[STOCKPHOTO] Stock Photography Sites With Issues
jamievoetsch
use it, how to price an image, how to put it into the lightbox, or even
out to purchase it, what would you think?
Would you bother purchasing from the site? Would you want to call
customer service? Would you just say "forget it" and try a different
site?
Jamie Voetsch
http://www.acclaimimages.com
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wareham2006
closed, then I would stroll a couple of hundred metres to the next
supermarket which is open and buy it there. If a camerashop had a
specific piece of equipment I wanted for the price I wanted to pay and
it was closed, then I would come back another day. If a customer knows
that they can find a similar image without problems on an alternative
site the chances are that then they will move on. If however they want
a specific image that you have the chances are that they will make
that extra effort.
Unfortunately in this business it is quite not so easy, you sometimes
dont know who the customer is, and you dont know what value they may
attribute (in time spent and money) to the image they are looking for.
Richard Wareham
bonniejphoto
work (some high end & some lower budget)
If I went to a site and could not figure it out from the get go... I probably would not bother
with it. Sometimes I will click on icons under images to see what they do (I love when the
site gives you a clue as to what the symbols mean). But if it was talking too much time, or
causing me to become frustrated , I would move on. There are plenty of stock sites out
there.
If a friend or fellow designer had recommended the site, telling me how awesome it is, I
would call that friend & get a 101 on how to use the site. If the site still remained hard &
took too much time (time is money).. I would move on. If I figured it out, cool, I might
continue using it.
Example:
I have a site I use now that I have this love/hate relationship with. Images are nice, price is
great (for my lower budget clients), I know a lot of the photographers who upload there..
but the site can be slow at times... anganizingly slow. It is a European site, so things are
not always where I would expect them or work the way I would think. So on slow days.. I
go elsewhere. On good days I will browse to find a photo. If the site slows or freezes...
depending on how much time I put into the search & if I did find an image during that
time, I might call support to get the image, or I may just move on.
Hope that helps
bonniej
Fred
to
> use it, how to price an image, how to put it into the lightbox, or
even
> out to purchase it, what would you think?
>
> Would you bother purchasing from the site? Would you want to call
> customer service? Would you just say "forget it" and try a
different
> site?
As an agency owner I know I would want the feedback. In fact, one of
the best things I ever did for my site was to ask the fine folks here
to rip my site a new one a few years ago; I received many suggestions
and almost all of them good.
Since you work for my agency I will assume that this is the site to
which you are referring and feel it is not all it should be.
Therefore I think we should ask the good folks of the stock photo
group to take a few minutes and see if they can come up with any
suggestions. The url is
http://www.acclaimimages.com/
Some other things that would be nice to have feedback on:
1. Quality of the images.
2. Quality of the search results.
3. Speed of the search results.
4. Flexibilty of the search engine.
Of course, any feedback will be welcome. And don't try to be nice;
honesty is always the best policy.
Fred Voetsch
ACCLAIM IMAGES
Norman Freelan
Perhaps you could add some sort of "search within results" function?
-Norman
painet01
recently made known to us their displeasure with our "hover" feature whereby
previews appear and hover during mouseover a thumbnail. Any comments
would be greatly appreciated. A sample page can be viewed at
http://www.painetworks.com/cgi-bin/searchlocal.cgi?find=%2Bmodel%2Bfemal
e%2Bportrait
regards,
mark goebel
Painet
Fred
>
> Since Fred has initiated a polling forum... the good folks at
McGraw-
Hill have
> recently made known to us their displeasure with our "hover"
feature
whereby
> previews appear and hover during mouseover a thumbnail. Any
comments
> would be greatly appreciated. A sample page can be viewed at
>
> http://www.painetworks.com/cgi-bin/searchlocal.cgi?find=%2Bmodel%
2Bfemal
> e%2Bportrait
I have always disliked those. Such pop-ups are usually fun for the
web designer, and earn them extra money but are just plain annoying
for the user.
Fred Voetsch
Acclaim Stock Photography
http://www.acclaimimages.com/
Fred
>
> My only complaint is that there doesn't seem to be a way to narrow
a
search. For example, if you search for the term "fishing" you get
1,292
results. If you only wanted fishing images taken at sunset and search
for "fishing sunset", you get 5,251 results. I would have expected
fewer results, not more. The search engine seems to be returning any
image that has *either* of the search terms, rather than just those
images that have both.
