All reviews of PhotoShelter for Brands

Benefits:

Photoshelter has a great navigation structure that enables you to easily sort, navigate, and find the exact assets you're looking for. We can customize how we archive our photos, which is a huge help. The search function has numerous options that allow you to be as broad or specific as you desire. Additionally, the capabilities to limit who can see which photo sets and to track who downloads what provides brand security.

Drawbacks:

Preview images can take a while to load, although I'm not sure if that originates on with our IT infrastructure of Photoshelter's. Additionally, unless you are using an iMac, the metadata and gallery panels take up a substantial portion of your screen, limiting how many photos you can view at a time.

Benefits:

The ease of use, the built in FTP and the ability to access anywhere. Being a cloud based system makes it easy for us to transmit, archive or access from anywhere.

Drawbacks:

I don't have any thing that I don't like about this product. The cost is high, but everything that comes packaged into the product proves that the robust design has been well thought out from the user interface to the admin interface. Libris is build for the professional on the move.

In sum:

The FTP service is my favorite hidden gem to the Libris. Being able to customize the archive and set up search and gallery perimeters for different users is great.

Benefits:

Searchable tagged photos We are able to share photos quickly with internal and external partners Like being able to customize folders for particular job requests

Drawbacks:

The Libris connector really does not give our designers the easy access tools necessary for working with InDesign at a reasonable price. They are having to download the images first and use Adobe Bridge to connect. It also does not allow designers to drag and drop images when they just want to see how something might look in a quick and easy format unlike other programs.

In sum:

We are now able to search edited images through tagged information and able to share and present images in an organized format.

Benefits:

Great option for photo storage! easy to use and easy to allow different users different access levels with photo albums.

Drawbacks:

Uploading and tagging of photos can take some time, it is not easy to do all at once but rather you have to go back and tag

In sum:

Great for sharing photos within an organization! !

Benefits:

Tagging and importing is easy. Setting permissions for groups is helpful and the interface is mostly intuitive and useful. Getting our archive in front of eyeballs is easier now.

Drawbacks:

Users are unable to bulk download images. We're a unique case use in which we own all of the images we upload to our account, but still users are unable to download more than one image at a time from a lightbox. Gallery sharing doesn't always work. No option to share outside of our user base without setting up an account for them. Resorting to using a third party service to share files. Price per TB of storage isn't in line with other cloud based providers, nor is there an option to use a third party cloud provider with the interface.

In sum:

Visual and tagged searching is great for our department, but often times we have to share a second gallery via Google Drive for off campus/non-users when it would be helpful to send temp links to external consumers once. Our designers cull lightboxes for projects and pull images one at a time, which is a hassle. There should be an option to turn on bulk downloading for registered users.

Benefits:

The software was relatively easy to set up and maintain.

Drawbacks:

It would be nice to have some functionality where we could build a collection of images and send that collection link to someone that does not have a Photoshelter login for us.

In sum:

We love being able to store our images and video in one place. Libris is generous with the space allowance so we don't worry about having to buy additional storage. We really like the unlimited user feature. It allows all of our sales, customer service, rep agencies and distribution to have access to the images and video we want them to have.

Benefits:

There's so many things to say regarding Libris. File input, being photos, videos, audio, and other assets, is simple and well structured. It is a for a professional photographer stool.

Drawbacks:

To be completely honest there are two features on Libris that I'm not a huge fan of. The first feature is audio audio scrubbing is not available and it makes it very difficult to find the clips that you need for your project. The second item is video scrubbing. It also makes it extremely difficult to find that select clip that you need for your project. If they could correct these two issues, the service would be perfect.

In sum:

We've use Libris for over five years and the reliability has been fantastic. Zero issues whatsoever. The help support is very good as well. If you're serious about maintaining an additional back up that is functional to sell or manage images, you're in the right place.

Benefits:

The metadata tagging is key for us. We can quickly find photos of certain people in certain uniform combinations, day/night, etc. Not having to be in the office to get to photos is nice. It has also changed how we ingest photos in-game.

