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For those of you who are new to selling your photographs, be very aware that they should be correctly tagged. The tags are the things which help picture editors find your photo quickly amongst the many photos in one topic area. If you can spend the time tagging correctly, efficiently and extensively, then there is more chance that your photo will get found.
Whenever we upload stories, too often we are excited about the images we have shot and perhaps forget about or neglect the section on "subject tags" or "concept tags", wanting only to send off the story and see it published!
Think of tags as key words which describe your images, think of how you search for things yourself on the internet, all the different ways to describe the same item or image. Be creative.
In the long run, time spent putting key words and tags to your stories, is time well spent. There are even free keyword engines on the internet that do the job for you!
Believe me, its those tags which help you sell!
Best wishes to all my friends in this ever growing community.
forestmat
(Bangkok, Thailand)
Matt makes an important point. Does anyone else have any tips for tagging their work?
Would be great if Demotix could import keywords (tags) from embedded metadata in images...
Nir
Jerusalem
Nir Alon
Jerusalem
http://ImagesOfMyThoughts.com
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Images-Of-My-Thoughts-com/141523159234806
Nir - I think Demotix has come to the conclusion that you are right. The stripping of meta-data had honest intentions - to protect reporters in repressive regimes. Experience has shown that there are other ways of protecting these people, and meta-data is not the critical area.
So what fields would you like preserved? To start, IPTC Caption and Keywords fields would be useful to import. What others?
Regarding tagging and keywords, I think it is important to seperate the two, i.e. within the story as a whole - a field for "keywords" that descibe the entire story and then a seperate field for EACH photo for "tagging" to describe the specifics of each photo. If I had to choose only one option it would be the individual tagging of images (with an option to copy tags to all images).
Regarding meta-data, simple metadata use should be the date and more importantly the time should be automatically populated to each image (with the option of correcting), often you can spend many hours at an event such as a protest and a single T.O.D does not represent all the images uploaded, options contained with in a users settings page could allow users to only use certin meta-data and strip the rest.
As Andy pointed out above "The stripping of meta-data had honest intentions - to protect reporters in repressive regimes" maybe a option for users to opt-out could be added to a demotix users settings page to allow stripping of such data if the user feels safer doing so, those users are a very important part of Demotix and opting out of such "services" should be allowed.
Looking further ahead and a biggie on the wish list would be an offline tool for composing stories ready for uploading when internet access becomes available.
Hi,
Demotix is great and they do a nice job.
The only pitty thing is that i need to write tags / iptc stuff two times.
I'm using the PhotoMechanic software for my IPTC stuff because it's fast etc etc so it's pitty that when we have up-loaded our pictures ... those embed IPTC data (so which already hang on the picture) is loosing. It could be cool that those IPTC data automaticly will transfer to our Demotix Up-Load.
It's just a time-saving thing.
I would like some advice regarding tagging.
If I am submitting an article, say, on the Iraq Inquiry, is it better to tag "Iraq, Inquiry, War" or "Iraq Inquiry, Iraq War" or "Iraq Inquiry, Iraq War, Inquiry, War"?
Also:
Do capital's make a difference? For example is "War" distinct form "war"? Or are searches case-insensitive?
Is it necessary to add the plural version of a word where it's likely that either, or both, may be searched for? For example, would "demonstrator" suffice or would it be better to add the plural as well -- "demonstrator", demonstrators" (assuming there is more than one person in the picture of course). I ask as some stock sites say not to include plurals as their search engines automatically look for plural forms of any search words entered.
I'm assuming it's wise to include alternative spellings where they exist: ("protester, protestor" for example) or both the English and American English spellings if they differ ("colour, color" for want of a better example).
www.docphoto.co.uk
Hi Graeme,
well seeing as I started the topic, let me tell you what I would do...
Using your example, I would tag:Iraq, Inquiry, War,colour image,2010(although this depends on when you shot the photo),investigation,investigate,Iraq war,court,verdict,jury.....etc
I would also add the US spelling if you are reporting from the US or on a US topic.
Basically add as much as you can which you think might accurately describe your images.
Welcome to this ever growing community!
Best from Bangkok
Matthew
