Cloud image management options

[mapleshots]

I'm currently paying around $50 a month for a custom Lightroom/Photoshop plan that gives me enough cloud space (3TB) for a catalog of over 100,000 photos and growing.

I'm finding this cost a bit steep as I mostly do photography for fun (though I have the occasional sale or gig).

What I love about Lightroom is the ability to access all my photos on demand on both my mobile and laptop/desktop. However, I'd prefer a one-time purchase program (like Capture One) that I can connect to a cloud service.

So I guess I'm looking for two recommendations:

1. A program that is comparable to Lightroom but is not subscription-based. It should integrate reasonably well with cloud services.
2. A cloud service to store a large amount of RAW, JPEG (and ideally movies) for a more reasonable fee like $10 or $20 a month.

I would prefer a service that doesn't strip information from the files either in terms of downsampling or getting rid of EXIF information.

 

[jrp50635]

Amazon Prime?

 

[ishwanu]

What I love about Lightroom is the ability to access all my photos on demand on both my mobile and laptop/desktop. However, I'd prefer a one-time purchase program (like Capture One) that I can connect to a cloud service.

So I guess I'm looking for two recommendations:

1. A program that is comparable to Lightroom but is not subscription-based. It should integrate reasonably well with cloud services.
2. A cloud service to store a large amount of RAW, JPEG (and ideally movies) for a more reasonable fee like $10 or $20 a month.

I would prefer a service that doesn't strip information from the files either in terms of downsampling or getting rid of EXIF information.

Google Photos will store exact duplicates of your files, but the largest capacity I see is 2TB for $20 a month. I'm not sure if that's enough or if it would save you much money overall.

Another complication is that there is no good way to duplicate your folder and file structure in Google Photos. That's true of Amazon's offerings too, I think. Microsoft's OneDrive can possibly do it, but I believe it will only work if the OneDrive folder itself is on a locally attached drive, not a network drive. In order for OneDrive to see and successfully copy folders and files that are actually on the network drive, the local OneDrive folder must have free space that's at least equal to the space occupied by the folders and files on the network drive. These limitations make all three options problematic for me.

 

[TomV1]

What I love about Lightroom is the ability to access all my photos on demand on both my mobile and laptop/desktop. However, I'd prefer a one-time purchase program (like Capture One) that I can connect to a cloud service.

So I guess I'm looking for two recommendations:

1. A program that is comparable to Lightroom but is not subscription-based. It should integrate reasonably well with cloud services.
2. A cloud service to store a large amount of RAW, JPEG (and ideally movies) for a more reasonable fee like $10 or $20 a month.

I would prefer a service that doesn't strip information from the files either in terms of downsampling or getting rid of EXIF information.

Google Photos will store exact duplicates of your files, but the largest capacity I see is 2TB for $20 a month. I'm not sure if that's enough or if it would save you much money overall.

Another complication is that there is no good way to duplicate your folder and file structure in Google Photos. That's true of Amazon's offerings too, I think. Microsoft's OneDrive can possibly do it, but I believe it will only work if the OneDrive folder itself is on a locally attached drive, not a network drive. In order for OneDrive to see and successfully copy folders and files that are actually on the network drive, the local OneDrive folder must have free space that's at least equal to the space occupied by the folders and files on the network drive. These limitations make all three options problematic for me.

The file structure not being maintained was an issue for me as well. I decided to create a NAS at home and now can access my photos remotely and remember where they are located within my folder structure. It is a one-time setup cost and I can backup a lot of other files and C drive too. My PC can be off as well for security purposes.

I stuffed my Synology unit with 2 14TB drives I bought for $130 each.

If you do not need off-site storage that is accessible remotely then this is a cost-effective approach. I am contemplating creating a similar box at one of my kids' homes so I do have an off-site backup. They can use my box for theirs too.

 

[TorsteinH]

I'm currently paying around $50 a month for a custom Lightroom/Photoshop plan that gives me enough cloud space (3TB) for a catalog of over 100,000 photos and growing.