Drawbacks:

The PhotoShelter app on my iPhone has never worked for me. It could just be me. It would be handy to be able to access, email, download, text, etc. LibrisUploader works for us on phones and iPads.

In sum:

We do not have to be in the office to access our files and the metadata makes it easy to find what we are looking for!

Benefits:

The best aspects about Libris are its clean interface and ease of use. It has made my work incredibly more efficient because I am able to quickly search for photos by tags, name, and gallery location, and organize folders to my team's specifications. It was surprisingly easy to learn how to use and the interface is readable and light. Additionally, the Libris team is very helpful and friendly.

Drawbacks:

There are few things I dislike about this software. If I had to make one suggestion, I wish the software would automatically apply a cover image to folders to make it easier to differentiate them if we have forgotten to apply a cover image manually. I also think there could be some improvement with the Desktop Uploader. The interface is much less clean than the website and sometimes is laggy.

Benefits:

It saves our team and clients a massive amount of time in the photo search and delivery. It also serves as a portfolio for our photography services.

Drawbacks:

The Lightboxes are nearly useless and need to be updated to improve viewing, uploading, batch downloading and other options. I'd like to have a few options to customize the preview look. There should be an option to increase the viewing size on previews as clients have a difficult time checking expressions and making selections quickly from a large gallery when the previews are so small.

In sum:

The customer service is phenomenal. They tend to take feedback seriously and implement changes, although I haven't seen any changes made to Lightboxes in the last few years. Two thumbs up all around.

Benefits:

I love that I can send people in my organization to a place to retrieve the images they need without my being a middle man. It's fast and easy to allow access to relevent people inside and outside my organization based on their needs and the project at hand.

Drawbacks:

It's pretty overwhelming to get rolling especially given the fact that we needed it up and running the day we signed our contract. Taking the time to train and get up to speed given our extreme need for this tool has been challenging.

In sum:

I love the project based collections that I can share with people when we have a team working on a project. It collects just the relevant images and allows for fast review. This is a tool we are still learning to flex in it's entirety and I look forward to getting even more for our money as we continue to learn its functionality. The customer service is awesome and one of the main reasons we switched platforms.

Benefits:

I like that it's on a cloud, which means we can access the photos at home or at work. It's also easy to give other people access, or to set up Lightboxes for them to view select photos. It's much easier than emailing photos like we used to have to do! We have shared it with several people on campus and they all say that it's been easy to use and easy for them to search for photos.

Drawbacks:

I wish that more than one person could be the administrator without having to upgrade to the next payment level. I'm still having a few issues when trying to view the photos --- I'd like them all to be visible on one page, not 20 pages, for example, but I know it's something I could probably figure out.

In sum:

We purchased this product to use at a university. We needed something that could be shared across campus, allowing for folks to be able to search for the photos they needed. We also needed something that all 12 of us in our office could use at the same time, and something that was securely backed up.

Benefits:

It is easy to use, and easy to customize functions. I can have galleries for public or private viewing, and easily customize who can see and download from each gallery. It is also easy to grant new users access to galleries.

Drawbacks:

The cost is higher than I would like, but it still seems to be the most comprehensive and easy to use of the photo management systems of this type.

In sum:

I have started searchable galleries for all of our campus buildings, seasons, classes, etc. The customer services is amazing. Anytime I have emailed with a question, I get an answer within a couple of hours.

Benefits:

Storage capacity Ability to categorize collections and galleries Ability to upload remotely

Drawbacks:

Lack of ability to make the preview galleries larger so I can see more detail Lack of easier way to clearly understand the permissions for each collection and gallery

In sum:

Libris allows my team to access photos from where ever we might be working. And it provides an easy way for contributing photographers to upload photos to our site.