>
> Perhaps you could add some sort of "search within results" function?
Thanks, Norman. That's a good point.
Fred
David Barr
>>
>> Since Fred has initiated a polling forum... the good folks at
>McGraw-
>Hill have
>> recently made known to us their displeasure with our "hover"
>feature
>whereby
> > previews appear and hover during mouseover a thumbnail. Any
>comments
>> would be greatly appreciated. A sample page can be viewed at
>>
> > http://www.painetworks.com/cgi-bin/searchlocal.cgi?find=%2Bmodel%
>2Bfemal
> > e%2Bportrait
>
>
Since you happened to ask!
Just did a search on the Painet site, and as always I do, on
agricultural subjects I am familiar with. A search for corn turns up
a lot of photographs with the word corner and very few pictures of
corn. A search for eggs shows that in a general collection of
pictures there are so many types of egg that the search is almost
useless. There almost has to be a second menu comes up to ask for
what kind of "egg pictures" the researcher is looking for. Under
dairy cow 2935 has these keywords "belly pink milk utter nipples
sanitary cow large veins underside farm farming dairy dirty
underneath under walk leave animal food cheese tennessee american"
For that picture if I were to include it on line (which I wouldn't) I
would have used "dairy,cow,dairy
cow,milking,udder,teats,farm,farming,parlor,parlour," and for a
description I would have put "dairy cow leaving parlour after
milking." Including words like cheese only brings it up in a
search where it is very unlikely to be what the client is looking for
and weakens the whole keyword search. Picture 40545 is of a pig -
why would anyone want to see this in a search for "dairy cow" . All
the pictures of a girl drinking milk may be fine for a search for
dairy but not suitable in a search for dairy cow. 2608 and 7717 are
beef cattle an should not show up on a search for dairy cow. You
have two thousand two hundred and twenty three results for dairy cow
but after the first 96 images there would appear to be very few of
the pictures that should be included. If I was a researcher I would
be unlikely to spend much time on the Painet site and it is unlikely
that I would return!
David Barr
--
Photobar Agricultural Stock Photography.
Stock and assignment photography and
specializing in all aspects of agriculture.
http://www.photobar.com On line catalogue
http://www.stockartistsalliance.com SAA member
http://www.cama.org/ CAMA member
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Singh, Shangara
> My only complaint is that there doesn't seem to be a way to narrow
> a search. For example, if you search for the term "fishing" you get
> 1,292 results. If you only wanted fishing images taken at sunset
> and search for "fishing sunset", you get 5,251 results. I would
> have expected fewer results, not more. The search engine seems to
> be returning any image that has *either* of the search terms,
> rather than just those images that have both.
That's the behaviour I would expect but for some reason the people
who write the search engines seem to think that you are searching for
more than one type of image if you input two or more words. I would
seriously like to know what the logic is behind that thinking. Fred's
site has the following qualifier, "Our search results are inclusive
and will break the term apart if more than one word." However, it is
rather tucked away.
To narrow your searches, you are also expected to add the plus or
minus sign and know that you need to add them. For example, fishing
+sunset. To me, it seems so obvious that the only reason someone
would want to add more than one word is to qualify the first that it
makes the plus sign rather redundant. For example, if I'm looking for
images of people fishing at sea at sunset, I might enter: fishermen
fishing sea sunset, and perhaps qualify the string further but I
wouldn't expect the results to show images of oceans and sunsets,
unless those images, for whatever reason, also included the keywords
fishermen and fishing. Then again, if I wanted all those words to be
included in the keywords, I should have an easy way of doing that,
such as by ticking a box for "Containing all words," and/or enclosing
my words in double or single quote marks, which is the geeky way of
doing it.
Fred, regarding feedback:
I think "Our search results are inclusive and will break the term
apart if more than one word" could be stated more clearly and in a
way that's easier to digest. I mean, at first reading, I have no idea
what "Our search results are inclusive" means. Are you trying to say,
for example, "If you use more than one word in the search field, each
word will be used as the basis for finding corresponding images?" If
yes, then I would think about using plainer English that conjures up
the actions in the reader's mind. I would also put it at the top and
*then* qualify it by saying something like "Use a plus-mark to
broaden the results and return matches for each word or term.
