Cross-Platform Photo Management Workflow - from Smart-Phone/PC to Storage to Print

Question

I am looking for a simple photography workflow. I want as much automation as possible to handle synchronization, organization, editing, and printing. I am willing to put in more work upfront so everything works smoothly down the road. Complex setups are okay, but the closer to an all-in-one solution the better.

Source of photos :

I have photos coming from multiple devices. Photos are taken on both Android and iPhone. Also, photos may be edited on a PC and possibly a Mac.

Cloud functionalities : (synchronization, organization, editing)

Ideally photos taken on a smart phone would automatically synchronize with a cloud storage solution (just as the iPhone does with iCloud). So I never need to upload a photo after I take it, it will do so automatically.

I would like the photos on Mac, PC, Android and iPhone to go to the same location. It would be great if at this location, the photos may be renamed, organized, and possibly edited. I like how software like Google Drive and Dropbox store a local copy of the images on my PC so I can edit them there. If the solution allows for editing within it that would be really good. The cloud backup solution must also allow me to easily download and keep photos that are not already on my PC.

Printing :

Also, I would like to have the option to have the photos professionally printed (like shutterfly or snapfish). If need be, these photos can be uploaded from my PC after they have synchronized from a phone, but the more automation the better. Ideally, the photos would be already at the printing service, and I would just have to selected which ones I would like printed.

Answer 1

I recently looked into this problem (Jan 2016) and the best solution I found was Flickr. They have 1TB storage free and offer the Flickr Uploader tool for MacOS and Windows. The Uploader can run and monitor folders you specify to upload photos from. The Uploader recognizes duplicates that are already on your cloud and won't upload more than one copy in case you have duplicated scattered around. They also offer printing services similar to what you are searching for.

The first downside is that there is no Uploader for the mobile devices. My workaround is to sync the mobile to the Mac/Windows and let the Uploader detect the new images from the sync and send these photos to Flickr. Image Capture does this on the MAC and you can have it automatically launch when your device is connected, import, and delete the images off the device.

The second downside is that the Uploader does not handle videos(yet), so you have to manage those separately. I checked the feature requests for the Uploader and video upload is voted near the top of the need to have features by the user community. So they will likely solve that soon.