Benefits:

It is a digital workflow platform that gives us as a company the ease of creating digital content in a single tool. With this platfotm you can maintain the quality of your digital content and it gives you guaranteed security your management rights over your content. Trending the functions of high-speed upload, fast tagging & search, effortless sharing, advanced permissions & sso y performance at scale.

Drawbacks:

The flexible file storage is a little slow when searching for labels delays to load.

In sum:

The best thing is that you can download your creative projects in real time with workspaces It is useful in work group performance as it speeds up the flow of projects and you can share them in any digiatal media.

Benefits:

Ease of uploading the photos and tagging the photos. Great amount of customer support to help get us going. It is also evident that they are used to dealing with higher ed clients and had plenty of experience to fall back on when answering our specific questions.

Drawbacks:

Nothing immediately jumps to mind! It would be great if we could more easily manipulate the order folders (as they default to alpha-numeric ordering), but that feels very nitpicky. All in all, a great product.

In sum:

Provides a level of order and access to what had previously been a very disorganized amount of files and photos. Saves my team a great deal of time by improving our ability to search for these images in an efficient manner.

Benefits:

Libris and Photoshelter's outward facing interface allowed for the creation of the Cornell Athletics Digital Library, allowing alumni, friends and fans access to this digital repository of Big Red history. Photos can be viewed for free or purchased for posterity. Video clips, game stories, newspaper clippings and more will be available for viewing and downloading. It is both easy to navigate on the front end and simple to manage and search on the back end. it's upload and download time and quick send options also allow us to easily manage our media relations functions.

Drawbacks:

Batch downloading can sometimes be a challenge when needing things between nested folders, but that's a user problem. Software really has everything we need.

In sum:

The creation of a Digital Library has allowed us to modernize and organize our digital assets, turning more than 125 years of history out of file folders and onto the web. The ability for researchers, alumni, fans, family and friends to find information that otherwise be hidden away will and has been a major advancement for our program.

Benefits:

the ability to send photos directly from the database, ease of keywording, very accessible

Drawbacks:

occasionally it will get lost when going from an expanded view of an image back to the original search. the icon will spin for a long time, until I restart the app (impatience). it would be great if there were a way to see a larger grid view for selecting photos with a client. because it is web based, when our server is having trouble the database is inaccessible. of course, this isn't a problem with libris, but it is an issue that comes up once in a while on my end.

In sum:

the previous DAM system we used depended on people updating their own copy of a master database file. using Libris, everyone has immediate access to images. this has made life a lot easier in our office. when I've had questions or needed help, the service I received was top-notch: friendly, quick, and very effective

Benefits:

I love the ease of use. I myself am not very tech-intuitive, and this site allows me to search quickly and easily for images/videos and find what I need almost immediately. I like that the set-up of the site is very user friendly, and it's easy to find my way around. I like the organization of it as a whole.

Drawbacks:

There seem to be a couple of extra steps I have to take each time I want to select or download an image, like double-clicking instead of a single click, or always having to check a box for downloading metadata. But those are really minor issues, more having to do with my own impatience than anything else.

In sum:

I love that our product images are finally stored all in one place, and that we have the option to choose to make them available through Libris to our customers. It really helps manage and organize our huge amount of images that we need for various projects on a daily basis.

Benefits:

I love the ease of uploading and organizing images. The ability to create different galleries for different clients has freed up so much time and made it easy to communicate about photos.

Drawbacks:

I haven't found anything I don't like about Libris. I am looking forward to PhotoShelter expanding their mobile app for Libris.

In sum:

I've been a user and fan of PhotoShelter for a long time, so when the college I work for was ready to shift to a cloud based DAM system, PhotoShelter's Libris product was my first choice. The admin side is easy to set up and navigate and the client side is clean and user friendly. The customer service is tops and everyone at my institution has been pleased with it.

Benefits:

The software offers many options for customization and it integrates well will Google. The Wrike editing tool has had the greatest, positive impact on easing our workflow and process. There are many great options available in Libris that we, unfortunately, have not had time to explore.