Example: dirty+dog or dirty + dog" Though you could make a case that
by using the plus-sign, you are narrowing the search results (see
above).
You have also "search tips" divorced from the Search button. I would
put it next to it. I would also use Sentence Case: Search Tips, which
is much easier to see.
I would also show the licence types in a double column, which would
make it possible to bring the topics higher and change the heading to
Categories; the word topic is associated more with text and discourse
than images.
And if you must show keywords, I would show the clickable first and
the non-clickable second. Assuming you are not aiming keywords such
as, "photograph, photographs, stock photos, stock photography, stock
photo" at a researcher.
HTH.
Shangara Singh.
Author & Photographer
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painet01
people
> who write the search engines seem to think that you are
searching for
> more than one type of image if you input two or more words.
Your points are very instructive... however, it is not necessarily
the case. It could be a "relevance" search whereby the images
which match the most keywords entered will appear at the top.
Anything else, as you say, defies logic. Wth a relavance search
you can qualify the results as:
A relevance type search means the images that are returned
during a search contain at least one of the keywords entered.
The images that contain the largest number of keywords entered
will be shown first. Searches for 2 or more words may include
many images that are not wanted; however, these will appear
further down in the results. When you notice the images
changing from the desired theme this means there are probably
no more images with that theme in the results.
If you were searching for a happy baby, your search might look
something like this:
+baby happ laugh smil giggl
By using a shortened version of the words happy, laughing,
smiling and giggling, you are insuring that the search results will
include images that contain keywords such as happy,
happiness, happily, laugh, laughing, laughter, smile, smiling,
giggle and giggling.
By using a plus (+) sign in front of the word 'baby', you are
insuring that all the images found contain the word baby.
When you notice the images no longer depict happy babies this
means there are probably no more images of happy babies in
the results.
It's not perfect, granted, but with each photographer doing their
own keywording, each with there individual speech 'symantics' it
is probably the best solution. Add the Boolean option (+,-,=) and
it makes it even better.
regards,
mark goebel
Painet Inc.
--- In STOCK...@yahoogroups.com, "Singh, Shangara"
Stockphoto Seller
I have been following this thread and see the same level of confusion and illogic that existed seven or eight years ago. When there are no standards, everyone invents their own standards. Only the larger conglomerates have enough financial clout and size to push their search methods onto clients. (Which is not to say several of the search operations on the larger sites are not pretty darn good--see Getty's helpful, customer-oriented search facility, for example.)
This is but one more area where photography has charged ahead with digital methods without first getting its act together--put another way, without thinking first. We are all poorer for it.
Carl May/BPS
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Singh, Shangara
> Your points are very instructive... however, it is not necessarily
> the case. It could be a "relevance" search whereby the images
> which match the most keywords entered will appear at the top.
> Anything else, as you say, defies logic.
Yes, relevance searches is what most of us are used to now, thanks to
Google. Problem is, search engines on stock sites "seem" to work
differently.
> If you were searching for a happy baby, your search might look
> something like this:
> +baby happ laugh smil giggl
Stemming can, unfortunately, also pollute your searches.
David Barr
>Yes, relevance searches is what most of us are used to now, thanks to
>Google. Problem is, search engines on stock sites "seem" to work
>differently.
>> If you were searching for a happy baby, your search might look
>> something like this:
> > +baby happ laugh smil giggl
>Stemming can, unfortunately, also pollute your searches.
>
>Shangara Singh.
I did a search on google for " +baby happ laugh smil giggl under
images " under Google images no results and under google search the
web only 14 results.
On PhotoShelter it brought up 1237 results when you use all terms
required and the same number on the refined search with only one term
required. The results on PhotoShelter brought in baby pictures,
chickens (mine included) and pictures of a motor bike!
On Painet the phrase "+baby happ laugh smil giggl" gets 2748 hits
while the word baby on it's own gets the same 2748 but in a
different order.
All of this leaves me to believe that their has to be a better way to
do a search or create a search function that works in a different
way. Would a busy photoresearcher have the time to go through 2748
hits 32 at a time?
