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6 reasons why Playbook is the best cloud storage solution for professional photographers

“Do what you love, and you’ll never have to work a day in your life.” Like us, you probably appreciate the point Confucius made with that quote. But you have also come to accept it’s not practical. 

Every job has parts that aren’t so magical. For us photographers, it’s grappling with photo storage and then sharing these beautiful snapshots of time with our clients.

Local drives fill up too quickly, and your regular cloud storage option can feel like a vortex. Finding that perfect shot and sending it to the client without feeling like you are combing for a needle in a haystack can seem utopian. 

But what if there was a better way?

What if you didn’t have to deal with uninspiring stacks of folders? Or spend hours thumbing through your shot list?  Imagine a world where you could easily hand off images with the perfect bokeh without rubbing your eyes sore while scrolling through your folders. 

The answer? Playbook. And we aren’t your run-off-the-mill cloud storage option. Here are six reasons why Playbook is the best storage option for professional photographers. 

1. A massive 4 TB of storage…Free

Remember the days of film photography? Every shutter click meant one less moment you could capture. 

But with today's digital cameras, there’s no cap on the number of photos you can take. You can experiment with different angles and lighting setups and even indulge your littlest whims without worrying about running out of film.

This freedom makes it easier to enjoy your craft and be thorough. But there’s a catch. Your truckload of high-resolution photos has to go somewhere for safekeeping. Regular cloud storage options should do. 

But high-resolution photos take up space, and sticking to traditional cloud storage as your library grows can quickly become too costly. Samantha Odo, Real Estate Sales Rep and Montreal Division Manager at Precondo puts it best: “When it comes to storage, I require 500 gigabytes on average. That may sound like a lot, but when you are dealing with high-resolution images and videos of properties, it adds up fast.”

This is why we set out to solve this problem with a two-pronged approach. The first is our generous four terabytes (4TB) of free storage available to creatives in our Artist and Designer plan. You just have to apply with a link to your portfolio to get access.

For many photographers, this free 4TB storage is within the ballpark of their storage needs or even exceeds them. This translates to at least a year’s worth of photos comfortably stored and readily accessible. 

You don’t have to take our word for it; here’s what Karen Vaisman, a professional portrait photographer, had to say:

“On average, I use about 4-6 TB annually, depending on the number of projects I undertake.” 

Our affordable pricing plans also mean you always have creative space.

2. Beautiful sharing and portfolios

Sure, having enough cloud storage space for your ultra-wide shots is essential, but wouldn't it be great if your photo storage solution did more than just hold your files? 

Imagine a platform that securely stores your photos and allows you to explore them visually, curate stunning portfolios, and share your work seamlessly.

This is where Playbook sets itself apart from basic cloud storage options. Playbook isn't just about gigabytes; it's about transforming your photo library into a visual playground. Think of it as a perfect blend of Dropbox's storage with Pinterest's visual organization.

Apart from folder view, Playbook offers various display options. These include a gallery, filtered, timeline, and kanban view, introducing an engaging way to interact with your files. 

This is perfect for sparking inspiration or conducting visual searches for specific images.

This visual file organization feature also comes with publishing and sharing options. This means you can create a professional photography portfolio where you store your photos. 

How to do this: Select your best work or a new project. Customize the layout to your taste. Publish your digital gallery as a web page or share secure links with potential clients or even fans of your work.

3. Easy handoff and collaboration

Your collaborative skills are key to keeping customers coming back again and again. You want to make it easy for clients to give feedback on a project, share high-resolution images with notes for final edits, or work with other team members on a creative project. 

With certain tools, this can turn into a chaotic tangle of email threads, attachments, and Tylenol pills to keep the nagging headache at bay. 

Playbook cuts through the clutter and streamlines collaboration with user-friendly sharing and collaboration tools. Here's how:

a. Effortless file sharing

Playbook offers multiple ways to share files with anyone, inside or outside of Playbook. This includes file transfer between Playbooks, email, secure client galleries, published web pages, and personalized file drop-off pages. 

This way, working on projects with others is simple and doesn’t require downloading and sharing heavy files across multiple platforms.

b. Seamless collaboration

You can invite clients and collaborators to view your work directly within Playbook. You can also give them the option to leave detailed feedback using comments, emojis, or even chat with you on the platform. 

The best part? External collaborators don't need to sign in to comment and react. This removes the extra friction of creating an account and keeps the communication process smooth and efficient.

These file-sharing and collaboration features bring many benefits to your workflow and business. For one, centralized communication within Playbook keeps everyone on the same page because feedback is organized and easy to track. This reduces confusion and miscommunication and boosts productivity.

Plus, a streamlined workflow showcases professionalism and efficiency. This goes a long way toward building trust and client satisfaction.

4. Intelligent auto-tagging and deduplication to save time and money

“Tagging and deduplicating photos is definitely a time-consuming task. On average, I'd say I spend about two to three hours per week on this alone. It's tedious work, but it's essential for keeping my digital library organized and efficient,” says Samantha.

