just a few images I do the following: I drag the tags on top of each other with a pen more or less randomly. After they've reached 10 keywords they become a black hole in which every next tag will vanish. In the end there will be only one tag left to kill by clicking the x.

 

I've tried the dragging method and this has some effect. Occasionally though I get error messages about having too many supertags! 

 

8 hours ago, wiskerke said:

The designer of this tool should be forced to work with it for a month. Maybe you could let him practice on your images ;-)

 

I wish!

[Francescop]

It's unimaginable into 2018 thinking that this elementar feature it is not applicable.

 

On 15/5/2018 at 02:28, wiskerke said:

Or ask member services to send you a spreadsheet?

 

Please Sir, what do you mean with spreadsheet? Maybe i've lost something.

 

Thanks

[wiskerke]

10 hours ago, Francescop said:

It's unimaginable into 2018 thinking that this elementar feature it is not applicable.

 

 

Please Sir, what do you mean with spreadsheet? Maybe i've lost something.

 

Thanks

 

As I don't use it, maybe someone who does can chime in here.

 

I think it was meant as the tool for agencies to upload or change large quantities of images or keywords.

However as some contributors now have larger collections than some agencies, if you ask contributor relations (member services) they may give you access to this tool. But keep in mind that it's very easy to do a lot of damage in a very short time.

So be sure you know what you're doing using a spreadsheet.

 

wim

[spacecadet]

22 hours ago, Francescop said:

It's unimaginable into 2018 thinking that this elementar feature it is not applicable.

 

 

Please Sir, what do you mean with spreadsheet? Maybe i've lost something.

 

Thanks

On request MS will send you a spreadsheet with all the attributes of all your images. You change them as required and send it back, whereupon MS will apply it.

But as Wim says it's weapons-grade.

[Francescop]

Thanks @spacecadet and @wiskerke

I know what you mean. Very interesting procedure, but who is MS? do you know the email contact?

 

However i don't understand:

spreadsheet = excel? maybe!
spreadsheet = administrator view of my alamy image manager? i don'think

 

Someone can share a printscreen of it after hide your sensitive datas?

thanks so much

[wiskerke]

4 hours ago, Francescop said:

Thanks @spacecadet and @wiskerke

I know what you mean. Very interesting procedure, but who is MS? do you know the email contact?

 

However i don't understand:

spreadsheet = excel? maybe!
spreadsheet = administrator view of my alamy image manager? i don'think

 

Someone can share a printscreen of it after hide your sensitive datas?

thanks so much

 

Yes Microsoft Office Excel is spreadsheet software.

MS (Member Services) is now called Contributor Relations = contributors@alamy.com.

As you joined in 2011 we've probably thought it a good idea to give both names as some people almost never interact with the various Alamy departments.

 

A search on Google Images for Alamy Spreadsheet gives  a somewhat predictable result.

- Facepalm.

 

wim

[Colin Woods]

You can use Ctrl/Cmd and + to magnify the screen. This gives you a slightly better chance of hitting either the blue supertag star or the delete x. Its still a maddening process though, I quite frequently become a bit psychotic after using the AIM for any length of time. Which is a shame as there is so much that is good with it, its so poor to use. 

[M.Chapman]

On 6/16/2018 at 21:57, Francescop said:

Thanks @spacecadet and @wiskerke

I know what you mean. Very interesting procedure, but who is MS? do you know the email contact?

 

However i don't understand:

spreadsheet = excel? maybe!
spreadsheet = administrator view of my alamy image manager? i don'think

 

Someone can share a printscreen of it after hide your sensitive datas?

thanks so much

 

Last time I asked for a copy of my metadata was in June 2017. Contributor services (contibutors@alamy.com) sent me Excel spreadsheet in .xlsx format.

 

I've embedded a screenshot of the heading and top two rows of data below, and here's a link to the screenshot to make it easier to read. I reduced the number of tags to reduce the complexity.

 

 

The spreadsheet is not easy to edit by hand (lots of words in single cells) but is great for automated processing using global search and replace operations in Excel or using Excel VBA (Excel Visual Basic). A modified spreadsheet can then be sent back to Alamy for uploading. But beware...

 

"to make errors is human..... to mess things up totally requires a spreadsheet!"