David Barr
--
Photobar Agricultural Stock Photography
Simplify your Search http://www.photobar.com
http://www.stockartistsalliance.com SAA
http://www.cama.org/ CAMA
http://www.nama.org/ NAMA
painet01
You are correct...In a relevance search, all words starting with a
search word entered will appear in the results. The 'pollution' of
the results will be most evident in one-word searches of
common nouns. As David Barr had posted on Monday:
<A search for corn turns up a lot of photographs with the word
<corner and very few pictures of corn."
Corn, being a common word other words (like corner) start with,
is best searched in combination with another descriptive word. A
search for 'corn food', 'corn cob' or 'corn plant' will give more
relevant results. The word 'corner', for example, would likely not
be a keyword, in these cases, and not pollute the results.
Less polution of the search results occurs in searches with two
or more words. Since this is more or less a fact, it should and
will be stated on our site in a prominent position.
many thanks all,
Mark goebel
Painet Inc
--- In STOCK...@yahoogroups.com, "Singh, Shangara"
<forums_002@...> wrote:
>
David Barr
>Less polution of the search results occurs in searches with two
>or more words. Since this is more or less a fact, it should and
>will be stated on our site in a prominent position.
>
>many thanks all,
>
>Mark goebel
>Painet Inc
Hi Mark
It would seem then that a major part of successful keywording is in
training the research person to make the most effective use of the
keywording system.
I don't know how you archive your files at Painet but in PhotoShelter
galleries are created from the main archive and a simple index page
could direct a photo researcher to initiate their search in a
specific gallery rather than searching the whole archive.
David Barr
--
Photobar Agricultural Stock Photography
Simplify your Search http://www.photobar.com
Singh, Shangara
> Less polution of the search results occurs in searches with two
> or more words. Since this is more or less a fact, it should and
> will be stated on our site in a prominent position.
Mark
Yes, that is true generally speaking. However, pollution can also
occur when using two words. To give a rough example, try searching
for Branch Warren on a major stock site.
IMO, categorising would minimise pollution to the point where it's a
non-issue and, unlike web pages, images can be categorised fairly
easily. I'm surprised stock sites don't have options to search by
Category or Unclassified.
Jacques Jangoux
The Alamy Advanced Search has the answer to "fishing sunset".
"With all the words" gives 6459 results.
"With at least one of the words" gives 295352 results.
Jacques Jangoux
In STOCK...@yahoogroups.com, Norman Freelan <normanf@...> wrote:
>
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Stockphoto Seller
Again, the need for standard search protocols for the industry arises. Unless one has a website where individual photo users will be spending a lot of time, don't expect them to make the effort to learn the procedures and idiosyncrasies of your site--or even remember whether or not they should use common Boolean operators. People need to come up with the images they seek as efficiently as possible, not spend their time learning endlessly varying searching techniques. Playing cutesy games with search techniques on one's website only drives clients away and into the arms of the big few conglomerates they know best.
Try out the search engine on www.StockPhotoFinder.com. Not a bad model.
Carl May/BPS
Jacques Jangoux <jan...@interconect.com.br> wrote:
Norman and Fred,
The Alamy Advanced Search has the answer to "fishing sunset".
"With all the words" gives 6459 results.
"With at least one of the words" gives 295352 results.
Jacques Jangoux
In STOCK...@yahoogroups.com, Norman Freelan <normanf@...> wrote:
>
> My only complaint is that there doesn't seem to be a way to narrow
a search. For example, if you search for the term "fishing" you get
1,292 results. If you only wanted fishing images taken at sunset and
search for "fishing sunset", you get 5,251 results. I would have
expected fewer results, not more. The search engine seems to be
returning any image that has *either* of the search terms, rather
than just those images that have both.
>
> Perhaps you could add some sort of "search within results"
function?
>
> -Norman
>
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Jacques Jangoux
I don't think the Alamy advanced search is difficult to use for
someone who does searches every day, but I agree with you that
thousands of results doesn't make life easy for researchers. Alamy
made a small progress recently by reducing the number of accepted
similars to 5 (some photographers used to send 50 or more similars).
