A great solution for easy photo storage and searching - but only if you make use of the metadata.
Pros
- Organization. It allows us to keep our photos organized and in their appropriate folders so we can find them again.
- Search. Extensis Portfolio imports all the metadata from the photo and allows you to search for keywords or descriptions from its interface.
- Sharing. Its NetPublish function allows for easy sharing across campus for other communicators to use photos we've selected for them.
Cons
- Learning curve. It can be very intimidating and difficult to learn for people who are not experienced with similar software.
- Ease of adding new users. It's currently a long process to bring anyone new onto the platform. We have to go through our DAM manager and only they have the ability to add or remove people.
- Thumbnail previews sometimes blank. Sometimes the thumbnails for photos don't load or need to be refreshed manually, which can be frustrating when needing to search through multiple folders and photos.
Return on Investment
- Positive - saves time. The search feature is biggest time saver. Now that we don't have to spend hours staring at photo folders trying to find one that works, we can get on with design.
- Positive - keeps us current. Extensis Portfolio has the ability to arrange photos by year, which means if we have folders that are older than 5 years we can move all those old photos to an archive and keep only the most current photos to search through.
- Positive - customer service. With the ease of sharing photos with NetPublish, we no longer have to wade through emails of people requesting images. Now they can search for them themselves and we can see what photos are requested the most.
Alternatives Considered
Box, Dropbox and MS SharePoint
Other Software Used
Box, Dropbox, Microsoft Office 365, Google Drive, Adobe InDesign, Adobe Illustrator CC, Adobe Photoshop, Paymo, Adobe Acrobat DC
