I have a website and use PhotoShelter archive for Image licences, I am looking for website software that does full Rights Managed, Royalty Free and full rights managed pricing.

I am looking at Licence Stream but again is ongoing costs, Lightbox Pro is the only stand alone I can fond that does it all but at $1000

Anyone using something else, SmugMug and the other are just not feature rich enough.

http://www.lightboxphoto.com/
http://www.licensestream2.com/


David

I am now thinking more in lines of Lightbox Photo, at a cost of $1000, the reasons are several:

I have RM images with Alamy, these are also in my photoshelter archive, my RF images were with several Agencies, Services and Microsites some are no longer trading, are my images still on thier drives somewhere DDR, LO etc:, I am more aware that my images are on different servers all over the place in countries where we may have no legal route, the cost of Photoshelter is $360 a year for something that could cease tomorrow, the $1000 will be covered in three years with this saving, with Photoshelter Archive the price could go up tomorrow, I have no say in the direction or changes of the software, I closed my PS Archive account when the collection closed and deleted my images, two months later I signed back on for the Archive and my images were still there, that was a worry as I thought they were deleted for thier servers.

I have my websites and pay for enough space to host my own images, I am thinking that I need to be more aware of where I am uploading my images and bring as much back in house, I am also thinking of starting again with taking only RM images and making some only available exclusive through my own website, prices are being driven down all over, and our cut will go down and down, the merchants sites will take bigger cuts to survive at the expense of the photographers.

So as well as Alamy for general images, I am looking at niche markets and keeping full control over these images, it will take about 24 months to build a niche collection which will be about the time we come out of recession.

The key to this will be finding and having the rights to use the software rather than using an online image hosting service.

With Lightbox Photo I can even upload smaller images to one server and when a sale happens the download can come from another server, this would help if I was working with other photographers to have an online collection, as the photographer keeps control of thier original images.

I can not think of any other creative business where the artist produces and prepares thier work and the gallery returns such a smal return from the sale.
 
David   

Why are you looking at something other than Photoshelter? They seem to have a pretty complete offering with a ton of configuration options.  I'm still considering them for a website backend.

A reason Lightbox is unique is that it is a standalone software package you can install on your own server, not some account with a gallery provider, that overcharges for space and bandwidth. Ktools used to be standalone too a few years ago, but I checked last week and all they offer now is a package deal of hosting and functionality.

Photoshelter is a good solution, and let's see what smugmugpro has to offer when it gets rolled out. But Lightbox is an excellent solution for those who have their own customer base and a very large portfolio that isn't accepted or drowned at (micro)stock. For just 1000$, you have a very good and price-effective solution since the additional cost will just be your hosting (7-10$/month, unlimited space/bandwidth).

Hmmm. Good points. Looks like it's time to start looking into Lightbox a bit more.
My hosting is at Godaddy. Is this a hosted application you can add like Wordpress or do you need to physically install it so that you'd probably need a (very expensive) managed server somewhere?

The Deluxe Plan of Godaddy (7$/month) has limits: 150Gb, 1,5TB transfer, 25 databases.
The Baby Plan of Hostgator (8$/month) is unlimited, also as to databases.

You probably added Wordpress by Fantastico, an application most hosters run. Lightbox, according to their info, is installed in any folder you want, by themselves. It's included in the price. You can easily add a top menu (depending on your WP template) tab 'Portfolio' and point it to the Lightbox install folder like you would open a new website. For 10$/year, you can additionally register a new domain with Namecheap that points to that folder so the Lightbox install is in effect a new website too, which would have SEO advantages