It apears they use a photographer ranking system, but it does not
always appear in the results. I hope their new search
engine, "soon??????" to come, will at least place the best (i.e. most
requested, probably) pictures on top. Peter Arnold adopted recently
another strategy: they randomize the searches. So ALL pictures have
the same status. Of course, unlike Alamy, their pictures are edited.
Will it work?
Jacques Jangoux
--- In STOCK...@yahoogroups.com, Stockphoto Seller <bpslistmail@...>
wrote:
>
> Who imagines that photo researchers and other creatives want to look
at thousands of images for a single spec?>
Carl May/BPS
Fred
>
> > Less polution of the search results occurs in searches with two
> > or more words. Since this is more or less a fact, it should and
> > will be stated on our site in a prominent position.
>
> Mark
>
> Yes, that is true generally speaking. However, pollution can also
> occur when using two words. To give a rough example, try searching
> for Branch Warren on a major stock site.
>
> IMO, categorising would minimise pollution to the point where it's
a
> non-issue and, unlike web pages, images can be categorised fairly
> easily. I'm surprised stock sites don't have options to search by
> Category or Unclassified.
Some do, the problem is that more features don't always mean a better
search. Usually the people who develop search algorithms and discuss
them don't give enough thought to how they will actually be used.
Most searchers don't want to have to select a category; some do so it
makes sense to be able to narrow a search by category as an advanced
search option. Putting it on the main search page will only frustrate
most searchers.
Google is the prime example of a company that considers the searcher;
their search is very simple and works well for most people but then
has options to do complex searches.
Searching for stock photography is different of course and most
professional buyers expect and want certain options available at all
times. As well, Getty Images and Corbis are the ones who
have 'trained' buyers up until now so that should be taken into
account, no matter how much you may dislike their search results.
Some factors that should be a main consideration in developing a
search strategy:
1. Is the site general stock photography or highly targeted?
2. How many images are there from which to search? Don't
underestimate this one.
3. How many images are returned?
4. How sophisticated is the average searcher?
Mainly what I hear from people who like to argue this issue is a very
narrow view of how a search should work, and that, in the long run,
may be very limiting to its success.
Fred Voetsch
ACCLAIM IMAGES
http://www.acclaimimages.com/
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Stockphoto Seller
I don't like ranked searches. If you are an agency telling each photographer you will do your best for them, how can you favor one photographer over another? (Alamy is a portal, not an agency, of course, so this comment is not directed at them.) With plenty of experience with its core clients, an edited collection, relatively little overlap among photographers in the agency, and a search engine that hones in on what is requested in the returns it shows, Arnold should do just fine with egalitarian search returns. ....Peter Arnold adopted recently
the same status. Of course, unlike Alamy, their pictures are edited.
Will it work?
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Jacques Jangoux
I also think ranking photographer is unfair; however ranking
photographs is certainly good for the agency, and may encourage
photographers to present only good work and edit tightly. I may help
a beginning photographer who has many ordinary photographs (in the
case of Alamy, not in an edited collection, of course) and one or
two good ones to see the good ones appear toward the top of
searches. It will tell him - and all of us - what sells and what
doesn't.
Jacques Jangoux
--- In STOCK...@yahoogroups.com, Stockphoto Seller
<bpslistmail@...> wrote:
>
> Jacques,
>
> I don't like ranked searches.
>
> Carl May/BPS
Brian Grant
>
> My only complaint is that there doesn't seem to be a way to narrow a
search. For example, if you search for the term "fishing" you get
1,292 results. If you only wanted fishing images taken at sunset and
search for "fishing sunset", you get 5,251 results. I would have
expected fewer results, not more. The search engine seems to be
returning any image that has *either* of the search terms, rather than
just those images that have both.
>
> Perhaps you could add some sort of "search within results" function?
>
> -Norman
>
with two keywords but, you should see the images with both sunset and
fishing before those with only sunset or fishing.
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Fred
> with two keywords but, you should see the images with both sunset and
> fishing before those with only sunset or fishing.
>
I agree that you should get more results with more words but we are
finding that that is not the expectation with those who purchase the
most images. They don't want their time wasted sifting through loose
matches.