Drawbacks:

There was a lot of internal work needed for deployment; the build-out of the application to our department's needs was not very intuitive; and for some, there has been a significant learning curve. The customer service we've received hasn't been impeccable. The response-time has been great, but the knowledgeability from our company rep (in our experience so far) has not been very good.

In sum:

We are just over a year into using the software, and it has served our needs incredibly well. Libris offers many options for collaboration and the Wrike editing tool has been a huge support to our workflow. I very much appreciate the efforts Wrike makes to listen to their customers and improve their product through constant updates and add-on features. We've been very satisfied with the software, overall.

Benefits:

Great ability to connect with Adobe products. Lots of tagging and organization options. The front end is attractive and easy to use for users.

Drawbacks:

Setting permissions is a bit cryptic, especially if you're using it as a DAM and not as a storefront for a photography business. Only having 2 included library seats is troublesome when using as an enterprise app.

In sum:

Setting up our site was relatively painless and we're just populating our library now so that we can launch our organization image repository int he near future.

Benefits:

Everything! I like the interface, support, that it is a cloud based storage option and I can upload from anywhere I have a internet connection.

Drawbacks:

I wish I would have found it sooner. I had tried 2 other DAM systems and had a lot of issues, everyone love Photoshelter.

In sum:

My time to get out and keep shooting and creating great content for the college.

Benefits:

Ability to create lots of galleries and collections to organize. I had years of image collection that I personally was keeping organized, but they were all over. I had a fresh opportunity to newly organize images into categories that make more sense, and get rid of duplicates that were taking up a lot of extra space. The ability to add my own metadata is great, though not sure we're going to be able to afford that option next year. I also like that I can give give full or limited access to team members. Sometimes people only need access to logos, or one area of the companies images. Nice to be able to control that.

Drawbacks:

Well it's always going to be cost. Especially with add-ons. But we had to bite the bullet and find a safe place for images that can be used and accessed with other co-workers.

Benefits:

Ability to share galleries with ease. Plus the ability to stop clients from downloading and using images incorrectly. The drag and drop feature is extremely useful. Moving folders within the frame seems to work well and I can copy files so that they appear in more than one collection at a time.

Drawbacks:

Haven't found a way to add metadata to multiple folders at a time. If there were a way to color code folders and galleries (and maybe there is) I feel it would be easier to organize files at a glance.

In sum:

Being able to share particular galleries with different clients has made my job so much easier. I can spend more time designing now instead of saving files to CDs or Contact Sheets and e-mailing large files.

Benefits:

The software reads the embedded IPTC information in each photo. This means when I upload image that have already been captioned and keyworded there is nothing else to do but give access to the images for the customers of the system to find what they need.

Drawbacks:

The customer side interface assumes a working understanding of using an online visual database. I have talked to the Libris team encouraging them to design a system that their parents or grandparents could use. I think the customer interface assumes at least a 5 level of understanding of the industry on a 10 scale. I want the system to be geared more to a 1, because often those who are assigned to look for images have little or no experience doing so.

In sum:

Part of Chick-fil-A's mission statement includes "being a faithful steward of all that is entrusted to us". Repurposing photos is a great way to keep your budgets under control.

Benefits:

As a whole, our organization isn't very good at organizing. We have photos stored everywhere. Between a community drive, personal computers, phones and desktops, we always struggle to find photos. Once they're in a spot we can all find them, sifting through pages of thumbnails to find that perfect photo seems to take a big chunk of time. With Libris, we can upload the best photos, tag them, make sure they're ADA compliant, and easily find them, download them or send them to someone else to use. It has made the process easy!

Drawbacks:

It's a bit clunky to get used to, and often, we find ourselves wanting to create sub collections and galleries where it's not possible. So, we figure out another solution. We have also run into naming convention issues, where it allows you to completely change the name of the photo. That takes out the .jpg, which then doesn't allow the photo to be downloaded. Once we figured out workarounds, it became smooth sailing.