For Karen, the story isn’t any different. "Tagging and de-duplicating photos are meticulous yet necessary parts of the process that ensures smooth file identification and retrieval in the future. It takes a fair share of my post-production time, accounting for roughly 15% of the overall effort put into a project,” she says.

Assigning tags to photos transforms a chaotic mess into an organized library where you can find any image in seconds. But let's be honest: Manually adding keywords to hundreds (or even thousands) of photos can be a severe time-sink, as Samantha and Karen affirmed.

The good news is that Playbook takes the tedious task of tagging off your plate. Playbook uses AI-powered auto-tagging to analyze your photos as you upload them and assign them relevant tags. 

Just search using the relevant term when you need the photo, and Playbook will instantly pull up images under that tag.

But Playbook's resource-saving features don't stop there. Manually finding and deleting duplicates is another productivity killer. 

Playbook solves this problem with its automatic deduplication feature. This feature identifies and removes duplicate files intelligently, ensuring you only store the originals. This frees up valuable storage space, which can translate to significant cost savings on your storage plan, especially as your photo library grows.

The auto-tagging and deduplication features allow you to spend more time focusing on what you love—creating beautiful photos and running a successful photography business.

5. Secure and Reliable Storage to Ensure Your Peace of Mind

Imagine all the hard work and creativity poured into your photos. They represent your talent, livelihood, and sometimes even personal moments. The last thing you’d want is for their safety to be compromised.

You need a storage solution that prioritizes security and privacy because any data breach could hurt you and your business. One that keeps private photos from prying eyes, ensures only authorized users can see your client’s work, and provides you control over how others use your intellectual property.

However, given that about 2.5 billion images are stolen daily, leading to over $600 billion in damages, including lost licensing fees, photographers and other creatives clearly need digital asset storage and sharing options with tighter security features. 

Playbook is a fitting example. Here's how the platform keeps your photos under lock and key:

Storage you can trust

Playbook stores your photos securely using Google Cloud, a trusted industry leader. We also maintain 45-day backups of your files for added peace of mind.

Privacy by default

Your photos are private until you say otherwise. Playbook doesn't share anything unless you specifically choose to. You control who sees your work, giving you complete peace of mind.

Playbook empowers you to protect your intellectual property. Our built-in licensing feature allows you to mark your work as copyrighted when sharing it externally. This discourages unauthorized use and is a valuable first step in protecting your creative rights.  

Anti-web crawlers and generative AI training

We’re sure you’ll love this. Playbook says "no" to web crawlers and AI algorithms. By blocking these tools, we ensure:

  • Your photos remain invisible to them. This means no search engines can access your work without your permission.
  • Your images can’t be scraped or used for AI training purposes.

Think of Playbook as Fort Knox for digital files, including photos. It allows creatives like you to do your best work without being harmed by bad actors or exploitative tech.

Creatives and businesses often face a licensing headache. You spend hours crafting a beautiful panoramic shot, only to have someone use it without permission. Setting up a system to track who has permission to use your work, for what purpose, and for how long can be a logistical nightmare.

Playbook solves this problem by offering a built-in license maker that makes managing licenses a cakewalk. Here's how Playbook's license maker empowers photographers:

Hiring lawyers for custom license agreements can be expensive. Playbook's free license maker eliminates this cost, saving you money while protecting your work.

Effortless license creation

Creating complex legal documents can be intimidating. Playbook's license maker simplifies the process. Based on established Creative Commons (CC) licenses, Playbook offers a user-friendly system to create clear and legally sound licensing agreements in seconds, and you don’t need legal expertise.

No more expired licenses

Forget manually checking expiration dates on licenses. Playbook keeps track of everything, ensuring everyone using your photos has the proper permissions and your work is always protected.

Protect your business

Misusing licensed materials can lead to costly legal issues. Playbook helps you avoid this by providing clear licensing terms protecting your work and business.

Never lose track

Traditional licenses often come as emails or PDFs that can be easily lost. Playbook's licenses, however, are permanently attached to the photos themselves. 

This means no more scrambling to find a misplaced document — the license information is always readily available.

Reach for the Sky with Playbook’s Visual Cloud Storage Platform

One of the dreams of every creative is a cloud storage solution that ticks every box: affordable, easy to use, and built specifically for visual storytellers. Finding a platform that does it all perfectly can feel like searching for a unicorn. 

This is why when a solution like Playbook comes along, creatives flock and stick to it like bees to a honeycomb. 

And you can’t blame them because, with Playbook, they are pretty much getting a sweet deal. There’s the generous free storage space of 4 TB, time- and money-saving AI-powered file organization features such as auto-tagging and deduplication, secure file storage, sharing, and collaboration tools, a free license maker, and much more.

Here’s your chance to take advantage of these benefits and focus on enjoying your craft and growing your business without stressing over grunt work. We’ve made space for you. 

Sign up on Playbook for free today.