I'm finding this cost a bit steep as I mostly do photography for fun (though I have the occasional sale or gig).

What I love about Lightroom is the ability to access all my photos on demand on both my mobile and laptop/desktop. However, I'd prefer a one-time purchase program (like Capture One) that I can connect to a cloud service.

So I guess I'm looking for two recommendations:

1. A program that is comparable to Lightroom but is not subscription-based. It should integrate reasonably well with cloud services.
2. A cloud service to store a large amount of RAW, JPEG (and ideally movies) for a more reasonable fee like $10 or $20 a month.

I would prefer a service that doesn't strip information from the files either in terms of downsampling or getting rid of EXIF information.

I use Cloud Backup and Storage solutions for home and business - IDrive® for backup. Of course, it's not integrated with LR or anything, but I hope it's a safe space for my files....

 

[ishwanu]

What I love about Lightroom is the ability to access all my photos on demand on both my mobile and laptop/desktop. However, I'd prefer a one-time purchase program (like Capture One) that I can connect to a cloud service.

So I guess I'm looking for two recommendations:

1. A program that is comparable to Lightroom but is not subscription-based. It should integrate reasonably well with cloud services.
2. A cloud service to store a large amount of RAW, JPEG (and ideally movies) for a more reasonable fee like $10 or $20 a month.

I would prefer a service that doesn't strip information from the files either in terms of downsampling or getting rid of EXIF information.

Google Photos will store exact duplicates of your files, but the largest capacity I see is 2TB for $20 a month. I'm not sure if that's enough or if it would save you much money overall.

Another complication is that there is no good way to duplicate your folder and file structure in Google Photos. That's true of Amazon's offerings too, I think. Microsoft's OneDrive can possibly do it, but I believe it will only work if the OneDrive folder itself is on a locally attached drive, not a network drive. In order for OneDrive to see and successfully copy folders and files that are actually on the network drive, the local OneDrive folder must have free space that's at least equal to the space occupied by the folders and files on the network drive. These limitations make all three options problematic for me.

The file structure not being maintained was an issue for me as well. I decided to create a NAS at home and now can access my photos remotely and remember where they are located within my folder structure. It is a one-time setup cost and I can backup a lot of other files and C drive too. My PC can be off as well for security purposes.

I stuffed my Synology unit with 2 14TB drives I bought for $130 each.

If you do not need off-site storage that is accessible remotely then this is a cost-effective approach. I am contemplating creating a similar box at one of my kids' homes so I do have an off-site backup. They can use my box for theirs too.

Well, the network storage I was was talking about is my NAS, where my photos and many other important things are stored. I've been doing it that way for more than a decade. Exposing my NAS to the Internet is not appealing to me and wouldn't be of much use for my purposes anyway. I maintain backups on removable drives, but I would still like a reliable cloud storage option in which I can duplicate a very large collection of data with the folder and file structure maintained. So far, I haven't identified one other than OneDrive (with its associated caveats).

 

[Ab S]

As a cloud service i use simply Google Drive. It conserve your file structure and has a basic search function on file names. Sychronizes to all my computers and Phone.

 

[mapleshots]

Which photo cataloging app do you use with it?

 

[Cristir]

I have a Synology NAS.

The NAS in syncronizing (CloudSync NAS app) the main raw library with OneDrive Cloud Service. So far so good. I also backup the main library on an offline drive periodicaly.

Also, I use SynologyCloud app on the computers and mobile phone which syncs with the NAS but I'm not syncronizing the main archive, just the library database locally (lightroom). This is a little bit risky because the main lightroom database is rather large and it takes time to sync between the cloud clients after usage. I intended to use this method so I can edit on each computer cloudsynced to the NAS but it's not reliable so I mainly edit on one computer these days. Also Adobe's licensing limitation (2 computers) makes this rather pointless.

