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I've tried them all too, including the ones that cost $100+ (Lightroom, Aperture), the free ones (iPhoto and friends), and the doomed web apps (Everpix, Picture

by veidr 12y ago

I've tried them all too, including the ones that cost $100+ (Lightroom, Aperture), the free ones (iPhoto and friends), and the doomed web apps (Everpix, Picturelife, etc.), and I fully agree that there is not one workable solution in this space -- which is crazy since there are more than a billion people who need this. This problem cannot be reasonably solved with a web app. Or even a native app running off a mechanical hard disk. With 20MB photos common these days, you need the data coming off a blazing fast local SSD. Otherwise, you can't flip through your photos in a reasonable way. It takes too long to move from one to the next, and every web app does that thing where they load this horrid blurry version first while waiting for the full-resolution version to load. Unacceptable (to anybody who's ever experienced instantly flipping through a hundred pics off a fast SSD, anyway). So a web app can't do it, but you do need a web app component, and cloud storage strategy, to solve this problem. People's local SSDs are typically too small to store all their photos. Plus, you want your photos everywhere, on all your devices. So not only do you do need to architect a web/cloud component, but you either need to create a native app for all devices, or at least create an integration with the local photo management facilities on each platform, so that the subset of photos people want are in fast local storage. It's a hard problem. Meanwhile, my own 500GB of photos (I used to have only maybe 20GB, but then my kids were born) are just sitting in a big folder, with no organization at all, waiting for somebody so solve it.

Veratyr 12y ago
Picturelife + Lightroom works pretty well for me. Lightroom lets me do all the adjustments and metadata correction locally (something that only has to be done once anyway) and Picturelife gives me the cloud storage and browsing/sharing capabilities I need. It's not one application but it is a workable solution. As for webapps being 'doomed', there's a pretty large spectrum between 'horrid blurry version' and 'full-resolution version'. Considering that my photos are generally ~4K in resolution and I don't own a monitor that can display them in full resolution, a 1080p scaled version is fine and loads entirely fast enough, even on my terrible ~8Mbps ADSL connection. Sure it's not as great as flipping through an SSD locally but I think it's definitely acceptable and 'a reasonable way'. I think you're just setting your standards too high. Most of the world doesn't even own an SSD, let alone demand that speed in every application they use. Most users are entirely happy just flipping through albums on Facebook.
- veidr 12y ago
  You are right to some extent, but I think the reason I have these expectations is not that I'm some kind of computing perfectionist, it's simply that all my machines have had SSDs and high-res monitors for a while now. Once you get used to that (which doesn't take long at all) the old, painfully slow ways no longer seem 'reasonable'. Right now, my equipment may be fairly high-end, but we are fast approaching the day when virtually all computers have fast storage and 4K+ displays. In 1992, I thought it was reasonable to dial a modem, log onto the Interzone BBS, and have conversations like this one at 9600 baud in Zterm on a 512x342 pixel screen. Few people would accept that today, though. Having said that, I do agree that Dropbox + Lightroom + Picturelife is about as good as managing photos gets today. (I canceled my own Picturelife subscription, though, because using it was too slow.)
deleted 12y ago
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GreatCrane 12y ago
Mylio might be the solution to your problem. I don't just want to deliver the sales pitch, but I'm reading about your problems and I know that Mylio was designed to help address them. To address the speed issue, Mylio converts 20+ MB raw images into 1 MB, 2048 px previews that are faster to load and can be automatically loaded on mobile devices or laptops with smaller hdds. Caveat, we use a proprietary compression technology to convert raw images into previews, so not all cameras are supported, but we are increasing camera support all the time. A lot of the users of Mylio have terrabytes of photos, and Mylio will automatically provide you with different views of your photos (time, location, people, and customized albums) as well as metadata and rating based searches across your entire library of photos, on desktops or mobile devices. Bonus features, Mylio will help you sync you automatically sync photos between your phone/table/desktop and external hard drives/nas all without going through the cloud.

by veidr 12y ago

Veratyr 12y ago

Picturelife + Lightroom works pretty well for me. Lightroom lets me do all the adjustments and metadata correction locally (something that only has to be done once anyway) and Picturelife gives me the cloud storage and browsing/sharing capabilities I need. It's not one application but it is a workable solution. As for webapps being 'doomed', there's a pretty large spectrum between 'horrid blurry version' and 'full-resolution version'. Considering that my photos are generally ~4K in resolution and I don't own a monitor that can display them in full resolution, a 1080p scaled version is fine and loads entirely fast enough, even on my terrible ~8Mbps ADSL connection. Sure it's not as great as flipping through an SSD locally but I think it's definitely acceptable and 'a reasonable way'. I think you're just setting your standards too high. Most of the world doesn't even own an SSD, let alone demand that speed in every application they use. Most users are entirely happy just flipping through albums on Facebook.

veidr 12y ago
You are right to some extent, but I think the reason I have these expectations is not that I'm some kind of computing perfectionist, it's simply that all my machines have had SSDs and high-res monitors for a while now. Once you get used to that (which doesn't take long at all) the old, painfully slow ways no longer seem 'reasonable'. Right now, my equipment may be fairly high-end, but we are fast approaching the day when virtually all computers have fast storage and 4K+ displays. In 1992, I thought it was reasonable to dial a modem, log onto the Interzone BBS, and have conversations like this one at 9600 baud in Zterm on a 512x342 pixel screen. Few people would accept that today, though. Having said that, I do agree that Dropbox + Lightroom + Picturelife is about as good as managing photos gets today. (I canceled my own Picturelife subscription, though, because using it was too slow.)

deleted 12y ago

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GreatCrane 12y ago

Mylio might be the solution to your problem. I don't just want to deliver the sales pitch, but I'm reading about your problems and I know that Mylio was designed to help address them. To address the speed issue, Mylio converts 20+ MB raw images into 1 MB, 2048 px previews that are faster to load and can be automatically loaded on mobile devices or laptops with smaller hdds. Caveat, we use a proprietary compression technology to convert raw images into previews, so not all cameras are supported, but we are increasing camera support all the time. A lot of the users of Mylio have terrabytes of photos, and Mylio will automatically provide you with different views of your photos (time, location, people, and customized albums) as well as metadata and rating based searches across your entire library of photos, on desktops or mobile devices. Bonus features, Mylio will help you sync you automatically sync photos between your phone/table/desktop and external hard drives/nas all without going through the cloud.