Fashion Media Post-Production Team Collaborating on Photography

The company operates within the creative post-production industry, primarily servicing high-end fashion brands and photographers. Their team collaborates with hundreds of active photographers, managing a large volume of photographic assets. The team has recently relocated from Europe to North America but continues to work at scale, handling extensive digital media files.

Currently, the company receives photographic assets from photographers via shared links, which they download to local storage systems. They conduct multiple rounds of post-production edits using tools like Adobe Photoshop and Bridge. The company stores approximately 26 terabytes of data on Dropbox, leveraging Dropbox’s integration with Apple iCloud for file synchronization. Final deliverables are then sent back to companies through shared links. Their workflow relies heavily on manual file downloads, local storage management, and naming conventions for file organization.

The company faces several challenges: - Local laptops accumulate large caches of files which require manual deletion to free up space. - Dropbox sharing prompts recipients to join the company’s Dropbox team, causing confusion and delays. - The integration with Apple iCloud through Dropbox has introduced performance issues and a less seamless user experience. - The company lacks an effective search mechanism, relying on file naming conventions that hamper efficient asset retrieval. - Slow internet connections complicate file handling and workflow speed. - Existing solutions do not adequately support the company’s need to work with large photo libraries without downloading all data locally.

Shade offers a cloud-native file streaming solution that integrates seamlessly with the company’s operating system, appearing as a local hard drive. Instead of downloading entire files, Shade streams assets on demand, eliminating the need for large local caches and manual file management. The platform allows selective caching of active files, similar to Dropbox’s selective sync but with greater ease and intuitiveness. Shade’s streamlined sharing process removes the need for recipients to join teams, simplifying company approvals and collaborations. Additionally, Shade supports faster access and better performance, even over slower internet connections, making it ideal for large-scale photo post-production workflows.