Photoshelter vs. Digital Railroad

To date, I’ve been using Pbase when I want to show my photographs to editors, because the service was affordable to me, allowed for password protection of individual galleries (PS allows for similar protecion) and allowed for batch uploading of files through the zip format.  I’ve been showing these galleries more to editorial side people, however, so it will be interesting to see how PS and DRR (who are designed by people with more direct experience in marketing photos) are vastly different upgrades in capabilities. PS offers a seven-day trial; DRR, 30 days.



SETUP:



Learning how to navigate a new site always seems to take some time as you learn its particular idiosyncracies. (A quibble: the DRR log-in boxes could be a little more obvious from the index page.) Each offers tutorials with graphical (screen captures of some of the setup screens). I have uploaded six JPG images to each service. PS’s navigation was a touch more intuitive to me, but DRR has a Site Design Tools page/menu that seems to offer more flexibile  customizing (colors, layout/components, etc.) your DRR homepage.



Okay, so these are both ugly pages, but this is what my bare bones PS and DRR sites look like (they are more or less comparable in the images, galleries and information they show):



Photoshelter

http://www.photoshelter.com/usr-show?U_ID=U0000Jo8mE4MYoA8



DRR

http://www.digitalrailroad.net/wayneyang/Frameset.aspx?bwid=718&cdsid=57771175-2b48-4d74-b04b-f3bbe9497f2c&rcp=61



Even though my PS account is a trial one, I have already been listed on the service’s main page under the list of users whose pages have been most recently updated; my images are already searchable from the PS general search engine under the keywords with which I tagged them. I’m trying to discover the equivalent functionality in DRR; users CAN search keywords within my own archive, but I haven’t yet found the more universal engine; maybe you have to be registered as a buyer? DRR, however, seems to make it easier to add group-related text/an introductory paragraph or introduction to your group/photo essay.

Getting more familiar with each system and its navigational paradigms. I created another galllery on each system and uploaded a few more images. PS’s drag and drop upload function is pretty good. I wish each of the services would also offer a way to upload and unpack zip files. [Correction: I’m told PS does allow you to upload and unpack ZIP and TAR files.] PS does offer you the ability to customize your account and/or incorporate it into your own home page; I’m not exploring it, since it isn’t part of the free trial. Each service gives you the ability to ftp files to other sites, a useful function when you need to transfer files to editors who want to see the images on their own servers.



On the aesthetics side, I like the base design of DRR better than that of PS, plus I like the fact that the photographer’s name appears larger in the DRR version. IMHO, the account should be branding you, not the service. The PS main index page is better than the one on DRR, however, since I like the fact that PS puts all the recently updated accounts on an equal footing, no matter how well-known the photographer; PS also highlights different photos/photographers on the main page. I don’t like the fact that PS seems to make it difficult (unless I’m missing an obvious link or button) to select a representative image for a gallery (once you have already chosen one); I ended up deleting a gallery, and republishing it in order to select a new representative image. On the other hand, PS makes it easy to edit ITPC data, since most data items are clickable text from the image menus. It isn’t that difficult to update the fields on DRR either, since a click on a text icon basically pulls up the text fields.



On the traffic side, I haven’t noticed any substantial differences in the two accounts yet (meaning I haven’t had much traffic on either). I’ve used the same keywords on the images that I have uploaded. Maybe it’s different if you’re a "name" photographer, but I believe DRR claims to have a larger pool of photo editors combing its site; that could be true, but it hasn’t been the case so far for this newcomer. I’ve begun including the URLs in some email queries to editors. I’m not sure if it’s because they’re trial accounts—or because I’m being technologically inept, as usual, but the URLs to my PS and DRR home pages are both long (see above), though the DRR one is a touch more unwieldy, and probably gets broken up when I email it.



The traffic counters on both services seem to be flawed. If you view your own images on PS, the service includes those views as part of its count  (and I don’t see a way of toggling that off/on). DRR does allow you toggle on/off whether you want to include your own visits as part of your traffic count, but the DRR reports oddly also count and rank the images of other photographers among the ones I have uploaded (a note says that the DRR function is in beta).

