Our PhotoShelter Review: Is It the Right Fit for You?
As every photographer knows, snapping the perfect shot is just the beginning—the real magic lies in sharing your images. Our review of PhotoShelter explores whether it’s the right platform for your photography needs.
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What We’ll Cover
In this Picflow article, we’ll dive into PhotoShelter, examining its target audience, key features, use cases, and pricing. We’ll also introduce an alternative to consider, helping you decide if it’s the right platform for your photography needs.
What Is PhotoShelter?
PhotoShelter is a photographer-focused platform that offers tools for effortlessly creating online photo galleries and websites—no coding required. It provides unlimited cloud storage and top-notch organization for high-resolution images.
The platform includes a shopping cart for photo sales and features for client delivery, like private galleries and direct social media posting. Additionally, customization options are available for personal branding and signatures.
Serving over 80,000 photographers, PhotoShelter has made a giant impression in the industry—recognized by major publications like The New York Times and Digital Photo Pro. Its goal is to simplify portfolio management and image sales for photographers.
Who Is PhotoShelter For?
PhotoShelter caters to users in the creative sector, particularly those looking to store, organize, and share digital images. Let’s look at its main audiences:
Professional Photographers: Pros will find an array of useful tools for managing their business, such as an integrated shopping cart for photo sales and client proofing tools.
Photography Agencies: Agencies benefit from PhotoShelter’s ability to handle large volumes of images, streamlining their workflow and collaboration between photographers, clients, and editors.
Educational Institutions and Non-Profits: These groups can easily manage their image needs with PhotoShelter’s secure cloud storage, advanced sharing and collaboration tools, and comprehensive search functionality.
PhotoShelter Key Features
1. Website Building and Customization
PhotoShelter enables photographers to create fully functional websites with either DIY templates or custom CSS and HTML for advanced users. The platform offers real-time editing, allowing you to modify your site live with instant changes. With options for single-image displays, photo walls, and slideshows, your portfolio will always look its best.
The responsive HTML5 and CSS3 designs ensure your website looks great on any device, while custom branding options let you use your own domain, logo, and watermarks. Additionally, you can create unlimited custom pages and choose from a variety of fonts and colors to match your personal style.
2. Cloud Storage & Organization
With PhotoShelter, photographers gain access to secure, cloud-based storage where they can upload, store, and organize images with ease. The platform supports a wide range of file types, including RAW, PSD, TIFF, PDF, and JPG, and offers multiple upload options via Lightroom, Photo Mechanic, or a simple drag-and-drop uploader.
Users can organize their images into unlimited collections and galleries, while automatic metadata imports and batch editing tools help streamline workflows. PhotoShelter ensures that photographers can easily find and manage their images from any device.
3. Sales Features
PhotoShelter's integrated e-commerce tools make it easy to sell prints, digital downloads, and stock licenses directly from your website. The platform features a built-in shopping cart, low transaction fees, and automatic order fulfillment options through print vendors like WHCC, Printique, and Loxley Colour.
You can accept payments in multiple currencies via PayPal, Stripe, or other merchant accounts, and set custom pricing or create discount codes for clients. With the FotoQuote integration, you can ensure your stock images are priced accurately, and automatic tax collection makes managing sales even easier.
4. SEO & Analytics
PhotoShelter provides a range of tools to help photographers optimize their websites for search engines and track performance. The platform automatically generates and submits image-level sitemaps to Google, improving the visibility of your images. Additionally, automatic ALT and TITLE tagging, based on your image metadata, helps boost SEO.
You can further optimize your site with custom meta tags and Google Analytics integration to track traffic and performance. PhotoShelter also provides detailed insights into your image downloads and cart activity, giving you a deeper understanding of client behavior and website performance.
5. Stock Licensing
PhotoShelter offers a comprehensive stock licensing feature that allows photographers to sell both rights-managed and royalty-free stock licenses directly from their websites. This tool simplifies the process of licensing images, providing a streamlined way for photographers to monetize their work.
