Alamy Reviews

What a scam! Rude staff! They are claiming to sell images that are full resolution. Let's say, for example, an image that is 5,000 pixels, 12 megabytes in size.

After purchase, navigating to downloads, the file that downloads is a super tiny compressed image, nowhere even close to the quality they claim! Then they will send you a disclaimer saying, "just open it in photoshop and blow it up bigger until it matches the file size that we claimed we sold you" BUT ITS NOT! This is. SCAM!! You cannot blow up a jpg from 300 pixels to 5,000 pixels, it's just the same low-quality image!

When you ask them where are the high-quality images I overpaid good money for, they BLOCK YOU AND IGNORE YOU.

What a joke
They refuse to refund my money because it has passed the 14 day period and no delivery
Cowboys and rogues
Money stealing gits, robbers

The people managing this website are completely stupid and racist, like everyone else in this hell of a country called England. Country of pirates and thieves!

TL;DR: the quality of the image I downloaded is not nearly as good as could be expected based on the information provided.

Alamy delivers images as "compressed downloads" (e.g. 1 MB) - this is not specified further before sale. The website states that one can decompress the image to full size (e.g. 25 MB) using software such as Photoshop.

Only after the sale one finds out that Alamy only offers .jpeg-files for download. The problem is that jpeg-compression is a one-way process: whatever information gets lost during compression can never be retrieved. Opening in Photoshop does not retrieve any more information. Alamy sells a 1 MB image as a 25 MB image.

In short: I find the information on image properties and file size (hence quality) to be bordering on misleading.

As I photographer, I started with Dreamstime, added ShutterStock that recently committed suicide.

Kept only Dreamstime, Adobe Stock, and tried Alamy for editorials.

8 pictures sold, they collected $224, and paid 38$ ROFL. One day, I wanna do nothing, and collect money.

Alamy still paid more per picture than others. If someone steals your pics, as happened to me once...no pic stock company will do anything anyway.

If you wanna be a successful "phototographer", you have to shoot lots of popular crap that is in demand/easy to sell.

You will be rewarded for quantity of crap - sadly, that is where we got in last 40 years ever since every kid can buy camera, and is great "photographer".

For some unknown reason, people love to only destroy the nature instead of be mesmerised by its beauty.

AVOID, DON'T USE THESE PEOPLE FOR YOUR BUSINESS.

They will contact your clients whom you have licensed an Alamy photo for and accuse them of theft of the images and demand an exorbitant amount of money from them without even being reasonable or simply asking for the licence proof.

Customers end up calling non stop in a panic and accusing you of theft of images when in reality it's all licenced.

They use heavy handed tactics from the outset and will rattle any customer you have regardless of whether the image is licenced.

These people will cause you serious problems, avoid this company at all costs if you care about your business.

I ordered what I thought was the actual product for 49.99 sterling only to discover it was for a photo.... It was an order for medicine. I'm disgusted by this practice, now they will not answer my emails.
Do not use them.
Janne Kerr

Very misleading when it comes to usage rights....would not ever use again!!!! (if there was no star option I would click this.)

Alamy rely on inexperienced user making slipping up so they can cash in with VERY aggressive legal tactics!

If you have a camera just take you own images and don’t bother with Alamy!...if you need stock images go elsewhere and really make sure you fully understand what licence is being sold if it expires etc...one wrong move there won’t be a warning just VERY aggressive legal tactics!!!

Hello everyone, I was robbed, don't buy here, I paid for an image 69.99 and I couldn't use it, because the licenses are very limited and expensive compared to other sites.
I found another site that sells you $5 per image with unlimited lifetime licenses. You can use it anywhere. Run before you lose your money.

Very misleading when it comes to usage rights... would not ever use again! (if there was no star option I would click this.)

Alamy rely on inexperienced user making slipping up so they can cash in with VERY aggressive legal tactics!

If you have a camera just take you own images and don't bother with Alamy!... if you need stock images go elsewhere and really make sure you fully understand what licence is being sold if it expires etc... one wrong move there won't be a warning just VERY aggressive legal tactics!

I ordered one of their products on 10/12/21.
Payment taken and order confirmed and received no confirmation and product, 1 month later....Nothing
Then after 2 Emails i received an email on 10/1/22 from
Fazil in the finance team assuring me my refund is being actioned. Now after 2 more emails no refund and no reply. I'm so glad i done an initial small purchase as i did have intentions of placing much bigger orders.
I've give up now and hope other customers learn by my example. Waste of time and money ?

I am an Alamy contributor... Was... Until today!
I tried to upload images taken with an iPhone and point-and-shoot camera, but they wrote me: "Digital camera not suitable for Alamy", and told me to use a DSLR with at least 17 megapixel sensor instead, and froze my account for 3 days.
So I purchased a 24.1 megapixel Canon EOS 2000D. When I uploaded some images, they told me that the images are too SMALL, and told me to use at least 30 megapixel DSLR, and FROZE my account AGAIN! For 6 days.
That is why I purchased a new 32.5 megapixel Canon EOS 90D. After that, uploaded an image, and they told me that the image is too BIG, and I should use a DSLR with at 24 megapixel instead... And FROZE my account AGAIN! For 10 days!
It is a serious waste of time and loss of money. I do not recommend them at all!

these tw@ts are sensitive to criticism. it's a good site to get sales on if your photography skills are decent and you have the photos that people want, however, some of their clients are other british companies, and the English, they pay bad, like pennies for a photo if they can get away with it. cxnts like theculturetrip, twistedfood, even the the guardian newspaper, these aholes pay really bad like a few pennies for photos that other clients would pay $$$ on.

A ton of rules and confusion loading and tagging and then they don't pay the photographer once a picture is purchased. I have a thousand pictures online and 3 have sold for a measly 15.00 and they will not pay out for this in over 3 years because you have to make a specified amount before they let go of your money and hold on to all of your photos that they sell for pennies. It is a truely shameful experience.

I don't have very many images with Alamy but noticed one of my images was sold yet I show no sales. There's some flimsy verbiage on their FAQs about having to wait on the customer to get the funds. And it can take up to 3 months! Do they really ever pay out? I am skeptical. Who can investigate whether or not they're fraudulent?