Best Photo Management Software arranges and preserves sources of image files for businesses as well as users. Photo management tools allow users to effortlessly search and locate the required image files. Businesses leverage photo management solutions to arrange huge number of digital images, avoid image duplication, and also to store image files in a centralized location. These tools are most usually used by marketing, creative, or media branches or persons with a big number of images to handle, such as professional photographers. Photo management tools are frequently combined into the workflows of people with the help of images and are used in combination with graphic design or photo editing tools.

Top Photo Management Software in 2020

1. Photos
2. Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic
3. Adobe Bridge
4. ACDSee
5. Google Photos
6. ShootProof
7. Flickr

Photos - Photos in macOS Catalina helps users in finding their best photos, with top of the line search features. Users can maintain their image collection into albums, or preserve their photos with the help of smart albums. They can also refine their photos with the help of built-in editing tools, or by simply installing their preferred photos editing apps. With iCloud Photos, users get the flexibility to store all their photos and videos in iCloud….Read more

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic - Lightroom Classic provides users with all the desktop editing features that are required to edit the photos and make them look better defined. Users can add more colours, make low light shots livelier, eliminate off-putting objects and flatten tilted shots. It also allows users to simply arrange all their photos on their desktop and share them in a diversity of ways….Read more

Adobe Bridge - Adobe Bridge is an effective asset manager that enables users to preview, arrange, modify and publish several creative assets instantly and effortlessly. It allows users to edit metadata, add keywords, labels and scores to assets. They can also maintain assets with the help of collections and search for required assets by using powerful filters and progressive metadata search features. Adobe Bridge allows users to collaborate with Libraries and publish to Adobe Stock straight from Bridge….Read more

ACDSee – Right from its beginning, ACDSee was intended to provide users all the tools required for searching, sorting, transferring, arranging, and sharing their digital assets. It helps users with facial recognition, scores, ranked keywords, groupings, tags, colour labels, and location data which effectively help in sorting images for further processing, while widespread metadata and batch capabilities help in facilitating an efficient workflow….Read more

Google Photos - Google Photos is an image sharing and storage service created by Google. Google Photos provides users with limitless, free of charge cloud photo backup, AI-powered sharing recommendations, and effective search features….Read more

ShootProof – ShootProof offers photo management services which come equipped with a host of unique features. It helps users in delivering files with PIN protection and resizing option which helps them in delivering image file instantly. Users can make an exclusive design for each gallery, or create reusable layouts for a uniform look and feel….Read more

Flickr – Flickr allows users to leverage albums so that they can arrange their photos and videos for simpler finding, viewing, and sharing. Users can also group their image files by specific date, subject, occasion, or any other preference….Read more

Market Overview

Photo management software is an all-inclusive system that filters and shares digital images. Businesses with huge databases leverage this software for critical campaigns. It enables users to find image files instantly, which basically help organizations in completing projects prior to the deadlines. An ideal photo manager software helps businesses in storing images in prearranged sections within a data library, which also makes it effortless to search for exact photos. An ideal photo management solution has the potential to provide users with the personalized space and capabilities.

The growth in demand amongst enterprises to manage digital images, proliferation of digital content, and increasing focus on digital marketing have further aided the adoption of the best Photo Management Software, globally. The solution helps businesses in effectual monitoring and tracking of their digital image files for media and production. It also facilitates managers with real-time access to critical information, such as images needed on priority for marketing purposes, protected images, and fragmentation of digital images. Photo management solution helps in automating the digital image process and eliminates the probability of error caused by traditional approaches, thereby reducing the operational cost.

The trend of Internet of Things (IoT) is likely to witness high demand in the coming years, considering organizations’ initiative toward digital transformation. The fast growth and increasing adoption of IoT within organizations is expected to aid the global photo management software market, as IoT helps employees to share and access digital images to the library in real time from anywhere. Increasing connectivity between devices due to IoT has enabled organizations to collect and store large piles of digital data to repository. This has further complicated the management of continuously growing digital images, as the data will be no longer static.

The constant developments in photo management technologies, such as integration of cloud and mobility, analytics, and the emergence of IoT have further leveraged the vendors to offer a superior solution to improve organizational productivity in a cost-efficient manner. Additionally, cloud service providers are offering improved photo management solutions to better suit the needs of large enterprises and small and medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs).

The applicability of photo management solutions is very high in companies, resulting in prospects for photo management vendors, cloud service providers, third-party service providers, and technology providers. Moreover, its ability to offer a cohesive central system for managing digital image files in the areas of network maintenance and customer service has been an important part of its growth strategy. Due to its benefits, such as improved real-time access to information of metadata and increased productivity, organizations are rapidly deploying this solution. However, photo management solutions face some challenges, such as perplexing management of continually changing digital images, which could constrain its adoption across various organizations, especially in SMEs that have budget restraints.