Feedbak says they want more specific results rather than more inclusive
results. We've come up with a unique way of handling this and we'll see
how it works: we are going to identify those images that were an exact
match (they come up first) and then identify those images that match
the most words and then so on until there is only a single word matched.
This should be the best of both worlds since they will have all the
images; the best first; and the ability to easily identify which are
which.
We're also finding that image searchers are well trained in how they
find images and we are not about to insist they do it our way.
Fred Voetsch
Acclaim Stock Photography
http://www.acclaimimages.com/
Ei Katsumata
> Actually, a good search algorithm would be expected to produce more
> with two keywords but, you should see the images with both sunset and
> fishing before those with only sunset or fishing.
>
Please provide some examples of sites with good search algorithms that
return more results as search terms are added.
Google narrows search results with additional search terms. As do
Yahoo!, MSN, and Ask.com. And to keep things on-topic, Getty, Corbis,
Jupiter, Alamy, and Masterfile all do the same.
Ei Katsumata
Ei Katsumata
> match (they come up first) and then identify those images that match
> the most words and then so on until there is only a single word
matched.
Fred,
Perhaps it would also be beneficial if exact phrase matches were to
come up first. For example, if a researcher searches for 'colorado
river,' images of the Colorado River should come up before images of
other rivers in Colorado.
Ei Katsumata
nfreelan
> > with two keywords but, you should see the images with both sunset and
> > fishing before those with only sunset or fishing.
> >
>
> I agree that you should get more results with more words but we are
> finding that that is not the expectation with those who purchase the
> most images. They don't want their time wasted sifting through loose
> matches.
>
> Feedbak says they want more specific results rather than more inclusive
> results. We've come up with a unique way of handling this and we'll see
> how it works: we are going to identify those images that were an exact
> match (they come up first) and then identify those images that match
> the most words and then so on until there is only a single word matched.
>
> This should be the best of both worlds since they will have all the
> images; the best first; and the ability to easily identify which are
> which.
>
> We're also finding that image searchers are well trained in how they
> find images and we are not about to insist they do it our way.
>
> Fred Voetsch
> Acclaim Stock Photography
> http://www.acclaimimages.com/
>
Not to be contrary, but I think if I were a researcher, I'd still find
this frustrating. My first keyword returns 100 results, but then I add
a second keyword to narrow my selection and I end up with 500 results?
How am I, as a researcher, supposed to know which images match all my
criteria and which only match the first word, or only the second word,
etc.? If the second, supposedly more focused, search returned more
results than the first, I think a photo reseacher would be more likely
just give up and search elsewhere -- especially if they were used to
searching a specific way.
Of course, if Corbis, Getty, et al., work the same way, then maybe
you're on the right path.
-Norman
Fred
Read my previous post. Trying to be like Getty when you have 1,000
images and they have 25,000,000 is rather foolish.
And do a search for "cat" and then "black cat". What the extra word
does is return better results up front and THEN provide additional
results based on the single words.
Images keyworded properly will return first because they will have
the exact match and not just the 2 words separatly.
SO now let's say you have do a search for a "woman lying in bed" and
you get a few of those but you also notice a photo of a woman lying
on the beach that is just perfect even though you hadn't considered
using such an image. hmmm....
Reality often prevails over logic and "common sense".
But your comment:
"How am I, as a researcher, supposed to know which images match all
my criteria and which only match the first word, or only the second
word,"
...is a good one and nobody, to my knowledge, makes this distinction.
They just either include the images or drop them off. Providing that
information and including the images may be the best way to handle it.
Fred Voetsch
ACCLAIM IMAGES
http://www.acclaimimages.com/
Angie
Okay, remember YOU ASKED FOR IT, so here's my two cents. (Uh oh) I
have noticed that when a specific search is initiated, such
as 'people', there seems to have been the same select group of images
that come first, for months. Maybe you have ranked these higher and
put them first for quality reasons, but my feeling is that it would
be nice if you could mix things up a bit more, so it doesn't look
like the same old stuff for visitors that come back often.
Also, when I peruse the new uploads page, I occaisionally see someone
who has uploaded a zillion pictures of the same subject, with very
little variation. While I am a firm believer of getting a
horizontal, vertical and room for text version of the same subject
when possible, sometimes I see some big time overkill there, and that
could be a turn off for clients who see half a page of the same
thing, maybe a concept that isn't that great to begin with.
