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In today’s visually driven landscape, brands (and creatives) are tasked with finding a simple way to manage and organize a large library of images, videos and other content.

And that’s where PhotoShelter for Brands comes in, a DAM (digital asset management) platform that promises to streamline the visual workflow and make it easier to centralize digital content. While PhotoShelter has been around for a while, they are now shifting their focus towards brands, offering a multi-user cloud-based media library designed specifically for the needs of businesses and organizations looking to streamline their content management as well as enjoy a range of AI-powered features to make organizing and distribution of content even easier. Tech Reviews Editor Erlingur Einarsson spoke with PhotoShelter CEO Andrew Fingerman about the company’s rapid development in this area.

In the meantime, I had the opportunity to test PhotoShelter for myself to find out if this is one of the best cloud storage solutions currently on the market. For this review, I’ll focus solely on PhotoShelter for Brands, but if you’re a professional photographer or content creator, take a look at our previous Photoshelter review.

PhotoShelter for Brands: Features

Photoshelter is a cloud-based digital asset management system designed to help brands organize, manage and distribute electronic media files whether they are images, videos, audio, text, designs or presentations.

Photoshelter acts as a one-stop shop where team members, clients, contractors or other stakeholders can easily access the digital library. Bringing all your content together in one place online means you can maintain brand consistency, improve workflow and productivity, and of course, get the most bang for your buck.

One feature I found useful is the invited galleries. This means that different users can access separate parts of the content. So this is handy if, for example, you only want to give your social media team access to certain approved images to post, being able to limit their access will ensure that no non-social media images will be seen. Aside from avoiding potential embarrassment, this is a great feature for keeping your content tight and on brand.

And speaking of social media, there is also an option to make branding templates. You can easily make different posts with your internal style so that you not only stay on brand but you also save a lot of time.

This software enables users to share and distribute content on a variety of platforms, whether internally, with clients, or on social media. Everything can be done from one space. Workflow sharing can also be set to be automated or done in real time. When it comes to real-time, this is especially valuable for brands that want to move images directly from the camera to social media, sponsors, websites or key influencers such as media, social media stars or bloggers. This feature comes into its own when covering live events such as sports, concerts, political or news events.

This software also places great emphasis on collaboration tools. Users can share, comment, approve and download digital assets without even leaving the platform. This keeps everything in one space so no long email trails or missing key people in important decisions. Also included is a version control feature that means users can track and manage different versions of content and see who has signed the image for use.

Now, one of the biggest and, in my opinion, best features of PhotoShelter is its visual AI search. Using natural language processing, this feature makes it easy to find all images uploaded to the PhotoShelter system. Users simply need to describe the image, such as “find a picture of a person skiing” and it will search through all the images and bring up the one that best matches that description. While this doesn’t completely replace the need for metadata and tagging, it does mean you don’t have to guess what the original uploader provided as a title or tag so you don’t miss an image that might be useful for your work.

PhotoShelter for Brands: Performance

PhotoShelter works incredibly well. It handles large volumes of digital assets with ease so you won’t be sitting around waiting for things to upload or download because it works incredibly fast.

Its search function is particularly impressive. It was quick to find specific assets in extensive libraries. Of course, being cloud-based means that some aspects of this platform are dependent on your own infrastructure and whether you have a good, fast connection, but PhotoShelter has an impressive uptime so you can rest easy knowing that your digital assets will be available when you need them.

But I really didn’t experience any wait or lag when uploading and downloading content. I found that the advanced AI search provided almost instant results, and of course this will only get better as AI technology develops.

It also integrates with existing tools a brand can use, including Canva, Google Workspace, Adobe CC and Asana so it doesn’t take longer to transfer to PhotoShelter. You can use PhotoShelter on your phone or tablet too, I found it offered the same desktop experience which is great if you need access on the go.

PhotoShelter for Brands: User Experience

This is a complex system. That’s not to say it’s hard to use or overly complicated, but there are so many different features that it can take some getting used to.

Thankfully, the team at PhotoShelter offer an onboarding system that walks you through everything you need to know, they also have an impressive support structure. There are also tons of how-to videos that show you the ins and outs of using PhotoShelter from learning how to add library staff to setting up permissions and more. But like I mentioned, the PhotShelter team is super responsive so if you have a question or need help, reach out and they’ll get you sorted.

Once you create an online account, everything is simple and straightforward. The backend looks a bit basic but this works to the user’s advantage as the menus are well placed, everything is clear in organized folders and it’s just very easy to navigate around.

Photo shelter for brands: Price

Unfortunately, we cannot share PhotoShelter’s pricing structure. It is available on demand and will be based on what your business needs are, how many users you need and what level of storage you need. The PhotoShelter team is easily accessible so if you are interested in the service it is best to contact them with your requirements so that you can get the best price for your business.

Who is it for?

PhotoShelter has effectively divided its operations. They offer single-user accounts for photographers and content creators, but PhotoShelter for Brands is aimed at businesses and organizations that need a multi-user solution. PhotoShelter for Brands also has a limited customization option while the PhotoShelter photographer accounts give users the chance to build their portfolios and build a custom website.

Buy if…

• You manage large volumes of visual assets across multiple teams or departments

• You need advanced search capabilities and AI-powered tagging

• Integration with other tools such as Adobe Creative Cloud is important to your process

Do not buy if…

• You work with a limited number of assets and do not need extensive organizational functions

• You are an individual or a small team with a limited budget for digital asset management

• Your requirements do not justify the cost of a full-fledged DAM platform