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Creative Design Company Consolidating LucidLink and Photoshop
Company Situation
The company operates a distributed creative design team with members working remotely across multiple locations and on various platforms, including Macs. Their team requires seamless access to large design files for collaboration without the constraints of on-premise storage solutions. The team is transitioning from traditional storage infrastructures to cloud-based services to better support a flexible and remote work environment.
Existing Workflow
Currently, the company uses an on-premise shared storage drive for design file management, which is becoming obsolete due to remote work challenges and VPN connectivity issues. To address this, they have initiated trials with cloud-based storage services that allow mounting drives locally without downloading files. Their primary trial is with LucidLink, which offers such functionality, although they are also evaluating Shade as a competitor with additional features.
Issues with the Existing Workflow
The on-premise storage solution does not accommodate remote team members who cannot connect reliably via VPN or are restricted by platform compatibility (notably Mac users).
Trialing LucidLink revealed limitations, particularly in file version search functionality, which is cumbersome when retrieving previous file versions.
During the Shade trial, the company encountered critical technical issues preventing them from opening design files (Photoshop PSD and InDesign files) from the mounted Shade drive, leading to workflow interruptions.
Support response delays added to the frustration, impeding smooth onboarding and evaluation.
Their security team flagged concerns around one of Shade’s underlying components, WinFSP, which has not been updated for two years, creating potential hurdles in the security assessment process.
How Shade Would Change Their Workflow
Shade aims to consolidate multiple post-production steps—camera ingest, color grading, and delivery reviews—into a single platform accessible remotely. By enabling cloud-mounted drives that behave like local storage, Shade would allow designers to open large files directly without downloading them, streamlining collaboration across dispersed teams. Advanced features such as AI-powered search and file management promise to enhance file retrieval and version control, addressing key pain points experienced with other solutions. Resolving current technical issues and obtaining security clearance would enable the company to fully integrate Shade into their workflow, reducing reliance on multiple platforms and improving overall productivity.
Benefits
- Seamless remote access to large design files without downloads
- Elimination of VPN and on-premise storage dependencies
- Consolidation of multiple workflows into one platform
- Enhanced search and version control capabilities via AI features
- Improved collaboration across distributed team members and platforms
- Potentially faster post-production review and delivery cycles
Technologies Used
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