Benefits:

We most like Libris' functionality regarding photo organizing and sharing. Libris equips its users with a variety of ways to quickly upload photos and create a library structure that makes sense to your organization. We love the ability to tag photos in batch and personally add metadata to photos. This way, our photos are searchable, but also browsable through Libris' collections and galleries structure. Sharing photos is easy and super customizable as well. With the option to add passwords to galleries and set expiration dates for links we send to outside shareholders, we have more control over privacy and access to our photos. Through working with Libris, the customer service has been great. Questions are answered in a timely manner and the Libris staff is readily available through email or phone each day. We enjoyed our multiple training sessions and demos. The staff at Libris is willing to help in whatever way possible.

Drawbacks:

At times the software can run slow and I accidentally deleted 2,000 photos one time due to a display glitch on the backend site. After deleting the photos, I looked in the trash bin to find them but I could not, since there is no structure of collections or galleries in the trash bin. Instead, the photos were in the trash can in order according to date, which is not helpful when you already have other photos in the trash bin as well. I had no other choice but to re-upload the photos.

In sum:

We use Libris for city government photo organizing/archiving. My department had over 5,000 photos to organize and Libris helped a daunting task become manageable and achievable. Having a place to organize photos properly makes our department function more efficiently and smoothly; we get many requests for photos on a daily basis. Libris makes photos searchable and easily findable with metadata tagging and keywords, which we love. Libris employees were there for us every step of the way during the initial set-up process and are still there for us currently with any questions we have.

Benefits:

Libris is very user-friendly. We've used other cloud-based image libraries and Libris is by far the best so far.

Drawbacks:

What I like least isn't about our software, it's that our administrator doesn't update imagery fast enough!

In sum:

A number of our marketing staff work remotely, and connecting to our image servers via VPN was proving problematic. Libris provided an excellent solution for serving up the best images quickly and painlessly.

In sum:

First and foremost I have to say the customer service Photoshelter provides for Libris users is absolutely wonderful. Their team gets back to you quickly with answers to your questions and is always pleasant to work with. Libris truly shines in it's ability to easily organize and then later search for the images you need. You have the ability to set up the folder structure in any way that fits your needs (which is not something I say about the last product we were using) and the backend structure is so user friendly, it's a breeze to move collections, galleries, or even individual photos around after upload. All you need to do is grab them and drag and drop them into a different area. On the search side of things, you have great control over the types of parameters you can give the search. Everything from searching for photos based on a specific orientation, to things photographed on certain dates...it's quite nice and the results are fast and (seemingly) very accurate. Uploading is fast, and has a number of potential ways it can be integrated into your workflow, including a lightroom plugin. As much as we like Libris overall, it is not without it's limitations and there are a couple of big ones we hope are eventually addressed. The biggest one for us at the moment is Libris' inability to allow downloads without either a password or a user login. This is a bummer and is currently a bit clunky. We produce content for a wide range of people and we would like to make that content available for download to everyone, but the best you can do right now is put a password on everything and then try and make that password available to the public, which is just clunky and a bit odd. We really hope they implement a password and login free option soon. Secondly, when you search for images there is no way to sort what we have searched for in the results page. Want to search for something and then sort by "date taken" or "date uploaded"? Not possible. The other slightly frustrating thing is there is no way to change the size of the image thumbnails in the galleries or search results. They are a bit small and it can sometimes be hard to see what the photo looks like until you click on it to make it larger. Really there are so many things to like about Libris that I wouldn't say the above should be deal breakers, but they are things I think could really help improve it.

Benefits:

The flexibility and ease of use. I can create and share galleries easily.

Drawbacks:

Occasionally, the program or site is unresponsive or slow.

In sum:

Have had a great experience with Libris. I've used it daily for over 4 years.

Benefits:

I like that we can control who has permission in our company to see and download specific photos. It's also very helpful giving those permissions to people in other departments, because now they are able to download the photos they want themselves. We no longer have to stop working on time sensitive projects and do it for them, it saves us valuable time that we need as designers to do our job efficiently.