The platform supports customizable licensing options, enabling you to set specific terms for image usage, and ensures that all licenses are managed efficiently. With this feature, photographers can expand their revenue streams while maintaining control over how their images are used and distributed.
PhotoShelter Pricing
PhotoShelter offers a flexible pricing structure, with three main plans to cater to different photographer needs.
Essentials Plan:
Price: Request Pricing
Includes 1 TB of storage and 2 library seats.
Ideal for small businesses or solo photographers.
Key features: Multiple upload options, support for all file types, e-commerce, and mobile app access.
Plus Plan (Most Popular):
Price: Request Pricing
Includes 2 TB of storage and 3 library seats.
This plan is best for growing photographers who need more integrations and collaboration tools.
Key features: Includes 3 advanced integrations, real-time workflow, and image licensing & expiration rights management.
Enterprise Plan:
Price: Request Pricing
Includes 5 TB of storage and 5 library seats.
This plan is best for large teams or agencies.
Key features: Unlimited integrations, advanced reporting & analytics, and full access to PhotoShelter AI tools such as visual search and people ID.
PhotoShelter Pros and Cons
Offers a centralized platform to organize and share images with team members, which simplifies photo management.
Excellent customer support with personalized assistance from the development team.
Flexible workspaces that can be easily shared with external designers or team members for collaboration.
Efficient metadata tagging and bulk editing saves significant time for users.
Well-suited for brands needing to organize assets with multiple levels of galleries and collections.
Granular permission settings allow users to customize access by group, user, or even specific photos or collections.
The transition to the new Lumin system has made filing images a bit time-consuming for some users.
Occasionally experiences lag due to its web-based nature, although recent upgrades have helped mitigate this.
Lacking a feature to caption photos and export captions into a document for easy sharing with partners.
The FileFlow app can be difficult to use across all phone types, despite recent improvements.
Best Alternative to PhotoShelter: Picflow
If PhotoShelter doesn’t hit the mark, then Picflow might be the perfect alternative.
What Is Picflow?
Picflow is a client gallery tool that meets the demands of modern photographers and creatives.
We aim to above and beyond the boundaries of conventional image sharing by offering collaborative and interactive features that simplify workflows, enhance communication, and ultimately, get you more sales.
With Picflow, photographers can create responsive galleries complete with filters, tags, comments, image annotations, and more—all without any coding. It’s easy to collaborate with clients to get feedback and approvals, share assets with your team or colleagues—all while keeping control over the rights to your images.
Picflow Key Features
1. Gallery Designer
Picflow's gallery designer is a testament to our user-centric approach. With a range of customizable options, photographers can effortlessly create stylish galleries that cater to the unique requirements of each project.
This flexibility means each gallery section is unique, complete with titles and the option to embed various content like videos, music, or social posts. It also guarantees that images are always sharp and clear on any device, thanks to on-the-fly upload processing.
Picflow also supports video uploads with the same level of detail, allowing for a seamless mix of media in galleries. Key features include a custom video player with timeline scrubbing, 8K uploads, adjustable playback speeds, custom preview images, and frame-by-frame annotations.
2. Review and Approval Process
Picflow excels in client interaction. Clients can engage directly with galleries, selecting favorites, leaving comments, and even approving or rejecting photos. Additionally, each image has a dedicated chat thread for comments.
Its intuitive interface is one-of-a-kind, simplifying client feedback and accelerating the review and approvals cycle.
3. Annotation Tools
As we mentioned earlier, a standout feature of Picflow is its annotations tool. Clients can draw or write feedback directly onto images and videos. This precise communication eliminates ambiguities, ensuring that photographers understand what adjustments are needed.
Picture this—you’re a fashion photographer working on a shoot with detailed clothing designs. Thanks to Picflow’s annotation feature, the client can mark specific areas on the outfits that need to be highlighted, so you can make sure to capture the details as they want it.
This feature reduces turnaround times and helps you deliver the seamless experience clients are looking for.
4. Feedback Tracking
Picflow’s feedback tracking system provides detailed insights into client interactions with each image. It tracks if images have been viewed, downloaded, or reviewed. This is invaluable for understanding client preferences and tailoring future work.
