Opinions on Photoshop.com

[bobmielke]

I signed up for the Beta version of Photoshop.com when it was first offered. When I purchased Photoshop Elements 7.0 I received a free membership. I've uploaded a few dozen photos to become familiar with the "look & feel" of the site.

In it's "free" version it's not bad for the occasional user but I need to load a lot of large .jpg files from a 10.2 megapixel camera that eat up a lot of space. The $50 upgrade price is fair but the site doesn't compare favorably with SmugMug for the same cost. There I can customize the look & feel style of each album as well as pick from a list of uploading software.

I'm maintaining my photoshop.com account but will keep SmugMug as my main storage site.

[johnrellis]

I decided to continue using my Flickr account instead of switching to Photoshop.com. I didn't see any advantages to using Photoshop.com, and it has some bugs, including showing the wrong date/time for some photos.

[Erin DigitalPhotosForMoms]

I'm not sure yet whether I'll renew my membership next year. And I definitely won't stop using Flickr. I like the tutorials (now that I've found them), and I do like the mobile phone access.

[NeedLotsOfHelp]

I have an interesting problem that I can't figure out. I have the Plus membership to Photoshop.com and can access all of the Tutorials from Elelments, but can't from Premiere. In Premiere it tells me that the tutorials I want to access are only for Plus members. Anyone else have this problem? Suggestions?

[bobisr23]

I cannot see the benefit in changing to Photoshop.com as I have too much to move and Flickr offers as much already from what I can tell. I already have access through the free membership for the things that relate to using Elements. Flickr is cheaper, has a huge intenational membership, I am already familiar with the environment, it seems stable, etc. Am I missing something?

[johnrellis]

Originally Posted by bobisr23

Am I missing something?

I don’t think so. Adobe’s vision for integrating PSE and Photoshop.com is excellent – seamlessly synchronize between the two, with changes in one reflected automatically in the other. This could make publishing your photos online much easier, give you “anywhere” access to your catalog, and give you reliable online backup.

But in my opinion, Adobe has quite a ways to go in implementing that vision:

- There are basic bugs in the synchronization: It gets dates and times wrong, it gets confused about rotation, it doesn’t synchronize changes to album ordering, synchronization frequently stalls.

- The "backup" feature of Photoshop.com is pretty limited -- it appears to backup only the top file in a version set, and though it backs up all the files in a stack, it loses the fact they were in a stack. It also won’t backup changes you’ve made to the ordering of albums (see above). I don’t think it’s going to backup your original folder structure or slideshows.

- The service feels slow and clunky compared to Flickr or Smugmug, and it certainly lacks the polish and features.

[veejayr]

Originally Posted by johnrellis

But in my opinion, Adobe has quite a ways to go in implementing that vision.

I agree, John. I have yet to have one album sucessfully upload, even test albums with ony a few pictures. I just get a message that one or more of the photos didn't upload properly - no hint as to why or what happened. The support group has no answers and just keeps repeating that they are "not technically trained". They open a ticket and promise to call me back within 48 hours. Five days later, someone that barely speaks English calls me back to tell me my problem has been resolved (which, of couse it hasn't) and then agrees to submit another ticket for response in another 48 hours. I request to speak with a supervisor to escalate the issue and then start all over again.

Just try to explain to one of the Elements or photoshop.com support folks about the PSE7 welcome/splash screen which says "You can do [insert wonderful feature] and to "click here" to learn more". Only problem is that your click takes you to a general Adobe support page, not to the wonderful feature. OR sometimes the "Inspiration Brower" opens to something not at all related to the wonderful feature. No one in either support group has ever heard of the "Inspiration Browser" - they don't know what it is.

There is no communication between the photoshop.com folks and the elements folks. I've been caught and shuffled between the two groups for almost three weeks now, with each one blaming the other and each opening separate tickets every time they call me back!

As an end user, it is highly frustrating that (1) Adobe released PSE7 with the "inspiration browser" and photoshop.com connection way before they were ready and (2) without having trained its support staff to know what the "inspiration browser" is and what tutorials/content resides where; and (3) that there is no end user documentation I can use to help myself.

Do I sound frustrated and mad? Well, on October 1, I paid for a full year's worth of online photo album storage which doesn't work and tutorials and pushed content I can't find. A full two months later I still can't get what I paid for to work and I cannot find anyone at Adobe who as a clue what they are doing. Adobe's customer service is shameful. So, yes. I'm frustrated and mad.

[Digiscrapr52]

This thread has been an eye-opener. Thanks for the info and opinions everybody.

[bobisr23]

Thanks for honest feedback folks. I guess I too will stay with Flickr for another year and see how Photoshop.com progresses. I will however continue to play with P.com to learn and see how it improves. After another year I will re-evaluate my position because Flickr could change overnight with all the back and forth talks about buy outs of Yahoo etc. The downside of any online service is if you needed to get all of your images back in a hurry. Someone should be offering a dump service. That could be attractive.