The drawback with my approach is that I'm editing my raw files stored on the NAS and not locally, which means it's slower. That's OK for me because I'm editing 100 photos at most per session. For someone who's editing thousands of photos at a time you'll have to sync the main library locally as well (with SynologyCloud). Or at least a yearly library which is then merged with the main one.

 

[Ab S]

Which photo cataloging app do you use with it?

DxO PL7 Elite, because it follows the Windows file system..

 

[Greg Edwards]

Are you using Lightroom Classic (LrC) or the newer Lightroom Ecosystem (LR)? And do you need to keep the original raw's in the cloud?

With LrC, you can replace the raws in the cloud with smart previews. You can edit and sync these on any device and changes will propagate back to the original raw's when you use LrC on your main machine.

The great thing with smart previews is that they don't count towards your cloud storage allocation, so you can sync as many as you like. Many of use use the basic 20GB plan to sync our entire libraries this way.

 

[ishwanu]

As a cloud service i use simply Google Drive. It conserve your file structure and has a basic search function on file names. Sychronizes to all my computers and Phone.

Can you easily restore the whole collection or selectively restore a specific subfolder, or a specific group of files? One defect in the way Drive works is that image files in Drive are not seen or available in Photos unless you copy them there, and those copies count against your storage quota.

Add photos & videos from Google Drive to Google Photos - Google Drive Help

To organize your photos and videos across services, you can add photos from Google Drive to Google Photos. Before you get started The photo must be larger than 256 pixels. The file type m

support.google.com

 

[Ab S]

As a cloud service i use simply Google Drive. It conserve your file structure and has a basic search function on file names. Sychronizes to all my computers and Phone.

Can you easily restore the whole collection or selectively restore a specific subfolder, or a specific group of files? One defect in the way Drive works is that image files in Drive are not seen or available in Photos unless you copy them there, and those copies count against your storage quota.

https://support.google.com/drive/answer/6156103

Indeed, a big disadvantage of Drive is that is completely independent of Photos! Thus, no AI based subject recognition and searches. But for storage of folders or (if you want) single image it is okay.

 

[Ab S]

Btw and a bit off topic: does there exist AI search programs for images stored in a Windows folder/file structure?

 

[ishwanu]

Btw and a bit off topic: does there exist AI search programs for images stored in a Windows folder/file structure?

There are several apps for AI keywording and searching: IMatch, Excire, ACDSee Photo Studio (Ultimate or Professional) ... even ON1 Photo RAW has a rudimentary AI keywording option.

 

[Ab S]

Btw and a bit off topic: does there exist AI search programs for images stored in a Windows folder/file structure?

There are several apps for AI keywording and searching: IMatch, Excire, ACDSee Photo Studio (Ultimate or Professional) ... even ON1 Photo RAW has a rudimentary AI keywording option.

Thanks! What i actually mean is if these apps do subject recognition on images, e.g recognizing repeatedly the same face once you have pointed to a certain face. Or, give a key word like "cat" and the software will give you all the images with a cat, etc.

 

[ishwanu]

Btw and a bit off topic: does there exist AI search programs for images stored in a Windows folder/file structure?

There are several apps for AI keywording and searching: IMatch, Excire, ACDSee Photo Studio (Ultimate or Professional) ... even ON1 Photo RAW has a rudimentary AI keywording option.

Thanks! What i actually mean is if these apps do subject recognition on images, e.g recognizing repeatedly the same face once you have pointed to a certain face.

Some do. Some don't, and can only tell you that people are in a photo but can't identify them. Photo RAW is one that can't.

Or, give a key word like "cat" and the software will give you all the images with a cat, etc.

All would have basic functionality like that. From the Photo RAW user manual:

Photo RAW will perform basic keyword scanning, including the folder name, photographic properties, primary areas in a photo, and some subject-based object detection (people, animals, cars, etc.)

 

[Ab S]

Thanks for the reply, i will have a look at the various apps you refer to..