Is there a cross platform cloud stored photo management application?

December 26, 2012 11:08 PM

Is there a cross-platform cloud-stored photo management/editing application?

I'm looking for a photo management application like iPhoto or Picasa that will let me store all photo's in cloud storage (preferably with generous storage limits) as a central library, and let me sync libraries to different clients (Mac and Windows, if possible android/iOS) and seamlessly edit and organize photos on different machines. Just like Amazon Kindle stuff works. I only do basic level editing, but I have quite a few photos.

Ideally it could also deal with video.

Does this exist? Most of the stuff I'm finding is focused on sharing images between devices (Picasa Web Albums, iCloud), but not editing a single library on multiple machines.

posted by Raidallinen to computers & internet (9 answers total)

I don't think this exists. Photos are generally too large to do lots of editing/uploads/organization in the cloud without some sort of local store.

Picasa with something like Dropbox will probably work. But you may have to shell out for a Pro account for the storage requirements.
posted by wongcorgi at 11:34 PM on December 26, 2012

I don't mean without a local store, I mean that the local store is dynamically synced to cloud storage as new photos are added/edits are made to photos.

I know this can be done by sharing a Picasa/Lightroom photo library with a cloud storage service. There do seem to be a lot of people doing this fairly easily, but I can't find any solid examples of it being done cross platform. I don't mind a little hassle to get it working, but I don't want something where my entire catalog could get nuked one day cause of syncing conflicts or something, and I don't imagine DropBox/Google Drive syncing is tailored towards a library like this.

It seems like it would be possible for a service to do this and also provide image sharing features like iCloud, MosaicView, etc, but I guess it doesn't exist?
posted by Raidallinen at 12:14 AM on December 27, 2012

Doesn't Picasa do exactly this? It runs on Mac and Windows (but not Linux). It works with Google Storage, and you can designate albums and folders to sync to the web.

Not sure how the mobile OS bits fit in though.
posted by Good Brain at 1:52 AM on December 27, 2012

The closest I know of would be Flickr combined with Aviary (the image editing built into the Flickr service). You get a web based editor which will work on multiple Macs or PC's, but I don't think it will work with Android or iOS.

This will give you a central place to store pictures and video, basic editing, and has lots of apps and services that will integrate/sync with it.
posted by volition at 1:58 AM on December 27, 2012

What about a Flickr Pro account? I think it's a real bargain at only $25.00 per year for unlimited uploads, with a caveat or two. The organizational features work well for me, and I have my uploads marked as private so nobody else can see or access any of my sets unless I email them a guest pass.

I should add that not all of this kind of account's features and capabilities were immediately obvious to me when I initiated mine.

I should also add that I have no vested interest in Flickr except that my pro account has been very useful.
posted by imjustsaying at 2:02 AM on December 27, 2012

Seconding Flickr. We'll often create project specific private accounts for clients so that umpteen photographs can be sorted into sets, tagged and then mail the password to the clients.
posted by infini at 3:01 AM on December 27, 2012

Yeah, Flickr. You can edit photos on their website, although I find this to be a little clunky. They've got a robust API, which has led a lot of developers to produce native front-ends on a number of platforms. Also as a result of this, there are also a bunch of interesting web gadgets that work with Flickr.
posted by adamrice at 9:28 AM on December 27, 2012

OpenPhoto looks interesting, although I haven't tried it.
posted by djb at 4:25 PM on December 27, 2012

Adobe Revel is young and doesn't have clients on all platforms yet, but is probably one to watch.
posted by misterbrandt at 6:47 PM on December 29, 2012