Photoshelter users: integrating online archives with local files?

[mikeseb]

Peter, John, or Moderator, please feel free to put this anywhere it belongs--I wasn't sure of the proper category for it.

I have signed up with PhotoShelter (www.photoshelter.com) as an online repository for my images, for storage and for sale. My idea is to take advantage of PhotoShelter's customization features to integrate my photo archives seamlessly with my website, which is currently under revision, yet keep my event/sports/commercial images a bit separate from my portfolio of fine-art images on the site. I am wondering if anyone here has also signed up with PhotoShelter, and how they are managing the integration of local and online archives.

I had thought I'd upload my entire archive of DNG's to the site, but that is impractical given the average file size is ~25MB for the Nikon-derived files, and even larger for some scanned TIFF's and MF digital-back files in the archive. Also, my entire archive exceeds by a comfortable margin the 1TB of space I've purchased from them. I could send them a hard drive with the files to be "onloaded" for a modest fee, but not sure if I want to do that, since I can't get them all onboard anyway.

For the most part, the archived images on PS will be offered for print sale (events, sports, and the like), so I suppose I could upload a high-qual JPEG sufficient for printmaking, but of course this would not serve as a real archival copy of the image file. (I plan to make stock-image downloads available thru their companion stock sales site, Photoshelter Collection, so uploading a much smaller number of full-size files there will be doable). I could also, after uploading a smaller JPEG version of each file, set things up so that upon someone's purchase, I can substitute the full-sized original of that image only, so that the best possible print can be obtained.

I realize I am rambling here, but that reflects my confusion about just how to proceed with this. I suppose it comes down to resolving the question, "What do I want the archive to do? Store images for sale, or provide secure remote backup?"

Your thoughts welcomed, with thanks.

Mike S.

[peterkrogh]

Mike,
I think online archives are less useful as a general backup, due to cost and speed.(Think of how long it would take to download if you had drive failure - weeks).

If you cannot possibly find another way to do off-site (if you're a nomad, or have no friends, or live in *very* risky surroundings), it might make sense as a last-ditch backup for valuable files.

So, sorry, I don't have a great idea on how to integrate this.
Peter

[Miguel]

Hello Mike:

I just came across  you posting, and if one of your objectives is to have an Off-Site backup, in addition to a a minimum of one local backup in addition to your "Live & Local" archive, I found a great provider about a year ago.  Carbonite.com has a service with unlimited storage @ $50.00/year.  Because of the volume of images, I'm up around 400Gb,and the upload rate, it took about three months for everything to upload (24/7), but now it automatically uploads what ever I archive to a designated folders.  I agree that you don't want it to be your sole backup vis a vis the download rate, but as a third, Off-Site backup, you can't beat the peace of mind or price.