Drawbacks:

For some reason the app doesn't work on my phone, thats really the only thing that I would say I dislike the least.

Benefits:

The site is very simple and place your photos front and center.

Drawbacks:

Without using the API, there seems to be not simple way to export and embed a collection or gallery on a webpage.

In sum:

Our organization uses Libris for media photos to include with press releases, and as a repository for high quality images to be used on our website and marketing materials.

Benefits:

With Libris, we have saved a tremendous amount of time searching for and delivering content to people outside of our team. Many staff members around the world now check Libris first when looking for photos and videos of our athletes, sports and events. If they ask us personally, we send them straight to Libris. The number of direct inquiries from the public have also been reduces. We've been able to use the time saved on other work that needs our attention.

Drawbacks:

Because only one photo can be downloaded at a time, it can be quite time consuming to download many photos.

In sum:

Having multiple photographers and videographers upload to Libris is a great way to collect and photos from our activities happening around the world. I like that there are a restricted number of users who can decide in which folders the assets will be made available and who can have access to them.

Benefits:

Super easy to upload photos from Lightroom, with keywords extracted automatically. I can control who gets which files by password or grouped user rights. I can instantly send emails to recipients with links and passwords. Even though it's cloud based it's pretty quick. Client can choose the size file they want to download.

Drawbacks:

Inability to search by "filename starts with". The search function is not intuitive in that there is only one box to search keywords and operators are required to try to refine searches. I'd like to be able to resize the visibility and access box. Users can strip the metadata when downloading.

In sum:

I came to Libris from a legacy DAM that became very expensive. Libris works better in many respects such as ability to deliver photos anywhere in the world without running my own web site. My clients like it but some of us luddites don't notice when a password is provided because it's at the bottom.

Benefits:

We needed to find a way to keep all of our photos safe so we wouldn't lose them in a hard drive crash, flood, or fire, etc. The software does everything that we need it to do- from rating, tagging, storing, and archiving, to sharing light boxes with clients. It is also very affordable.

Drawbacks:

At first there was a glitch in the way we wanted to share our photos, but Libris' support services worked with us to overcome that problem.

In sum:

Using Libris as our digital asset management system has been a time saver. We are able to upload and share photos in light boxes to clients. We have control over what can be seen and what is archived. Our "best of" photos can be rated with a star. Photos can be tagged so that they are easy to find. This means that the Widener community can go on and easily find the photos that they need.

Benefits:

I appreciate the fact that you can have multiple invited users and groups with individualized permissions so that as a creative leader I can limit what other teams are using in their collateral.

Drawbacks:

It's not as intuitive at first, it took some getting used to as well as communication with the photo shelter team, which was great, to get a better understanding of the ways to use it for our business needs.

Benefits:

Libris is helping us build and share our Digital images with dozens of clients through out the university. Its easy to share contact sheets, fast download times and very clean and pleasant display of images. Love the ability to customize and use our Logo and color in the main page and use a copy rights watermark. Before Libris, we used to have a DAM that was painfully slow in all aspects. I've recommended Libris to other universities and they are also very pleased with what it offers.

Drawbacks:

One of the recurring issues that I constantly hear with some of our clients in the University is that sometimes, whey they search images in the library, they are asked to create a login info, and after that, they are told to contact the administrator. Seems there is a glitch in the system and I've contact their costumer service dept. but they still have not been able to fix it. We like the ability to easily download images using a password, but we don't want our clients to created "another" login in account. Makes no sense to have a "search" button if you can download the images you find in your search.

Benefits:

Extreme ease of use, excellent tagging options, relatively responsive website and LR plugin. Reasonably quick upload speeds. I am a staff photographer at a regional publisher with 6+ magazines in production. I use Libris daily to file 3-4 assignments a day, 5 days a week.