Not sure if anyone is reading this thread, so I’ll make this my final post. Just wanted to note that the traffic I’m getting on DRR is running close to 3.0x what I’m seeing on PS, so yes, there’s some validity to their claim that DRR is visited more.  I don’t know who’s actually viewing the images, though, so it’s hard to say whether that extra traffic is worth the considerable extra cost of DRR. (You could perversely argue that the higher cost ensures that the other photographers on the site are more serious about the marketing of their images and/or have deeper pockets.) I wonder how many sales others make through the passive searches on the site, versus how many sales they make through more pro-active querying/marketing? A good sale or two would be convincing, but obviously the quality of the photographer’s work is key on that score. As I said before, though, the counters on both systems are rather suspect. I’ve gotten used to the dashboard and production paradigm of DRR, but PS has a lot of nice touches in their navigation system too. I’m noticing that PS has a slight sports flavor to it, which shouldn’t be surprising, given its affiliation with Sportsshooter.com. I have just a few days left on the PS seven-day trial, so I’ll have to make a decision soon.

Wayne,
I have been reading this post. Keep the commenst coming

first thanks for your comments Wayne

I don’t think that web site such a great site and fruitful

however, I’ve just uploaded some pictures to try my chance. Any comments,suggestions are welcome

All the best

I’m reading this Wayne. With great interest. Thanks. Keeep it up.

Wayne, I’ve been using DRR for over a year, and although I have made no sales to casual visitors my existing clients do like DRR as a way of viewing and receiving the work they commissioned. As you may have found, other benefits with DRR are their quick response to questions (even sometimes at weekends) and detailed help. They are also preparing for more innovation in the near future, such as a search facility across all photos by DRR’s members.

Out of interest, which is the easier system to work with ?

Hi Wayne, just looked at both of your sites. I’m as well trying to figure out if it’s a) worth it alltogether b) which one to choose. Since I don’t shoot news/journalism, my needs slightly differ, I shoot mainly architecture. Here are my observations. DRR seems slightly slower and a bit more complicated than PS. DRR’s PR machine seems more active, just think of the X-mas party. I like the fact that DRR has your name big on your page, but I have a hard time finding you when I log in to DRR. You are not listed, neither can I find a keyword search box for all images from all photographers, correct me if I’m wrong, I might be blind. In PS I can search on the opener for “Wayne” or “ballet” and you come up, that makes a big difference. On DRR I can download a comp with your name watermarked or actually save it to my desktop without any watermark and use it illegaly. On PS it’s no download or print option, and I can’t saved it to my desktop. The only way would be using a screenshot. Now how about if I want to buy an image, DRR says they will introduce a fixed price download option, PS offers RF, print and RM. PS asks more questions concerning the use which might make communicating with buyers faster, b/c you already know what exactly they want, if they fill out all the fields. A few things to consider.
Have you made any decision yet? How do you promote the fact that you are on those sites? Email links on your website, emails, email sigs?? Time will show who comes out ahead or maybe they will live side by side. At the moment I think DRR is great for a very active journalist, they are a few seconds older in todays technological progress time. Next month someone else might be on stage with a better, bigger, faster product. I think we just have to be aware of what’s going on and be able to adapt quickly. The US market is a testing ground, the way I see it (I grew up in Germany). I didn’t know about Photoshop until I came here in ‘94 and I was a sales rep for the biggest wholesaler in photographic equipment in Germany and the first time I heard of digital was when the US Army wanted to buy dye-sub paper from us.

Graham, Your website is a killer and the images as well. I’m a big fan of “World of Interiors”. It’s great how you combined your own domain with DRR, that must be complicatedto setup. Do your clients receive the assignment through DRR, (I’m not sure if you shoot film or digital). I was wondering if it was possible to do that and if clients would go for it. Is it possible to set up a gallery and password protect it for stories that are yet unpublished or still in progress? Now how does one actually deal with the issue of color calibrating and delivery for final output?

Thanks, everyone, for posting their questions and comments. I didn’t necessarily mind posting my comments in a vacuum (since I’m known to talk to myself anyway… ha!), but it’s good to know that others were finding the comparison useful. Have others signed up for the trial accounts on both, and if so, can you continue to share your own observations?



