Even if you've never been a Pictage member, it's important to note how this closure affects your colleagues, and to be aware that this is always a possibility with any service that you use as a key partner in your business. For those who haven't been in the loop already, Pictage announced their final closure for Sunday, September 27th, 2015.
Pictage basically helped me launch my business over 10 years ago and I came to rely on them for nearly everything that happened on the back end of my wedding & portrait business. Billing, hosting, cloud storage, FTP solution to vendors, printing, album designs, customer support, print orders, packaging, drop shipping, credit card transactions, marketing promotions, etc.
Technology has changed a lot since that point. There were no iPhones 10 years ago. Twitter didn't exist. Facebook was just starting as a way for Harvard students to network with each other. Digital SLRs were just starting to become affordable for the average consumer with a whopping 6.3megapixel files. Amazon cloud storage didn't exist yet, but Pictage had created an incredibly advanced online solution for film and digital photographers to serve their clients.
The last year has been the worst year for Pictage. Some people jumped ship early, but I hung on for quite a while, until I finally had a chance to move my archives to a new cloud solution. The nail in the coffin for me came when Pictage separated off the free album designs and instant wholesale album ordering along with completely removing the one-on-one support for Pro accounts and the raised credit card rates. Those were the last remaining advantages that Pictage had over many other services, and when they decided to remove those, I decided it was no longer worth keeping. I upgraded my systems elsewhere and hired an assistant to help take care of the cloud file transfers via FTP from Pictage to Dropbox using MutlCloud. I'm now finally ready to say goodbye as well and here's how I've changed my business to accommodate not using them anymore... (this is not a recommendation as to what anyone else should use, just my personal choices and examples).
Proofing: PDF of proofs created from the Print module in Lightroom emailed or Dropboxed to clients, which works out better for my commercial clients, since it allows them to keep and store the PDF for future image orders or sharing with suppliers who may also want commercial usage of images. This allows them to mark any retouching or alteration requests directly on the document to return to me for editing. If you plan to sell prints online to clients or friends and family of clients, you'll want to consider an online proofing solution mentioned below.
Invoicing, Billing, Contracts, Project Mangement: If you don't plan to have a proofing solution with built-in billing services, check out 17Hats. It has been super easy to use, very quick to set up, and it facilitates creating as you go so that you don't have to have it all figured out or set up at once. You can just use what you need first and then add on from there. It accepts all major credit cards as well as PayPal and adds no additional credit fees.
Printing & Albums: Most of my commercial clients are doing their own printing or sending directly to magazines for publication and require no printed products. If my former wedding clients were to want prints or albums at this point, I would still be able to source through the highly experienced team and great quality products at Photo Albums Direct, but would also consider many of the other options out there as well.
If you really need a new proofing solution, I think Julia May did a great job of comparing various online proofing and hosting solutions, so if you haven't chosen a next step yet, or are shopping the market for something better than what you have, check out her post here to compare some of the most used services currently available (chart is from the post linked below):
http://petapixel.com/2014/09/07/battle-client-galleries-comparing-10-best-tools-image-proofing-presentation/
Pictage basically helped me launch my business over 10 years ago and I came to rely on them for nearly everything that happened on the back end of my wedding & portrait business. Billing, hosting, cloud storage, FTP solution to vendors, printing, album designs, customer support, print orders, packaging, drop shipping, credit card transactions, marketing promotions, etc.
Technology has changed a lot since that point. There were no iPhones 10 years ago. Twitter didn't exist. Facebook was just starting as a way for Harvard students to network with each other. Digital SLRs were just starting to become affordable for the average consumer with a whopping 6.3megapixel files. Amazon cloud storage didn't exist yet, but Pictage had created an incredibly advanced online solution for film and digital photographers to serve their clients.
The last year has been the worst year for Pictage. Some people jumped ship early, but I hung on for quite a while, until I finally had a chance to move my archives to a new cloud solution. The nail in the coffin for me came when Pictage separated off the free album designs and instant wholesale album ordering along with completely removing the one-on-one support for Pro accounts and the raised credit card rates. Those were the last remaining advantages that Pictage had over many other services, and when they decided to remove those, I decided it was no longer worth keeping. I upgraded my systems elsewhere and hired an assistant to help take care of the cloud file transfers via FTP from Pictage to Dropbox using MutlCloud. I'm now finally ready to say goodbye as well and here's how I've changed my business to accommodate not using them anymore... (this is not a recommendation as to what anyone else should use, just my personal choices and examples).
Proofing: PDF of proofs created from the Print module in Lightroom emailed or Dropboxed to clients, which works out better for my commercial clients, since it allows them to keep and store the PDF for future image orders or sharing with suppliers who may also want commercial usage of images. This allows them to mark any retouching or alteration requests directly on the document to return to me for editing. If you plan to sell prints online to clients or friends and family of clients, you'll want to consider an online proofing solution mentioned below.
Invoicing, Billing, Contracts, Project Mangement: If you don't plan to have a proofing solution with built-in billing services, check out 17Hats. It has been super easy to use, very quick to set up, and it facilitates creating as you go so that you don't have to have it all figured out or set up at once. You can just use what you need first and then add on from there. It accepts all major credit cards as well as PayPal and adds no additional credit fees.
Printing & Albums: Most of my commercial clients are doing their own printing or sending directly to magazines for publication and require no printed products. If my former wedding clients were to want prints or albums at this point, I would still be able to source through the highly experienced team and great quality products at Photo Albums Direct, but would also consider many of the other options out there as well.
If you really need a new proofing solution, I think Julia May did a great job of comparing various online proofing and hosting solutions, so if you haven't chosen a next step yet, or are shopping the market for something better than what you have, check out her post here to compare some of the most used services currently available (chart is from the post linked below):
http://petapixel.com/2014/09/07/battle-client-galleries-comparing-10-best-tools-image-proofing-presentation/
Great article, Anne!
ReplyDeleteI just wanted to mention that, for former Pictage users, we at Zenfolio are offering a free 3 month trial as opposed to the usual 14 day trial.
As with most Zenfolio employees, I am a photographer too. And I understand how disruptive it can be to have to learn a new photo hosting system, move images, set up a new website etc…
We are hoping that offering three free months of service will help make the transition easier for those that have been used to using Pictage. They can get started here - https://goo.gl/QDv9P1