Drawbacks:

A few minor issues - Libris' plugin occasionally throws a Javascript framework error (I am running the latest version of Adobe LR CC as of 8'14'17) during uploads. Oddly it happens with only one or two files in random sets of photos, and will function perfectly for everything else. The LR plugin also does not quickly or reliably download and display Gallery/Collection links in the LR plugin while being used in the Export dialog in Lightroom. A customizable "home page" or a way to default Admin accounts to redirect automatically to a collection or gallery would be nice when logging into Libris on the web - I would rather login and start at the top of the root folder of our Library vs the default splash page that I get now, as most of the time I login to Libris to fix a tag or confirm I've uploaded files correctly from LR. I access this page several times a day and any time savings here would pay dividends in the long run given how much I access Libris. Overall, it's a great product that could use a little UI and interface streamlining to minimize the number of clicks that power users need to perform an action. Right click functionality (a la dropbox) would also be better/faster than the current "Actions" dropdown tab. If possible, upload setting "profiles" (image quality, image sizing, watermarking, etc) in the Libris LR plugin would also save people like me some time. Thanks!

In sum:

Ease of use and user-friendly access for our Art Teams.

Benefits:

This software allows you to catalog large quantities of photography and for and additional fee video. The ability for others to view and request photography is great.

Drawbacks:

Unless you are selling your photography, and even if you are, there are likely much more economically solutions to your needs. We continue to use it due to an agreement we have, but likely would not choose this again if we needed a new solution.

Benefits:

Ease of use, for us and various contributors. Like the upload via phone tool

Drawbacks:

Lack of editors/tagger type seats without paying more.

Benefits:

The software is extremely easy to use and manage. It was the perfect solution for our photo archive and has proven to be an efficient method of delivering video and photos to end users.

Drawbacks:

At times we have difficulties sharing lightboxes with other people, but I think that is more user error.

In sum:

Overall we are very satisfied with Libris.

Benefits:

I really like how detailed you can be when doing a search for images. Overall it's a nice streamlined system, but I think there is always an opportunity for improvement.

Drawbacks:

If you use this system on a daily bases it works well and fairly easy to navigate, but new users seem to struggle. It also feels like there are too many steps sometimes.

Benefits:

As a cloud solution, this system is easily accessible to all users. The administrative side of things is well thought and well designed and packed full of the right features to effectively manage countless files. It integrates easily and well with Lightroom and the optional Adobe connector makes managing assets during the production process even easier. This software has saved me countless hours of work and has helped me and my operations to be far more efficient. Administrators and editors have to thoroughly learn the nuances of this system, but after a week... it's automatic. Processing files take only a few minutes from start to finish, complete with keywording either while importing the images into Libris or by adding them to images after they're imported. Too, the sharing mechanism works great with easy to design templates to ensure clients always get the right info to access their files. In short, I cannot imagine doing my work well without Libris. Oh, and their support team is FANTASTIC... responsive and thorough.

Drawbacks:

I would like to see a little more flexibility with back-end privileges. You can have taggers, contributors and editors, but the hierarchy is not progressive in that contributors can also be taggers. Too, the Lightbox is a great option, but it's not designed to share all images within a Lightbox to a user for batch download. I would like to see a couple enhancements: 1.) better notification options when adding personnel so that email addresses you share to can be automatically incorporated into the notification. For example, if I share to [email protected] but she uses the alias [email protected] this causes confusion. So, as an editor and administrator, you MUST make sure you share the exact email address with the user when they first access the system. It seems this could be automated. 2.) notification to an editor and/or administrator when new files are uploaded for approval and placement. The are minor issues.

In sum:

Incredibly effective and efficient file management that's so easy to share with others. It is the solution that emerged from hours and hours of research into digital asset management systems. I simply cannot function well without it.

Benefits:

I love how easy it is to create galleries and share them across multiple faculty members and departments across our campus.

Drawbacks:

As far as I have come across there are only 2 con's with this software, 1 that there is no way to link the distribution email to my outlook server so that the email is coming from me not a 3rd party company. And the second and most frustrating is that when assigning permissions through collections there isn't a way to create a subclass of inherited permissions, that additional permissions have to be added gallery by gallery.