DRR seems to be have been built largely for established photographers who want to create a virtual photo agency—alone or together with other photographers. If you already have a reputation and relationships, DRR provides you and your photo editing clients a place to meet for the archival and retrieval of your images. (Some notable real agencies, Redux and VII, use it as their backbone.) As I mentioned before, I do prefer the aesthetics of the DRR basic site over the PS version, but I haven’t found any major functionality differences between the two. In some old threads, DRR people have positioned their service as more "pro," but I can see that PS has its share of high profile professional photographers too. Both allow you to customize for use on your own personal site. I’m not sure if it’s entirely fair to characterize one as much easier to use than the other, since both paradigms make sense as you become familiar with them; both also have their own maddening idiosyncracies. BTW, I don’t think I mentioned before that PS allows you to upload images in more formats.



I agree that DRR’s marketing efforts seem more active. But the fact that DRR does not yet have a universal search engine seems like a major omission to me, and this is glaring if you are a photographer who is just getting established and want a way to passively market your photos as stock to complement your more active marketing efforts. PS does offer that kind of keyword search. Yet for some odd reason that I can’t figure, my traffic on DRR continues to climb, while my PS traffic seems to have become capped. A couple images have been added to someone’s lightbox, but it could be just someone from LS experimenting with the system. Graham notes that DRR’s customer service is good; how is PS on that score?



Yes, I have been sharing the URLs in some email queries.



Does anyone know what kind of contingencies/backup servers each has set up for emergencies?

Wayne, I experimented this morning to see what the options are if I were a buyer. How easy is it to download an image or comp or even just download it to my desktop and steal it from you and use it on my website that you will never see, see above. So I set up lightboxes, how did you get notified that someone put an image in their lightbox and with which service? Anyway of tracking who the user is, I did it on both.

Yes, I like DRR visual design better, PS reminds me of Flickr somewhat. Hopefully I get some time and test it next week for myself. I totally agree with you on the search engine, if DRR would implement at least something I would sign up with them. So it comes down to how much money you can spend and where you want position yourself.

Just did another experiment (I love the web), did a Google search on a couple terms. Wayne (5th result pbase) and Graham both show up under Lightstalkers, but neither, at least for the first three pages, under either PS or DRR. Now add “Wayne Yang ballet” and lightstalkers is the second result on the first page! I would think that either should at least come up on the first page. I had a lot of clients find me because of Google, hmm.

I just scaled back on my expenses, and now here is another opportunity to spend your money on something that didn’t exist before (kinda like my ipod).

Ah buddy Wayne - I’ve been so busy elsewhere (I know you know what I’m talking about) - I’ve missed this thread, am late to the party. Thanks for taking the time, trouble & effort for the side-by-side comparison. I’d actually been sort’ve wishing that there was one genuine such beastie whilst reading the earlier threads, and presto—you read my mind.

Definitely keep your comments up, I know how even-minded/handed you are in your astuteness.

Andreas, Wayne et all – combining my domain with DRR was really an exercise of utilising what the web can do. I had the idea then asked my web designer to ‘fit the parts’. Some of my clients receive their images through DRR if the shoot is digital (film goes in the post). Clients seem to like the convenience of DRR. The images are all there for them to select and download at their convenience. And yes, it is possible to set up a gallery and keep an unpublished story totally private.


Concerning color calibration, DRR say they store your images as you uploade them. They make no changes. In practice I have had no complaints from clients regarding color.


DRR are promising the search across all photographers shortly. The problem, apparently, was some members did’nt want to be included. The search will now be an opt-out (or opt-in) system.

Graham, thank you for your quick and precise answers. Since I shoot mostly 4×5 neg and chromes for architecture clients I tend to drop them off here in the city or messenger them. For starters I thin I will try both during the test trial and then probably use PS, b/c of the big price differnece, at least for the beginning. That’s how started doing digital as well. Thanks to everyone for their insight.
Wayne what’s your verdict for now?

Not at all, Andreas. Best of luck.

Guys you should also check out the customiztion on the Photoshelter site. I also like the drop and drag, the universal searches and the price can’t be beat. I spent a few hours in their office yesterday and they were more than happy to give me a hands on tutorial to getting the mostt out of the site. There are also more updates on the horizon.