In the current pandemic situation, the world’s economic growth has slowed down. The Photo Management Software market has also been impacted, but it has still preserved a comparatively positive growth. Industry experts trust that in the near future, best Photo Management Software market size will grow significantly.

The companies identified as Visionary Leaders in the Photo Management Software market are:

The companies identified as Dynamic Differentiators in the Photo Management Software market are:

The companies identified as Innovators in the Photo Management Software market are:

The vendors identified as Emerging companies  in the Photo Management Software market are:

What are the different types of Photo Management Software?

Photo Management Software Categories

Best photo management software solutions range from modest viewing tools right up to refined systems that cater to multinational organizations. Mentioned below, are a few types of Photo Management Software available in the market currently:

Image Viewers

Image Viewers help users in opening and viewing an image file, and do a few tasks like transfer images into folders. Some image viewers only allow users to view images, while some others also offer image editing capabilities that can range from rudimentary to more progressive editing which may comprise cropping, increasing image size, reduction, or painting on an image. These type of image viewers do not offer tagging features, but they do facilitate effortlessness and suppleness.

Data-based Automatic Image Managers

Similar to image viewer software, image organizers also allow users to open and see images. They are also capable of reading digital image data that comprises information about the time when the image was produced and uses it to generate an organization assembly mechanically. These type of software are generally used in order to enhance workflow by managing vast numbers of images in less time. The user typically has slight to zero control over the mechanically produced organization structure, but can modify how images are archived.

Hybrid - Manual and Automatic Photo Organizers

Several profitable image managers provide both automatic as well as manual photo management capabilities.

Digital Asset Management (DAM)

Digital Asset Managers are available as on premise or software as a service (SaaS), or also as a hybrid of both. Digital Asset Managers are ideal for organizations or specialists who need to archive a diversity of digital resources which may include photos, and other content such as videos, drawings, audio files, and charts. DAM are also capable of managing media files so they’re protected, easy to recover, and centrally accessible, and enables association and circulation of assets within and external to the enterprise. Progressive functionality is available, with scheduling asset circulation and handling all phases of a digital asset’s development. A DAM should have the potential to integrate with other apps.

RAW Images and Non-Destructive Editing

The processing used by smartphones or any digital cameras whenever a photo is clicked is general and constant across the whole photo. A RAW image file is an uncompressed image file. It fetches data from the camera sensor at the time it was clicked with negligible processing. RAW images provide users with total control over image improvements. By using non-destructive editing with RAW images, users can modify the photos without even losing the original master copy of the photo. The software generally replicates the master image file to produce a new version, or saves modifications and improvement within a database which are then applied individually from the RAW master file in real time. Users can always retrieve the original image file, and all the changes made by the user are completely revocable.

Software-as-a-Service (Saas) Photo Management Software

Like most other software, photo management software are also available as cloud-based SaaS solutions. They are typically offered as free or charge or freemium services, and in case if the users need advanced functionalities, they can avail the same at a monthly subscription fee rather than making a one-time software acquisition. SaaS software can be accessed from any computer, tablet, or phone.

Free, Subscription, or Acquired Photo Management Solution

For several photographers who mostly make use of their phones or just a basic digital camera, free photo management software or very low cost apps may prove to be beneficial. For professional photographers, subscribing to a monthly payment plan offers more suitability and the capability to alter services or even add more features as and when required. An on premise photo management solution is typically the answer for businesses that follow higher security mandates, current infrastructure, and want to integrate with current systems. Photo Management Solutions for organizations purposes with intricate capabilities and personalization options are generally more expensive. Professional photographers make use of a wide range of tools from every category.

What are the most common tasks involved in Photo Management?

Some of the most common tasks involved in Photo Management include:

Safe Storage and Backup

One of the major tasks of photo management is to create of backup of all the pictures. Users can securely save images on SD cards, memory cards used in digital cameras, and other portable devices. Another option to save images is cloud storage, which is least expected to get corrupted than an external drive. If users store big RAW files or 1080p videos, they may fall short of the limited amount of storage space provided for free of charge by most services.

Organization and Easy Retrieval

Photo management has one important task, i.e. to classify photos and make them simple to find. Most solutions offer tagging and classification functions that are based on location, date, topic, or trip, so that they can store numerous images and still find them instantly. Removing duplicate photos is another significant function. Most photo management solutions - even the free ones - can help users in cleaning up duplicate photos that are saved as TIFF or .jpgs. For RAW images, users may need to invest in a specialized photo management solution that is created specifically for that purpose.

