JustinWyllie Posted June 14, 2018 Share Posted June 14, 2018 I've just started contributing to Alamy. I'm having difficulty working out how to get lots of keywords on my images. I believe that you should have quite a few - at least more than the minimum 5 but I'm struggling to find them. The Alamy documentation does not give any specific advice here. For example. I have an image of the Spasskaya Tower of the Kazan Kremlin in Russia - in the Republic of Tatarstan. So - I've used all those as keywords. But - what then? Should I be putting things like "White tower", "Russian Heritage"? I'm not really sure once I get beyond the obvious basic ones. Many thanks for any tips Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NYCat Posted June 14, 2018 Share Posted June 14, 2018 I wouldn't want to encourage copying but if you do a search and look at the images that are already here you'll be able to see what other people are doing. Be careful to remember that a lot of people are over-keywording and anything you put in for your image must be in the image. So use your own judgment but no reason you shouldn't get ideas. Paulette Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BobD Posted June 14, 2018 Share Posted June 14, 2018 8 minutes ago, JustinWyllie said: I've just started contributing to Alamy. I'm having difficulty working out how to get lots of keywords on my images. I believe that you should have quite a few - at least more than the minimum 5 but I'm struggling to find them. The Alamy documentation does not give any specific advice here. For example. I have an image of the Spasskaya Tower of the Kazan Kremlin in Russia - in the Republic of Tatarstan. So - I've used all those as keywords. But - what then? Should I be putting things like "White tower", "Russian Heritage"? I'm not really sure once I get beyond the obvious basic ones. Many thanks for any tips Yes you should put those words as they are relevant. Also words such as illuminated, night time etc but do not feel you need to add lots of words just to try and fill the quota, just what is relevant to the image. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Starsphinx Posted June 14, 2018 Share Posted June 14, 2018 My technique is google the main subject(s) and see what comes up - for buildings that may include things like historical, site of ?????, an example of ????? etc. I will also try and delve into relevant architectural words (and include architecture as a word). Once I have done that I do an Alamy search and look what keywords other people are using then use my judgement as to whether to include them or not. As for over keywording - I would not be shy about using generic words like building architecture animal etc - way before I picked up a serious camera I was building websites for myself and friends. Quite often at an early stage, I would have only a vague nebulous idea of what I was after and would search images for such generic terms then look through hundreds of varying images to get ideas. OK this is not so good if you are one of the hundreds that don't catch my eye but great if your image is what fires me up and what I base my design around. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colin Woods Posted June 14, 2018 Share Posted June 14, 2018 Adding extra and generic keywords to get the numbers up will only work against you as it will lead to your photos appearing in searches where they are not relevant. Put in what you see in the image who, what, where and when. Don't forget plurals, abbreviations, american vs english spellings (colour and color etc). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Starsphinx Posted June 14, 2018 Share Posted June 14, 2018 19 minutes ago, Colin Woods said: Adding extra and generic keywords to get the numbers up will only work against you as it will lead to your photos appearing in searches where they are not relevant. Put in what you see in the image who, what, where and when. Don't forget plurals, abbreviations, american vs english spellings (colour and color etc). Ha right now I am trying to keyword a random bug I caught - I have it narrowed down to a type of parasitic wasp of a certain family but even google searches of that family are not producing anything ROTFLMAO - are you allowed to keyword "strange unknown bug"? I mean for all I know it could be exactly what some entomologist is looking for - only I don't what they call it and they don't know what my thoughts on it are. Still, on the good side (I presume), there is nothing coming on Alamy for it even searching just the family name produces a single line drawing of what looks like the thing I photographed so it will be the only result of certain search terms. I will continue wracking my brain to come up with keywords and probably have to accept an orange bar. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MandyD Posted June 14, 2018 Share Posted June 14, 2018 14 minutes ago, Starsphinx said: Ha right now I am trying to keyword a random bug I caught - I have it narrowed down to a type of parasitic wasp of a certain family but even google searches of that family are not producing anything ROTFLMAO - are you allowed to keyword "strange unknown bug"? I mean for all I know it could be exactly what some entomologist is looking for - only I don't what they call it and they don't know what my thoughts on it are. Still, on the good side (I presume), there is nothing coming on Alamy for it even searching just the family name produces a single line drawing of what looks like the thing I photographed so it will be the only result of certain search terms. I will continue wracking my brain to come up with keywords and probably have to accept an orange bar. you can always add more keytags later once you know more! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Starsphinx Posted June 14, 2018 Share Posted June 14, 2018 2 minutes ago, MandyD said: you can always add more keytags later once you know more! I am guessing that is unlikely with this one - tagging bugs is awkward at the best of times as unless you dissect the thing it is really really easy to misidentify - it is often necessary to put a couple of species in keywords. Things like butterflies and damselflies that are pretty are OK - people like them and all sorts of information is available because people look them up. Parasitic wasps not so much - I mean parasite and wasp together pretty much guarantees that the majority of people will give them a wide berth and find them rather icky or downright scary. I have covered this one as well as I can - everything from insect down to latin family so it should be findable - if anyone is looking lol. ps. yes I am slightly weird - I find bugs fascinating. I also get nerdy on some other subjects. I do actually enjoy the challenge of trying to work out exactly what it is I have taken a picture of - this is fun! Whether I still think so after a couple of thousand photographs is another matter lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Starsphinx Posted June 14, 2018 Share Posted June 14, 2018 It does also help when keywording to try and think like you are looking for an image - this does sometimes involve deliberately using slightly incorrect keywords like "butterfly" for something you know is a moth and "dragonfly" when you know something is a damselfly. If lots of people are going to search using the wrong term - you have to keyword the wrong term. Try and imagine you had not taken the picture - that you were looking for the picture. Maybe before you travelled and took the picture when you were preparing for the sights you would see you thought about particular things - use those as keywords. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dlmphotog Posted June 15, 2018 Share Posted June 15, 2018 The 5 W's are a good place to start. Who, Any people in the shot? age, ethnicity, number, what are they doing? what are they wearing? What, What is the subject? what is it made of? who made it? in what style? function? purpose? Where, inside, outside, above, below, street, neighborhood, city, county, region, country When, date, daylight, morning, midday, afternoon, dusk, evening, night Why, this is a hard one.. and may not always be applicable I also like to add weather such as stormy, blue sky, overcast, cloudy, sunny, rain, raining, snow, hot, cold, tropical, humid. Cloud types... I'm a believer in a descriptive description of the image. A good description is the skeleton I flesh out by adding more tags/keywords as well as plurals, variations. Hope this helps, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JustinWyllie Posted June 15, 2018 Author Share Posted June 15, 2018 19 hours ago, geogphotos said: Eastern Europe, Europe, European, Russia, Russian, Moscow, Kazan, Kremlin, Kazan Kremlin, Spasskaya, tower, Spasskaya Tower, historic, history, heritage, building, buildings, architecture, tourist attraction, famous, landmark, city, Red Square, clock tower, clock, clock-tower, ...... This is really useful I hadn't thought. Of course - e.g Spasskaya and Spasskaya Tower are separate key phrases plus the more general clock-tower. OK. Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JustinWyllie Posted June 15, 2018 Author Share Posted June 15, 2018 Thanks to everyone for the really useful advice. I'm in a much better position now to add some more (while still keeping them relevant). Ta Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inchiquin Posted June 16, 2018 Share Posted June 16, 2018 On 6/14/2018 at 21:25, Starsphinx said: I do actually enjoy the challenge of trying to work out exactly what it is I have taken a picture of - this is fun! Not such fun when it's a picture you took 30 years ago in some far-flung corner of Europe and you spend days poring over Google Earth wondering if it even still exists any more. Alan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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