North Dakota Wedding and Portrait Photographer: Brittany Schnell

A Brief History of My Experience With Gallery Sharing Platforms

When I first began distributing my photography, I was drawn into Pixieset by one thing: 15 GB of FREE storage space. It’s 2014. I just graduated high school and I was starting my photography business with the meager savings I had at the time. Pixieset’s 15 GB of free storage space was enough for me to sign up, make an account and test the service out. 

A year later, photographer Gavin Wade was experiencing troubles in his own photography business. He felt like his gallery delivery platform was delivering photos with products as an afterthought, instead of the highlight of the client’s experience. I felt the same way with my Pixieset galleries. He wanted to create a user-friendly experience for all- the photographers and the clients. Thus, Cloudspot was born. 

I rotated my galleries out pretty quickly and a majority of the work in my early photo career was subcontracted, so I was able to keep the 15 GB Pixieset plan for several months. Eventually, I would upgrade to the next plan, and the next plan until I would be using the Unlimited Photo plan by Pixieset. (I believe I was paying $34/mo for the unlimited plan- maybe less since I was paying yearly)
But, I wasn’t totally satisfied with the service. For starters, Pixieset’s upload speed is incredibly slow. I didn’t have any prior experience with other gallery sharing platforms but I felt like it was slow. Uploading galleries took me FOREVER, even though I have high speed internet. Additionally, pixieset does not offer multi folder uploads. Translation: I would have to upload each folder individually. I could not upload multiple folders at once. 
In 2019 I began creating animated GIFs for my clients. Pixieset did not support animated GIFs, so if I wanted to share GIFs with my clients, I would need to upload them to a cloud service and share a shareable link. I felt like the entire process was unprofessional. Sharing a product with a google drive??? Not the look I wanted for my business. 

Enter some random photography podcast with Gavin Wade as the special guest. Gavin pitched Cloudspot to the audience. He talked about the amazing features like multi folder uploads and a download system so easy, even grandma can do it. Gavin had a special going on - the first three months for $3. Thankfully, I checked out that $3 promotion.

I admit that I don’t have any experience with any other photo gallery sharing platforms. This blog post is a first hand experience comparing Cloudspot and Pixieset.

Cloudspot vs Pixieset

Animated GIFs 

Pixieset does not support animated gifs.

Cloudspot supports animated gifs. Photographers can upload both jpgs and gifs to any folder in their gallery. Gifs will show their animation in the gallery while a client is scrolling through. However, they do not animate once viewed in full screen or if they are chosen for the gallery cover.

Multi Folder Uploads

Cloudspot’s upload service is significantly better than Pixieset’s. Pixieset’s only allows a user to upload folders one at a time and the uploads would be slow. Cloudspot’s upload speed is significantly faster and a user is able to upload multiple folders at the same time. I LOVE this feature for uploading large wedding or event galleries.

Gallery & Apps

Creating galleries is quick and easy within Cloudspot. A user first creates a collection with folders of jpgs and/or gifs. Next click the “Galleries and Apps” button in the top right hand corner. A pop up box will appear and the user can create and adjust settings for their new gallery or app.

To create an app in Pixieset, one needs to upload the entire gallery again to the App platform within Pixieset.

Drag and Drop Store Feature

My favorite feature in the Cloudspot store is the premium lay flat photo albums. They have a bunch of different size and cover options. Next clients can drag and drop photos from their gallery into easy to customize photo templates. I’m blown away by the quality of these albums.

Pixieset did not offer any album options while I was using the platform. Because they did not, I would create and order albums for clients. This process was slow and not a great representation of my brand. Pixieset also did not support drag and drop functions in the store, so sometimes the lab would unknowingly crop out desired subjects.

I had Cloudspot for several months before they added holiday, senior, wedding and baby cards to the store options. I’m extremely excited to offer this service to my clients in a smooth, drag and drop feature!

Embedded Video

This is one function of Cloudspot that I have yet to take full advantage of. Each gallery can have one embedded video from YouTube, Vimeo, Google Drive or Dropbox. If the video is stored on Google drive or Dropbox, the user has the option to send a download option to the client. How exciting!! 

Want to embed a video into your Cloudspot gallery? Follow this guide.

Embedded Galleries

A user can display a collection of galleries on their website by embedding public galleries. I use Squarespace to host my website. To add an embedded gallery I add a code box to a page and go to Cloudspot for the embedded code. Click ‘My Account,’ ‘Settings,’ ‘Portfolio Settings,’ adjust my portfolio settings and click ‘Embed My Portfolio.’ Copy the text generated into the Spuarespace code block. 
Here is what my embedded gallery looks like:

Lightroom Integration
Both platforms offer Lightroom plugins where a user can upload their images directly from Adobe Lightroom Classic.
Cloudspot has made it easy to upload images from Lightroom Classic with the Cloudspot Lightroom Integration and Pixieset has done the same with their own plugin.
I admit, I don’t currently use the Lightroom plugin, but I do have it installed.
For my workflow, I prefer to save the images on my external hard drive as a full size image, high resolution and web size. I then sort the full size images into folders with Adobe Bridge if necessary, put all the GIF images from the web size folder in their own folder, create and save animated GIFs to the full size folder and upload all the folders at once to Cloudspot.
Yeah, it’s a long process, but sorting photos is much easier in Adobe Bridge.
I think the Lightroom Plugin would be more desirable to photographers sharing single folder galleries.

Luxe Design
I’m getting nit picky here- but Cloudspot has a more modern looking design for their backend. In contrast, Pixieset feels overly simple and outdated. Each platform displays each gallery in similar ways, so there are few differences on the client side.

Closing Thoughts

Overall, I am far more satisficed with Cloudspot than I was with Pixieset. I’m thankful for the roll Pixieset played in my early photography career, but I’m on to bigger and brighter things with Cloudspot.