Captions and tags

Q. I’ve annotated my images and I can’t find them on your site yet, where are they?
A. If you’ve added captions and tags today, they’ll be online tomorrow once the search engine has updated, this usually happens every 24 hours.

Q. My images say ‘Poor discoverability, how do I improve?
A. The more searchable information you enter the more ‘discoverable’ your image will become. i.e. tags, supertags & completing optional information. The discoverability bar isn’t reading the quality of your metadata, it just increases with the volume of searchable information you enter. You don’t have to optimize all your images, there will be some that don’t require the full quota of tags etc.

Q. I have all my tags in a spreadsheet, can I send it to you to add to my images?
A. Yes, no problem. Just send them to our Image Management team at im@alamy.com with your account details and we’ll apply the metadata for you.

Q. Can I add captions and tags in my IPTC?
A. Yes, we can extract information on caption, keyword and date taken. If you have this information in your IPTC the images will be ready for sale as soon as you’ve uploaded, you don’t need to add anything extra in Alamy Image Manager. For more information on what fields to fill in check out our cheat sheets for Photoshop and Lightroom

Q. Can I caption my images in another language (apart from English)?
A. No, although we license images with captions in multiple languages you should only caption them in English. We’ll translate them into other languages using a machine translation system. If you add your own translations it could confuse the system and lead to your images being demoted in the search results.

Q. I don’t have time to annotate my images. Can you recommend any good keywording companies?
A. We’ve put together a list of recommended keywording companies. If you mention you’re an Alamy contributor, they often give discounts.

Q. Does Alamy caption and tag my images for me?
A. No, that’s not a service we offer and you know your images better than us. If you have a large amount of images with your keywords on a spreadsheet you can send that to us and we’ll apply the information for you.