I used to work for a modeling agency and advise beginners on
developing their portfolios. The girls would come in with 200
pictures of them in the same outfit and it was my task to find the
One Picture that was The Best and would sell their talents, so maybe
I am too strict of an editor for my own good. But to me it gives an
amateur appearance if you have too many of the same idea.
For example, search the word 'fashion' and on the 3rd or 4th page you
will see over 40 pictures of the same model in a turqoise top on a
stairway. While these are nice, they are essentially the same
picture -- 2 or 3 of these should cover it. I am not meaning to pick
on any artist, I am just saying that relaxed editing standards aren't
helpful to anyone. If I came to your site for the first time and saw
this, it would send me away. (Sorry, you asked me to be honest).
On one hand it is really nice that you guys don't have a big brother
complex and edit the heck out of everything that is uploaded. So
there must be a happy medium somewhere.
Bear in mind, I love Acclaim and have very little problems with
anything. : ) YOu guys are all GREAT!
You may have noticed that I have been doing a spring clean of my own
images (yes, my number of images is going down temporarily, not up),
because I am trying to edit my work very tightly to give the best
impression that I can. So I am not just being critical of the site
as a whole, I am trying to be more critical with my own work, too.
--- In STOCK...@yahoogroups.com, "Fred" <freddyv@...> wrote:
>
> --- In STOCK...@yahoogroups.com, "jamievoetsch" <jamie@> wrote:
> >
> > If you went to a stock photography site and couldn't figure out
how
> to
> > use it, how to price an image, how to put it into the lightbox,
or
> even
> > out to purchase it, what would you think?
> >
> > Would you bother purchasing from the site? Would you want to call
> > customer service? Would you just say "forget it" and try a
> different
> > site?
>
>
> As an agency owner I know I would want the feedback. In fact, one
of
> the best things I ever did for my site was to ask the fine folks
here
> to rip my site a new one a few years ago; I received many
suggestions
> and almost all of them good.
>
> Since you work for my agency I will assume that this is the site to
> which you are referring and feel it is not all it should be.
> Therefore I think we should ask the good folks of the stock photo
> group to take a few minutes and see if they can come up with any
> suggestions. The url is
> http://www.acclaimimages.com/
>
> Some other things that would be nice to have feedback on:
>
> 1. Quality of the images.
>
> 2. Quality of the search results.
>
> 3. Speed of the search results.
>
> 4. Flexibilty of the search engine.
>
> Of course, any feedback will be welcome. And don't try to be nice;
> honesty is always the best policy.
>
> Fred Voetsch
> ACCLAIM IMAGES
>
Fred
wrote:
>
> --- In STOCK...@yahoogroups.com, "Fred" <freddyv@> wrote:
> >
> > we are going to identify those images that were an exact
> > match (they come up first) and then identify those images that
match
> > the most words and then so on until there is only a single word
> matched.
>
> Fred,
>
> Perhaps it would also be beneficial if exact phrase matches were to
> come up first. For example, if a researcher searches for 'colorado
> river,' images of the Colorado River should come up before images
of
Well of course, we have always done that. But it goes back to what I
said before about the difference between Acclaim Images or a
photographer's site and Getty Images or Corbis: they will have a
couple pages full of images for "girl on beach with ball" while we
might have 4 and the individual photographer will probably have none.
In that case a loose match at least provides options and makes more
sense. Assuming that there is one solution that works for all parties
involved is a bad assumption, IMO.
Imagine for a second that someone were looking for "girl on beach
with ball" and your search returned a photo of a girl on the beach
with a kite and the buyer was inspired by that and ended up using the
photo.
Which will make them more frustrated: 20 images that are loosly
related to the search or no results at all? Which has the best chance
of making a sale? One has no chance, the other has a decent chance.
IMO this is why most startup businesses fail: lack of flexibilty.
Having a plan is good but unless that plan is dead on - and it's
probably based on a larger company so there will be serious flaws in
it for a small company - it will fail unless there's a lot of money
behind it.
