Quote:
Originally Posted by talkmicro
Interesting to see that Alamy is working for you.
I am much happier taking editorial type shots at events and the like.
I have never submitted to Alamy - It used to be a really complex process of upsizing and submitting on DVD. Is this still the case?
Doug
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See above, different strokes for different folks. Or in the UK I think it's something about horses for courses.
It was about two years ago that they started allowing people to upload on a trial basis. I was one of the first, maybe because I was new and in the US, so it made sense. I know it wasn't because of my fine interview submissions with the 10D.
Yes, you have to pump up the images. Just think 5100 wide and that's the ballpark. 48.2 Megabytes uncompressed TIF 8-bit files. It's not that terrible, and repeating, I had a 10D and 28-135 kit lens and got accepted, first batch.
They ask for no sharpening, which translates to no excessive sharpening and they evaluate at 100%, so if you have CA or pixelation above what would normally be there with up-sizing, they will get rejected. It seems the most complained about rejection is Soft or Lacking Definition. I haven't had that problem. Dust bunny in the sky... your whole batch is drop kicked.
One fail, all fail. If you upload 20 photos and they are waiting to be reviewed and you upload 200 more. If one from the first batch fails, all pending batches are refused. For that reason, make a group, submit and wait. Mine have been going through in 48 hours or less on working days. (weekends do not exist in the UK, nothing happens from Friday afternoon, until sometime mid-morning on Monday)
Repeated failures will get you a vacation. One guy was complaining that his account was closed for too many similars. Trust me, if you want a link I can find it, he mashed the button at a press conference and uploaded everything!
I think the attitude is that unlike micro, Alamy is not a review process, training academy, and doesn't teach people how to sell those photos on your hard drive to make spare cash.
They are not going to edit and review content for us, and they expect people to be self moderating adults. If someone can't tell a good shot from a bad one, Alamy isn't going to hold your hand and do it for you. Some people can't understand that?
Want to spam your keywords? Part of the rank is based on views and zooms. If you get a lot of views and no zooms, because you spammed up your keywords, you will be going down. Since you only have 50 characters in the "essential" box, and the order words are in, does matter, it means you would probably need to do some thinking outside of the micro box anyway. "Main" keywords gives you another 300 characters. I figure if someone can't fit the important keywords into 350 characters, they are spamming!
And here's the thing I like best. They do not review for content! I've written before, if you have a close-up of an eroded elliptical tan rock, on a brown sand beach, on an overcast day... and it's exposed right, sharp and has no flaws, it will be passed.
Some people do well with RF. My main production of racing photos are all Editorial and that's my outlet. I really don't feel like spending a three day weekend, with travel to and from somewhere, overnights, 12 hour days (and longer) and all that goes into shooting motorsports, to have someone pay 25c for a subscription download. If the micro would price the news photos somewhere in the area that they are deserving, that would be different.
You can find 10,000 sliced tomatoes, all kinds of flowers, pets and Sunsets. Women with a headset, business people shaking hands, model with a fancy dress or semi-nude. Thousands and thousands of the same shots!
But when it's a news image that happens once, in a split second, then is gone forever, I don't think it's the same as things people find around the house isolated on white.
From reading the forums, RF has been gaining in value on Alamy and Editorial has been declining. More like they are coming closer together.
Uploads are fine for me, some complain. I've sent in large batches while I slept, no problems. What Todd says is true, they don't read most of the IPTC data, but the editor is friendly as far as I'm concerned. Cut and paste or just type it in.
The fields are different from micro, which means you need to add locations, dates, descriptions (not searched) and have all kinds of things for number of people, released, license, cut-out, altered... you can even restrict where the photos may be sold by country.
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