Cloud Storage Options For Film Photographers!
Hi everyone! My name is Jenny and I’m currently a graduate student studying moving image archiving and preservation at NYU.
This is my first ever blog post on GitHub and I would like to discuss Cloud storage options for film photographers!
Besides school, I love to shoot with my film camera in my free time! I used to only shoot on my small digital camera about 4 years ago until one day my Canon camera broke. That is when I found my grandfather’s old Nikon FM. My grandpa told me he had no use for it so he gave it to me. 4 years later, the Nikon FM and another autofocus Pentax 120SW are all I use to shoot my photos!
If you shoot with film in this day and age, ultimately you will run into the problem of “how and where should I store all my the digital files of my film scans”? To find the answer to this question I’ve set out some criteria and have used them to test out various available platforms out there. These are the criteria:
- easy-to-use user interface
- lossless uploads and downloads
- (no compression or crop of image)
- allows for keywords or tags
- allows for descriptions/comments
- some kind of metadata system/sorting system according to keywords/tags/location/dates
- cost-effective (FREE! or cheap please)
I can tell you right off the bat that all but one of the platforms I tested passed the lossless uploads and downloads test. Using the md5 command line in Terminal, I uploaded and downloaded using the same photo to test. As to which one did not pass the test, you will have to read on to figure it out! I believe a lot of people use Google Drive out there, including me at the moment. So in my evaluation, I have chosen six other platforms to see what other options I have.
1. Flickr
Flickr is probably the platform that even if you have not used it yourself, you have at least heard of it before. Members with free accounts can upload up to 1000 photos or videos.
- pros: Users can batch upload and edit photos’ private/public permissions settings. It also allows to you set content types for your photography, categories include photo, screenshot, illustration/art, and virtual photography. It can also serve as a portfolio since it has a public-facing page feature so creators can interact. Flickr has a very active help forum so if you have questions you will most likely be able to find someone online to discuss these problems with.
- cons: If the photos are not put in an album, it is quite difficult to batch download.
- price: $8.25/month - unlimited storage, ad-free, Flickr Auto-Uploadr software will back up automatically.
2. SmugMug
SmugMug can be a great place to start if you’re looking to slowly transition to professional photography. They provide tools to help you build a portfolio website while hosting storage for your photos.
- pros: SmugMug also allows for batch upload of photos. The highlight of SmugMug for film photographers is probably the Lightroom Integration plug-in and connector. With this plug-in for Lightroom Classic and connector for Lightroom CC, creators can streamline their creative workflow. SmugMug is also one of those platforms that emphasize the eCommerce aspect. If someone wishes to buy your photo online, they can! with a click of a button on SmugMug.
- cons: Unfortunately, there is no free version so it is subscription-based. There is a free trial but you would have to start paying after two weeks. It also does not have that strong of a platform community present.
- price: $13/month - unlimited storage
3. 500px
This platform also feels quite professional to me. If you are looking for a community of photographers to interact with and help build your business in photography, this would probably be the platform for you.
- pros: 500px has features that will allow you to attach model release forms and property release forms to the photo’s metadata. There is also the choice to opt-in on the 500px Licensing program when you upload a photo. This would mean that your photos would be in the stock photo market. 500px works with Getty Images and VCG (Visual China Group). It would take some time for you to actually earn anything but if you license your photo exclusively through 500px, you’ll earn 60% of your net sales.
- cons: 500px does offer a free version but the limitation is that you may only upload 21 photos per week. !!500px is the platform that did not pass the lossless transportation of files test. Somehow the file size remained the same but the checksums were different. I scoured through online forums to find that if the checksums are different then they must not be duplicates. So, 500px changed something in the photo during that upload/download process but specifically what was changed I cannot tell. It could be that they simply changed some metadata and read/write permissions details that would not affect the image.(1) However, I personally would not be able to trust this!!
- price: $13/month - unlimited storage
4. Google Photos
Storing photos on Google Photos is probably the easiest choice for most people now since a lot of us own a Google account. So, the setting up is very easy. - pros: Users can directly order photo or canvas prints on the platform, which is an interesting feature. There is also the “archive” feature which will allow you to archive older photos you no longer need to access as frequently so as to not accidentally make changes to the files.
- cons: Storing photos on Google Photos will take up your Google Drive space, which is limited to 15GB. We all know how image file sizes can sometimes be very big and soon 15 GB will not be enough.
- price: $1.99/month for 100GB; $2.99/month for 200GB; $9.99/month for 2TB
5. PhotoBucket
- pros: This platform has the most straightforward UI of all. There are some editing tools available.
- cons: There is no public-facing portfolio page available. There is no free version. There is a free trial but after that, you would have to pay. I found this platform to be a little outdated. Even though it has a simple and clean-looking UI, it felt a bit undeveloped. I have also read a lot of bad reviews about the platform once being free but they are now holding users’ photos hostage while they are starting to charge money. I have also seen a reviewer say that their account had been deleted after a few years of inactivity.(2)
- price:$13/month - unlimited storage
6. DevianArt
This platform was one that I regretted trying out. Despite having photographers on the platform, it just was not targeted at photographers. It also felt more like a portfolio platform than a cloud storage platform.
- pros: DevianArt focuses on eCommerce as well. One can sell their work on this platform. There are also ways to link an NFT.
- cons: The free version only allows for 2GB of storage. Batching editing and album functions are none existent. It also uses a separate UI for storage.
- price: $9.95 for 50GB
All of the platforms I tested out have mobile apps, which is the obvious trend now. I am sad to announce that all of these platforms do not have the metadata sorting system that I was looking for. I wish there was a way to batch-edit metadata. Since film photos from the same roll of film will technically have the same information. It would save so much time to not have to copy and paste photo-related details to every file.
After my own exploration of these platforms, I decided to ask some of my friends who also shoot with film about their archiving and file organization procedures. Even though physical copies of the negative are difficult to lose, the file organization of digital scans is still crucial. For many photographers, the scanning process is considered part of the creative process. Thus, to lose film scans would mean losing critical artistic thoughts and choices that went into the formation of a finished photograph. Below are some of the points they have voiced that they wish to potentially see in a cloud storage space to make the lives of amateur photographers easier:
- AI Recognition - Locating a certain photo can be quite a hassle. Sometimes you just simply cannot remember when or where the photo was taken. If some kind of AI technology can be applied to a cloud storage platform to help with faster search of files would be really helpful.
- Controlled Language - With film photography, we have an existent database of film stocks and cameras. It is not like Kodak will come out with a new film stock every other month and Leica is the only brand still manufacturing new film cameras. So with this fixed database, we can create something easier to use in terms of the user interface. For example, a drop-down menu with every new upload so that there is some kind of standardization within the filing system.
- Batch-Edit Feature
- Phone App Connection
Not too much to my surprise, all of the six people that I have interviewed have responded that they, like me, also use Google Drive for their cloud storage of digital film scans.
Hopefully, my evaluation above can serve as a guide for you on your journey to finding the best cloud storage solution that works for you! Catch you next time!
jenny, Dec. 2022
References:
(1) 1458279, post to “checksum different on transferring the same file,” MacRumors, November 4, 2015, https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/checksum-different-on-transferring-the-same-file.1934841/. (2)https://www.trustpilot.com/review/www.photobucket.com