Take the restrictive approach if you like but I have generated many a
sale over the past 3-4 years that have allowed me to get to the point
where I now have my foot in the door of some of the largest image
buyers in the world. Most of those were generated by doing a lot with
a little...I can't wait until I have a lot to work with. :-)
Fred Voetsch
Acclaim Stock Photography
http://www.acclaimimages.com/
Jim Hargan
>
> But your comment:
> "How am I, as a researcher, supposed to know which images match all
> my criteria and which only match the first word, or only the second
> word,"
>
> ...is a good one and nobody, to my knowledge, makes this distinction.
> They just either include the images or drop them off. Providing that
> information and including the images may be the best way to handle it.
>
> Fred Voetsch
> ACCLAIM IMAGES
> http://www.acclaimimages.com
Personally, I think this would be a very useful addition, and very easy
to program. You might start a trend!
Jim Hargan
yanoelo77
Sorry, I have contributed many few times because of my bad english.
First, I agree with Angie about the redundancy of the same image, not only at Acclaim, this
is a general ssituation and the first responsable of this is the photographer, that have to
educate himself all the time, looking, searching, evaluating. We have to wake up at the
news, tendency, improvement as a constant working method. The agency on other side
have to improve the guidelines and a more direct human contact with contributors.
I have worked all my 17 years Amazon Stock on local markets and direct client contacts,
and this have been my only job, I live by photography.
Now, I have changed my style of life, I have transfered my job administration at the field, I
live in the forest with a expensive satellite conection. In the other side I have reduced the
normal city expensive life at zero, with many many more time to educate myself and
improve my profession.
This mean that in the last year I have searched for more internet markets: I have send the
first submission to Alamy, I have pictures at Photographer Direct, at myLoupe, Acclaim is
not accepting submissions at this time.
At this time I am sending a more representative submission to Alamy (around 100
photographs) and I have to said that is a very hours consuming time, from raw file to
"revelation", intermediate, captioning, keywording, checking, correcting, checking again...
Revelation and keywording is an always very challenging independent-of-experienced task
because I have to keep in mind that each photograph is unique and require especial
attention. Each photograph is a world that I have to discover, analize, compare...
If before I was preparing pictures on-demand, now I have the challenge to keep my
database updated, conserve, reproduce and improve. This is truth for keywording, I have
tested different methods, like Photoshop, Bridge, iView, Image Info Toolkit, Portfolio,
Keyword_Compiler... no one answered my questions, always one have some features and
no others... and I go to Filemaker, that is a world of very rich possibilities... I am not
scripting yet... with scripting became a world of infinity possibility.
A great feature that I have is to save special caption and keywords (associated to the
image): saved keywords for Alamy, for myLoupe, for PhotographerDirect, for my own site,
for others special uses, in english, in portuguese, in spanish. At a look, I know the image
usage, the sales. If I need some new features, I program, I can modify the software.
This mean, I am completely free, the only limit is my skill...
Good, if somebody are interested I can share, the database itself is very specialized to my
own use, part in english, part in portuguese, some unespecified buttons. But it have
speeded my work and stored my precious informations...
Cheers, Leo
Amazon Stock Photography
Photographs by Leonide Principe
http://www.leonideprincipe.com/
E-mail: l...@leonideprincipe.com
painet01
> >
> > But your comment:
> > "How am I, as a researcher, supposed to know which
images match all
> > my criteria and which only match the first word, or only the
second
> > word,"
> >
> > ...is a good one and nobody, to my knowledge, makes this
distinction.
> > They just either include the images or drop them off.
Providing that
> > information and including the images may be the best way to
handle it.
**********
We make this distinction...for example, if someone were to
search for 'yosemite national park dogwood' on our site, they
would find one (1) result which matches all their keywords.
These keywords are highlighted in the results. Images with
fewer keywords also have their matching keywords highlighted.
This gives the user the flexibilty of selecting another 'dogwood'
image which does not contain the keywords 'yosemite national
park'. See example:
http://www.painetworks.com/cgi-bin/searchlocal.cgi?find=yosemi
te+national+park+dogwood
**********
Fred Voetsch wrote:
<....goes back to what I
********
Fred, you have, so to speak, put the cork on this discussion. We
call this the 'relevance' search and we agree this gives the user
the widest latitude for image selection.
mark goebel
painetworks.com