In sum:

We are using PhotoShelter as a digital archive, and back up as well as a distribution tool for the different departments around campus . It has been amazing able to search out keywords to find the types of images we are looking for.

Benefits:

I love that the Libris platform is so intuitive, clean and user friendly. The multiple ways to search give flexibility to the user and the sharing controls really allow you to be specific with who can access your images. Invited users can create light boxes within the system to allow for collaboration which is such a handy feature. I love that the images show up large on the screen making image selection easier and I also love that users can select their desired size of download. You don't always need the full size, full resolution version! Downloads are always fast and without error. The customer support is fantastic and fast. I also appreciate all the tutorials, blogs and webinars offered as part of your membership. They do a great job of keeping photographers up to date on equipment, trends and general news in the field of photography. As a member, you feel like a part of a community that's cheering you on and there to help you succeed.

Drawbacks:

My only complaint about the system is the lightbox feature feels a bit outdated and cumbersome. You can't "select all" for downloading or even to set permissions for downloading. You have to do it one by one, which is very tedious. I hope they update this soon. I've found it's easier to copy selected images into a new gallery instead and share the gallery link as a way to collaborate, but it's just a half workaround because only the admin can create galleries, whereas invited users can only create light boxes.

In sum:

It's an easier access storage solution for our library of images. It's a great system for sharing and collaborating. It has given me the ability to hunt down images fast and deliver them to the client easily. I also love that you can organize it in the way that works best for you.

Benefits:

cloud based, industry standard, support, functional

Drawbacks:

multiple downloads from a search result is cumbersome

In sum:

Libris has given us all the functionality and answers we wanted in a asset management solution

Benefits:

The different ways of getting images into the system is great. Speed is great. Batch editing image information once in the system is great (as long as you remember to click the APPEND button!! Maybe that should be on by default?)

Drawbacks:

There are a few glitches that sometimes generate errors during exporting from LR. For example I can't get the "Export with previous..." to work. And some functionality is still being developed, like the ability to make a lightbox downloadable with minimal effort. Everything I've stumbled with so far is minimal: things like the ability to resize columns and image previews in the browser. Not having various layout options except for the standard template. Minor things to enhance the user experience.

In sum:

Two years ago we had images scattered all across various hard drives. Then we "MacGyver-ed" an asset collection based on Lightroom, which works wonderfully for one person but is not sharable in an office environment unless you jump through a bunch of hoops to tuck the catalog on the cloud and put all the images on a shared server, blah blah blah. But since we started using Libris about three months ago we've made tremendous progress in setting up our collections and starting to share them with various departments around campus. We're still barely scraping the surface on the possibilities Libris offers, and still have lots of work to do, to be sure. But finally our images are accessible to whomever we want to have access, with just a few clicks. And the customer support is second to none!

Benefits:

Really easy to use and very comprehensive, everything is where it should be, in a format that I recognise.

Drawbacks:

Never used the customer support so may be missing out on features. The download button seems to move sometimes.

In sum:

exceptional

Benefits:

Libris has an excellent permissions system. Each collect and gallery can be individually set to be accessible in a few different ways, and then each photo can be set to be expired or rejected.

Drawbacks:

There are three different user types: Invited, Contributors, and Library Staff. For our plan you get unlimited Invited users, which only have access to the front end portal and what you decide each user can see, which is fine. Contributors can only upload files--which is a a type we don't really use. Now the last type is called Library Staff and these users are the ones who really hold the power to edit, name, tag files, and set permissions. The problem is that you only get a small number of Library accounts and every additional seat needed is an exorbitant yearly cost on top of the plan cost

In sum:

We are in year two of our contract and it has taken us some time to get fully on board using the software. so far, Libris has been a big help as we slowly transition all our files off an old in-house server. We have the opportunity now to review each folder and label it appropriately so we can find our assets quicker in the future.