Using Metadata

Metadata is basically a data set that defines an image. It is entrenched with an image file so that it can be used regardless of the format or the software, hardware, as well as end users. Users can input data and information into the image file manually, or by using a computer or a scanner can capture it automatically.

Editing

Photo management software typically have some kind of editing capability that has the ability to do simple colour changes, cropping, and size changes. The selection of editing tools generally depend on the kind of editing that needs to be done.

Sorting

Users can recognize their own criteria to sort the image files. Criteria may include date or time when photo was shot, or the name of the image file, keyword, score, or additional EXIF data. Best Photo management software sorts the photos or working files based on the preferences of the users.

Printing

For numerous amateurs and social media users, taking a physical print of a photo may not be that useful. But if required, many of the photo management software helps users in taking prints of the images in several ways. Users can also take in and modify format page headers and footers.

Sharing

Photo management allows users to share their recovered images separately, as whole albums, or as slideshows. They also allow users to share their images from a centralized location.  

Image Modification and Improvement

Most photo management software generally come equipped with a photo editing functionality as part of the whole package which helps users in modifying colours, cropping images, and altering the image size.

What are the different services offered in the Photo Management Software market?

Services are an integral part of the global photo management software market, as they are the core components for the effective functioning of any software. The services considered for the report are consulting, system integration, and support and maintenance. Assistance to better understand the right solution that suits an enterprise’s needs, the need for smooth and effective integration of solution into the existing infrastructure, and demand for resolving technical issues quickly are driving the growth of the services segment.

Consulting

Consulting services provide organizations expert advice for strategic planning and implementation of the best photo management software solutions as well as to improve its usage as per their business requirements. They enable organizations to monitor the factors that affect the creating, editing, and deleting of images that are to be shared with customers through various channels, including applications, mobile, and social media. These factors have encouraged organizations across diverse industry verticals to adopt consulting services. Furthermore, consulting services facilitate the deployment of photo management software solutions, on-premises and on the cloud.

System Integration

Photo Management Software vendors offer system integration services to organizations for hassle-free implementation of photo management solutions. System integration services help organizations plan the integration layout as per the business requirement and facilitate smooth integration of the photo management solutions with their existing software infrastructure. Furthermore, system integration services provide proper installation rules and tests. Service providers offer cost-effective system integration services that facilitate smooth business functioning.

The system integration services market is expected to grow due to the widespread use of images among various industries. This increases the volume of digital images being generated and creates the need to adopt photo management solutions for managing complex image formats.

Support and Maintenance

Support and maintenance services offered by best photo management software vendors help clients to upgrade and maintain their photo management solutions over the years. Service providers help users by providing them continuous support to resolve solution complexities, and also support organizations by helping them gain the expertise required for operating the new solutions. Support and maintenance services assist in training the organization personnel about the systematic procedures related to the solution.

What are the major applications of a Photo Management Software?

The use of best photo management software and services has become important for organizations today. For marketing activities, such as advertising, marketing campaign, and product branding, and organizations prefer digital marketing solutions that can help them improve their online marketing and sales programs, and store, retrieve, and market their offerings for ensuring customer retention. The global photo management software market, by application, has been segmented into marketing, enterprise, and broadcast and publishing.

Enterprise

Enterprises use various solutions, such as customer loyalty management and customer experience management to capture user behaviour, resulting in tremendous volumes of digital data. Enterprise data consists of collective data inputs from different departments. Photo management provides effective management of the global rich media to cater to varied customer requirements, and helps enterprises securely store the data at a central location. This makes it easier to access the content when required. The Photo management enterprise solution facilitates effective data sharing amongst internal and external stakeholders, and supports various organizational functions, such as sales, marketing, and branding.

Marketing

Marketing data consists of digital marketing, marketing operations, and sales content, and is shared among different departments, teams, and functional units. Photo management marketing solution concentrates on functionalities, such as brand management, sales functions, and stakeholder collaborations, and may also contain the marketing resource management functionality. The Photo management marketing solution offers image management for marketing groups across interdepartmental levels or across different marketing clusters.

Broadcasting and Publishing

The broadcast and publishing application generates large volumes of high-quality media content, such as videos, images, and artworks, in different size and formats. Photo Management Software solutions facilitate smooth management of broadcast and publishing data, and focus on the video and image processing and storage needs of the users in this industry.

What are the options to deploy Photo Management Software solutions?