Here’s my trial customiztion https://www.photoshelter.com/c/keithbedford/usr-show.
>


Cheers,



Keith

just to add my own bit here-



DRR has,at least in the NY area, made an extra attempt to connect their members with buyers. There have been several social events as well as an option to meet Picture buyers at PictureHouse- an event where book publishers and the like came to meet agencies. VII was able to participate because of DRR.



http://www.picturehouse.org/



At the last event, a social party, I was genuinely surprised to meet art buyers from ad agencies who said that they were there at the invitation of DRR.



I think that it’s a good sign that aside from the tech parts of DRR there is an effort from them to reach other sides to help their members.



just some thoughts.



ron haviv



full disclosure: vii and drr have an endorsement relationship re:vii workshops

Andreas, thanks for your many insights on the two systems. They’ve been very useful to me. (In answer to your question about lightboxes: yes, DRR notifies you when someone has added one of your images to a lightbox, though it does’t give any indication as to whom.) I’m likely to go with PS initially as well, because I just can’t find enough major differences between the two services to justify the difference in price. Marketing requires being pro-active anyway, which means that the shoot-out falls to a comparison of the infrastructure; on that score, PS seems largely as good as DRR. Keith’s site (thanks, Keith) is a good illustration of how PS’s customization can be used to better personalize the photographer’s area, since that is one of the key areas where the base PS design falls short of DRR. Customization is an extra $20 per month, however, which draws it closer to DRR in pricing. You could make the argument that you should consider both, especially if the two become the better known of these types of services. Can you ever have enough exposure?



DRR’s emphasis seems to be on the group of photo agencies in its stable (and given its business model, rightly so); are those the groups that have been resisting the universal search engine? I understand that catering to those agencies is well within DRR’s business interests, because their presence has to be a positive in drawing the more prestigious, better paying buyers. It’s great that DRR supposedly has a better pool of buyers, but that doesn’t do me a lot of good if those buyers can’t find me outside of the queries I’m sending out on my own. I give DRR huge props for the marketing events they hold to bring together photographers and buyers, but it’s difficult for me to justify subscribing to them over PS right now.



W



P.S. Thanks also to Ron and Graham for their comments.

“DRR … bring together photographers and buyers”.

Yes !

Graham

I thought I would share some of my experience as well as it relates to this discussion.

I signed up with DRR earlier on this year because I wanted a site with the muscle to grow with. I put this to the test as an independent photographer on assignment in New Orleans right after Hurricane Katrina hit. I shot stories down there for the Wall Street Journal and Columbia Journalism Review. I uploaded from wireless broadband signals running on generators, first in the basement of the Hyatt and later in the Best Western after the army took over the Hyatt. As a photographer I really was working alone and I couldn’t have done it without them.

When I came back from Louisiana at the end of September, I wrote DRR a lengthy email telling them about my experiences and how I had used their services. A few weeks later they introduced me to the editor of Studio Photography and Design and mediated a conversation that resulted in the following article about me and my work.

http://imaginginfo.cygnus.proteus.com/publication/article.jsp?pubId=3&id=1410

DRR also markets quite effectively with photo editors. I have found that editors are often happy to hear that I have an account with DRR since many of them are already signed up and familiar with the DRR process.

My experience with them certainly has been good. In addition, their turnaround on customer service issues has been very quick. And, the holiday party was a blast. There were people there from all over the industry.

Cheers all,

Aric

I did a quick test on both options this week, trying to decide where to archive. I don’t know either well, just first impressions:



Photoshelter:
Super easy ftp prgoram provided. Great and intuitive user interface for setting up groups - the archive, like a library in iphoto, contains all images. You can create different groups (like albums) and those images can have unique captions for that group. Delete a group and images still stay in archive - could not find that in DRR. While building, images load quickly. Simply display of images, no links to other sites or published stories.



DRR:
Ftp via Safaria/Mac did not work (or I may be a bit slow). Finally my ftp software worked. Captions apply only to group that is uploaded and remains unique to that group. Delete a group and it is gone forever. Hard to go back and forth from production areas. While building, images load slowly (lots of spinning beach balls). For the absurd amount of time I spend reading the pop-up how-to menu you’d think the down scroll arrow could work (OSX + Safari)! I love the ability to add extra links to personal site, etc.