 

Mark

 

 

[Martin Carlsson]

@Alamy - any update or hope of a "delete all keywords" button in AIM? Would greatly speed up (my and probably many others) workflow as one tries to keep predominately one's Lightroom catalogue up to date and it would be great to just be able to copy from LR and paste into AIM - even on previously keyworded images. Doing it now involves having to manually click and delete up to 50 keywords before being able to paste - frustrating and time consuming. Pretty please - I'm thinking it shouldn't take too much programming effort to create a button/macro/action that just empties an input field? Again, pretty please!

[Steve Valentia]

12 minutes ago, Martin Carlsson said:

@Alamy - any update or hope of a "delete all keywords" button in AIM?

 

I'm the OP of this thread and I have been in direct contact with member services about it on at least 3 occasions.

 

The feedback I get is that there are no plans to introduce this option into AIM; the rationale being that some "testers" found they were inadvertently deleting images that they wanted to keep. In my view that's Pilot Error and not a good enough reason to exclude what could be a very valuable and time-saving option. I have several thousand images that could be re-keyworded far more quickly with it, than without it.

 

If anyone else feels like it would be a good thing to have in AIM, I suggest letting MS know directly, as posting here is likely to have little effect.

[wiskerke]

3 minutes ago, Steve Valentia said:

 

I'm the OP of this thread and I have been in direct contact with member services about it on at least 3 occasions.

 

The feedback I get is that there are no plans to introduce this option into AIM; the rationale being that some "testers" found they were inadvertently deleting images that they wanted to keep. In my view that's Pilot Error and not a good enough reason to exclude what could be a very valuable and time-saving option. I have several thousand images that could be re-keyworded far more quickly with it, than without it.

 

If anyone else feels like it would be a good thing to have in AIM, I suggest letting MS know directly, as posting here is likely to have little effect.

 

Does anybody know how this works with the original, I mean the competitor where this tag design was ehh... borrowed from?

(Please don't identify that competing agency; don't ask for it either.)

 

wim

[Martin Carlsson]

11 hours ago, Steve Valentia said:

 

I'm the OP of this thread and I have been in direct contact with member services about it on at least 3 occasions.

 

The feedback I get is that there are no plans to introduce this option into AIM; the rationale being that some "testers" found they were inadvertently deleting images that they wanted to keep. In my view that's Pilot Error and not a good enough reason to exclude what could be a very valuable and time-saving option. I have several thousand images that could be re-keyworded far more quickly with it, than without it.

 

If anyone else feels like it would be a good thing to have in AIM, I suggest letting MS know directly, as posting here is likely to have little effect.

 

They could still keep the "reset" button and get all the words back if they inadvertently pressed a "delete all" button? It is just sooo frustrating to sooo often have to manually have to delete all keywords c. 35-50x on c. 10-15x images = c. 750x precision clicks (which is probably the most I can muster to do in a day.). 

 

I can't confirm or deny that I've ever taken part in any AIM testing, but I can say that I requested it for a long time and I still don't know of a good and valid reason as to why this can't be implemented - a "clear keyword" field instruction/macro in the form of a button SOMEWHERE around the image should be so simple.

 

I'll hit MS up again and with fingers crossed see if there is any hope. The lack of this functionality has in my case a direct correlation with accuracy and improvements of (my) keywords, as I'm a tinkering (english being 2nd language) so improvements are likely to happen over time - for me it is just easier to always ensure that LR catalogue is the main and latest updated place, then in turn copy/paste that over to whatever library that needs updated due to changes in LR.

 

PS

Don't get me started on the LR plugin - found it to be an unreliable hot mess. Dream would be if Alamy made a plugin, many smaller companies than Alamy have done it - so then you just upload/update any changed metadata - would be the ultimate dream - imagine the efficiency, the accuracy, the ease, so much time freed up to shoot HCV imagery instead of precision clicking littles X:es.

[ReeRay]

On 8/22/2018 at 23:48, wiskerke said:

 

Does anybody know how this works with the original, I mean the competitor where this tag design was ehh... borrowed from?

(Please don't identify that competing agency; don't ask for it either.)

 

wim

 

It works perfectly. You can chose individual images or batches to completely delete, modify or partial delete and modify, including individual word amendment.  Inserting a word in a phrase is there also, individually or as a batch. Moving the arrangement of phrases and words is also available. In short, just as with could in V1 and V2 over here!