Photo Management Software solutions and services can be deployed on-premises or on the cloud, as per the needs of an organization. On-premises deployment allows enterprises to store and manage image files in their own infrastructure, thus enabling them to gain total control of their digital assets. Cloud deployment helps enterprises reduce the additional hardware and software costs associated with the deployment and maintenance of the solution, and offers increased scalability and enhanced speed.

Cloud

The cloud deployment model offers increased scalability and enhanced speed. One of the major advantages of the cloud-based deployment is that it allows enterprises to know the real-time condition of the network from a remote location. Additionally, deployment costs are reduced with cloud solutions as nothing has to be stored on-premises, which significantly reduces initial investment and maintenance costs. Enterprises are considering cloud deployment for remote network management at competitive prices, due to the ease of availability and scalability.

On Premises

On-premises deployment is the traditional method of deploying software solutions. With on-premises deployment, enterprises have complete control over the software, as it is physically implemented at the premises. Enterprises adopt the on-premises deployment type as it does not involve any security concerns for storing vital assets on a third-party vendor’s infrastructure. Some of the vendors offering on-premises

How do the Photo Management Software differ on the basis of the size of the organizations?

Best Photo Management Software solutions and services are adopted across the world by SMEs and large enterprises for efficiently and effectively storing, accessing, managing, and sharing of image files. The report has considered SMEs as enterprises with employee strength of 1 to 1,000 employees, while large enterprises are defined as enterprises with more than 1,000 employees. The emerging usage of rising technologies, such as mobile, cloud, and social media has changed the organizations’ working style. The rising usage of internet among all the industry verticals for marketing of products has increased the usage of photo management solutions. With the growing prominence of cloud, small companies have started considering cloud-based photo management solution, which is cost-effective. Further, increasing platforms and web applications have compelled companies to provide their offerings through social media, thus contributing to the rise in digital images. The large enterprises are adopting these solutions rapidly, as they are exposed to challenges in managing and efficiently utilizing their images.

SMEs

SMEs have been majorly dependent on manual processes to manage their digital content, majorly due to lack of awareness and budget constraints. However, with the proliferation of mobile devices, IoT, and social media, the need for managing these images has increased. As social marketing is gaining significant demand, SMEs have been increasingly investing in social marketing activities to promote their products and services. This has further created the need for integrated photo management to share, collaborate, and manage images over social media for marketing.

Large Enterprises

Large enterprises in the industry sectors, such as media and entertainment, consumer goods and retail, manufacturing, and healthcare and life sciences, deal with complex digital content of different formats. The enterprises have a huge corporate network and revenue streams, and prefer implementing solutions that can assist them in increasing their profits. Moreover, enterprises have their customers scattered across various regions, which compels them to share, access, and store digital content through a central repository. Large enterprises are keen on implementing dedicated solutions such as photo management solutions to effectively leverage their digital assets. Best photo management software solutions facilitate enterprises to market their products and services through social media and provide real-time access to users, thus aiding in timely marketing of the products. Large enterprises are expected to continue the adoption of photo management solutions at a faster pace to improve their digital customer base.

Which verticals make use of Photo Management Software?

Considering the technological advancement and digital revolution across different industries, the volume of image files is increasing gradually. Enterprises are now shifting toward digitalization to increase their productivity and reliability. Abundant digital data is generated every hour across different industries, which is a valuable digital asset. Managing this huge amount of data is the need of the hour to smoothen the business processes by providing complete access and control of the data and avoid data redundancy. Best Photo Management Software solutions simplify these needs of enterprises and assure efficient management of crucial digital images. Photo Management solutions cater to a wide range of industries, such as media and entertainment, BFSI, consumer goods and retail, manufacturing, healthcare, education, and travel and tourism.

Media and Entertainment

The media and entertainment industry has achieved a major transition in its business process with the beginning of digital era. It generates large amounts of high resolution image and video files. The media industry deals with ever-increasing digital data, such as images and videos of different types and formats. However, legacy digital library does not match up to the standard, and is not flexible to meet current content sharing demand. Moreover, searching for the correct content from the pool of stored data takes time and efforts, and thus results in inefficiencies, brand inconsistencies, and waste of time. Photo Management solutions help overcome these problems while allowing organizations to store, search, and share the digital media efficiently across the globe, irrespective of time, along with a user-friendly interface.

The media and entertainment vertical is expected to increase from USD 669.5 million in 2017 to USD 1,343.1 million by 2022, at a CAGR of 14.9% during the forecast period. The entertainment industry requires high resolution images, artwork, and videos for promoting production. However, managing this large amount of content is a challenge without a proper photo management solution. Enterprises also need to share content with different media partners and agencies. Photo management solution provides platform for the users to efficiently manage the digital images and offers effective media sharing at any time across the globe.

Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance

The BFSI vertical is focusing on going paperless and thus shifting to the digital mode for its operations. With the enhancement in the internet coverage across the globe, banks and other financial institutions have already shifted to online mode. The digital transition in this vertical has led to enormous image files, which includes confidential customer credentials, transaction data, and process information. Without proper data management, handling, monitoring and sharing the data takes lots of efforts and time, which eventually affects the productivity. Management of this crucial image files along with the security is of utmost importance, as any compromise could lead to an irreversible impact on the organization’s brand value. Best Photo Management Software solution offers an effective all-in-one solution to manage an organization’s digital assets from a central location and provides convenient data sharing across systems. It plays a vital role in brand management of an organization by helping the brand managers access all the brand-related assets at a central place.

Consumer Goods and Retail

The consumer goods and retail industry is revolutionizing its workflow management by adopting online means to cater to its end-users, thus giving its customers a convenient and user-friendly experience. Huge amount of image files are created in the process and saved by different people at various locations. However, when such data needs to be shared with stakeholders, searching and sharing it is a time-consuming and tedious task. E-commerce is booming as majority of people nowadays prefer online shopping, as it is convenient and feasible. With e-commerce, digital content, such as images and videos, is increasing exponentially, and thus arises the need for efficient management of digital assets. Organizations need a tool, which can store and upload the content, while retrieving information stored in the product information management. Photo Management solution provides an effective way to manage and share digital content effectively, thus helping users improve their process efficiency. It empowers marketing professionals with digital filters, helping them find particular bit of marketing collaterals.

Manufacturing

In the manufacturing industries, maintaining product quality is a vital aspect. It is important to successfully complete a project within stipulated timeframe, and thus inefficiencies and flaws cannot be tolerated. Lack of efficiency and control in media creation results in waste of time and effort in searching the right file, sharing files which are too large for email, or broadcasting partial content, keeping certain data private. Best Photo Management Software solution assists to overcome these issues and helps improve the productivity and efficiency. It offers absolute handling and control over digital image files, while handling and monitoring the current projects and its resources, thus giving the users proper coordination tools for carrying out an efficient and productive process.

Healthcare and Life Sciences

The healthcare and life sciences industry generates vital data related to human beings, in the form of text, numeric files, images, and codes. Previously, this data was in paper form; however, with the technological advancements, the data generated now is mostly digital. Healthcare data is generated from different sources and is stored over a distributed network. Sometimes, the same data exists in different systems and different formats; for instance, clinical data and claim data contain same information, but exist in different formats. In future, this pool of data is expected to increase, due to increasing data sources, such as fitness monitors, health sensors, health applications, e-health cards, and insurance data. This diverse dispersed data will be difficult to access, manage, and share; thus, the need for effective data management arises in the healthcare industry. Data sharing is also a concern, as it is private and confidential data of an individual, and breach of this data could have serious consequences. In order to efficiently and securely manage, store, and share the data, organizations and institutions in this industry need an effective all-in-one Photo Management solution, which would also provide benefits, such as cross team collaboration, streamlined efficiency, and better resource allocation.

Travel and Tourism

In the travel and tourism industry, it is very important to have a clear and sound communication between internal and external stakeholders to avoid mismatch in the marketing requirements of the stakeholders. Accessing the images and other important digital content across various network drives is a tedious and time-consuming task. Moreover, backup of the important data is an issue, as files are stored across distributed network drives. Photo Management Software solution for this industry is expected to help manage the digital assets, while streamlining communication and collaborations, both internally and externally. Moreover, it will help organizations to share marketing materials with external stakeholders, eventually creating value between them.

Others

Other industries, where best Photo Management Software solutions are implemented, are energy and utilities, telecom and IT, and government. The energy and utilities industry generates massive high resolution image files. Managing the internal and external stakeholders is a tedious task, amounting in loss of time and productivity. Photo Management offers an absolute solution for asset management, thus streamlining the efficiency and enhancing the business process. The telecom and IT industry deals with large amounts of digital assets, which are difficult to access, manage, and control. Photo Management solutions enhance the digital asset handling, thus empowering enterprises. Government institutions are now shifting toward the digital mode for its processes, and thus, digital data is increasing gradually, resulting in the need for its effective access, storage, and sharing. The data with the government is also highly confidential and cannot be compromised. Thus, photo management solutions are being used to ensure effective and secure access to data in this industry.