While I find DRR interface and logic cumbersome it can do a bit more in creating a unique, interesting “home page”. You can however embed Photoshelter in your own website (with some html programming) for $20/mo. Pretty cool.



DEAL MAKER/BREAKER
My files ( scans from film) are all saved as Adobe RGB 1998—wider color gamut for 4-color repro. Photoshelter displays them with a different profile (looks like sRGB). They replied that they did not alter the source files and it was probably a browser issue.



On DRR files look exactly the same displayed as source. Pretty important that users get to see what the source file looks like, eh?



Anyone using Photoshelter had this issue?

I’ve recently subscribed to photoshelter and my files look the same as they do on my monitor. I’d say for most purposes, unless it’s for high end repro, or unless the photographer is terrible at processing their files, it probably doesnt matter if there’s ‘monitor drift’ and slight colour differences as all monitors are different anyway. As long as the colour space is consistent (I use Adobe 1998 as well) in my experience (processing digital on a laptop in God forsaken places then seeing it on a decent monitor, then seeing it in print), the differences tend to be inside what the eye will accept.



As some have said here, I predominantly chose PhotoShelter because its more cost effective than DRR, and to be honest, PS tends to sell themselves as an online backup solution, which is what I was after. So far, the interface, upload and layout have been painless and efficient



Where it does differ from DRR however, is the Achilles Heel of these things, which is attracting enough buying traffic to the site, and I can see DRR seems to be ahead.



However, for an efficient backup system, and a way to present work to clients in an efficient way, I’m so far pretty impressed with PhotoShelter.

Just to reiterate what I said in December, although I’m very happy with the DRR system – especially liked by clients free to download their commissioned work as and when they choose – I have not made any sales to casual visitors. OK, it may just be that no one wants my pictures, but DRR does not work – for me at least – as a stand alone market-place.

All potential buyers have to be shown the way.


However, as DRR continues to mature and develop, their system remains a worthwhile investment for facilitating image distribution. PS sounds fine but I won’t be moving over.

My issue is that the images look completely different from each provider—more than any monitor drift (and why would they look so different on the same monitor.) And as a sales/distribution tool a client would browse and buy an image a get a completely different final file…

Photoshelter has an article in their blog on why images can look different and references this page.
Colour space issues


I’m more intrigued as to why DRR images don’t have this issue if this is the reason.

Graham,



You’re right about buyers having to be shown the way to DRR. Given this state of affairs I am increasingly thinking PhotoShelter is a better deal.

The winner of this clash of the titans will be the one that gets content (image metadata) searchable by google.



Anyone heard anything about when that may become a reality for either of them?



David

An initial impression of PhotoShelter after using Ajp’s link to the Color Management Tutorial Space makes me glad to stay with DRR. It is unreadable, all that colour on black.

Hi David. As you know, DRR were interested in image metadata links a while back. But I’ve heard nothing new for a while. This is a crucial step forward for both companies.

The tutorial is nothing to do with PS, they just had a link to it as a more detailed explanation of mistakes people make with colour mangement. The luminous lanscape site uses annoying reverse text too, but still has content worth reading. If you use Opera [browser], you can zoom the page in+out on fly with breaking design which makes reading small text much easier.

A major issue I had when I looked into DRR the other week as somewhere to host/sell images was that I couldn’t find any way to browse images. There’s a list of photographers [not that large] but no way that is obvious to search for say cycling images or Senegal images or cycling in Senegal images. Is that something buyers have access to? Or can they not access metadata either?

Ajp,

Ah, Luminous Landscape, I should have guessed. LL are very good but for that reverse text !

An overall search engine for all (opted in) DRR subscribers is apparently on the way. It’s not there yet though.

There is a third option the image file which is a cross between DRR and PS you set your price it has print options client folders and a market place with 2,000 000 plus images for sale. looking at he search requests looks like there is plenty of people looking for images.

First I’d like to sicerely thank Wayne and everyone else who has posted here. This discussion has been one of the best I’ve read seeing that I’m now in the position of having to choose between DRR and PS.

I wanted to know what people’s experiences have been like since the last postings and also since the intro of Marketplace and global search on DRR and other refinements on PS and DRR.

Kourosh