Each upload comes with robust security features including watermarking, SSL, and end-to-end encryption, safeguarding every step. All media is stored within Picflow’s dedicated Virtual Private Cloud on AWS, preventing unauthorized network access.
5. Unthrottled Upload and Download Speeds
The platform guarantees a seamless workflow for photographers by offering superfast upload and download speeds across all subscription plans. Especially useful for those handling large files and working under tight deadlines, Picflow’s approach maintains transferring files never slows down the creative process.
6. Advanced Workflow
Picflow’s Advanced Mode unlocks powerful tools like advanced review filters to swiftly locate specific images or selections and bulk actions for simultaneously managing multiple photographs.
It features selective downloading options and a handy export function for filenames, making integration with editing software like Adobe Lightroom or Capture One as easy as pie. Additionally, over 25 keyboard shortcuts are available to speed up workflow with an option to export galleries as a PDF.
Picflow Pricing
Picflow has three pricing plans. With all plans offering a free trial, you can test out the features before committing to a subscription.
Try Picflow (Free Trial)
Free trial available for all plans to help you test out the platform's features before purchasing.
Plus Plan:
Price: $15 per month
Includes 100 GB of storage and 5 review options.
Ideal for freelance photographers and small creative professionals.
Key features: Password protection, full HD video support, and branding customization.
Pro Plan:
Price: $24 per month
Includes 1 TB of storage and all available review options.
This plan is perfect for growing creative teams needing advanced collaboration tools.
Key features: Watermarking, RAW photo & 4K video support, and version history.
Biz Plan:
Price: $179 per month
Includes 5 TB+ of storage and advanced creative workflows for businesses.
Best suited for large teams or organizations with complex workflows.
Key features: Team-only comments, priority support, and 10 members included.
Picflow Pros and Cons
Flexible gallery creation and the ability to add sub-galleries, making sharing multiple galleries with clients easy.
Picflow offers 33+ photographer-focused features that are designed to streamline the entire workflow.
Excellent client feedback and collaboration tools, including markups and retouching notes.
Responsive customer service that’s always available when needed.
Affordable pricing for the features provided.
Professional solution for photographers, especially for real estate and wedding photography.
Some occasional bulk upload issues, though minor.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Q: What is Picflow and how does it differ from PhotoShelter?
A: Picflow is a photographer-focused platform designed for creating responsive galleries with features like client feedback tools, annotation, and seamless workflow integration. Unlike PhotoShelter, which focuses heavily on storage and e-commerce, Picflow prioritizes collaboration and streamlining client interactions.
Q: How do I integrate Picflow galleries into my website?
A: Integrating Picflow galleries is simple. You only need to copy and paste the embed code into your website’s HTML, making it quick and easy to showcase your galleries without any technical knowledge required.
Q: Does Picflow support large file uploads?
A: Yes, Picflow supports fast and efficient uploads, including large image and video files. With unthrottled speeds across all plans, you can transfer large files without interrupting your workflow.
Q: Can I sell photos through Picflow?
A: While Picflow is more centered around client galleries and collaboration, you can easily share your images, videos, and even watermark content for client viewing. However, for full e-commerce integration like PhotoShelter, you might need third-party solutions or different tools.
Q: Is Picflow suitable for all types of photographers?
A: Yes, Picflow is ideal for a variety of photographers, especially those working in areas like real estate, weddings, or commercial photography. Its customizable galleries, client feedback tools, and flexible features are perfect for photographers who need efficient workflows.
Q: How does Picflow help with client feedback and approval?
A: Picflow excels in client collaboration by allowing them to mark up images with comments or suggestions directly. This feature reduces misunderstandings and speeds up the approval process, making it easier to work with clients.
Making the Right Decision for Your Photography Workflow
While PhotoShelter offers a reliable platform with essential features for photographers, Picflow stands out as a more innovative and interactive alternative—perfect for long-lasting photographer-client relationships.
Ready to streamline your photography business? Sign up for a free trial of Picflow and experience the difference firsthand.
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