Setting up a multi-photographer agency or a creative agency

The advanced proofing, delivery and e-commerce features are available to photo agencies and collectives in the same way as for individual photographers.

In this section, we focus on how to use PhotoDeck’s multi-user features in the context of multiple photographers uploading images and video clips to a single agency account and working as a team with the agency’s collaborators. Access to these features requires a subscription plan that includes them.

Team members’ access rights

Access to a PhotoDeck account can be given to team members. Each contributing photographer should therefore be added as a team member to be able to access the agency account with his/her own PhotoDeck credentials.

In the same way, team member account can be created for producers, assistants and other agency collaborator.

Each team member has a set of personal user rights, as defined by the account holder, that can allow him/her for example to publish images to the agency website(s), manage orders and clients, access the website(s) administrative features, etc…

By default, an account has a single media library. A media library is like a virtual hard disk, it is the repository where files are uploaded (and from there, optionally published to a website). The team member access rights settings include rights on the media library, and it is for example possible to restrict actions to seeing the files in the media library and to uploading new files, but without allowing deletion.

The team member’s rights on a media library apply to all the media library’s files. In the case of agencies and collectives with independent photographers, it can be beneficial to have a stronger segregation between the files from different photographers. This segregation is achieved by creating multiple media libraries.

Files from multiple media libraries can be published onto the same website and into the same gallery.

For creative / production agencies which work is organized around clients, we recommend creating a media library for each client.
For stock agencies and event agencies distributing the work of multiple photographers, create a media library for each photographer.

Media from different libraries can be published on the same galleries. The colored tag indicates what library each media belongs to.

Please refer to the documentation on team members and to the documentation on multiple media libraries for further details!

Orders reporting

If you distribute, sell or license files via your PhotoDeck website, the order history’s CSV export includes for each ordered file the name of its media library, as well as its Author and Copyright metadata, in addition to its price. This can be used for example to easily allocate sales to photographers or contributors.

How to setup an agency or collective account

As the account holder, upload initial images / videos to the default media library, and build the agency website. The website’s gallery structure should be set up to best serve navigation for your customers and not reflect your internal organization. If you have been using PhotoDeck as a single photographer until now, this step is most likely complete.
Determine if you need full segregation between the different photographers’ or different client’s content, or if simply giving them access to the same media library is enough.
Create a test photographer’s credentials by adding a new team member ( / My team): use a different email address than the one you use as main PhotoDeck login. If photographers will have their own media library, create a new test library for your test photographer at the same time.
Log in to PhotoDeck with a different browser using the test photographer credentials and verify the photographer’s access rights in practice. For example, upload a new image from that account and try publishing it to the website.
You can now add actual team members and create new media libraries for them if required!

Creative production agency example

Let’s imagine an agency that starts working with a new client. One or several photographer(s) create images and videos, but their distribution and everything that relates to the client relationship is handled by an agency producer. Files are retouched before delivery. The process could be as follows:

The producer:
- Creates a new media library dedicated to the new client ;
- Creates a new website for the client, or a gallery within the existing agency’s website ;
- Creates with the PhotoDeck administrator the photographer’s team-member account if they don’t have one already, and provides them with the BASE, WRITE and DELETE rights to the media library (no rights on the website).
After a shoot, the photographer uploads preview images and videos directly to the media library via their PhotoDeck account, makes sure that their Author metadata field is correctly set, and puts them in PROOF state ;
The producer checks the new files and publishes them to the corresponding client gallery, organizing them if needed into sub-galleries. He/she then authorizes and invites the client to the gallery ;
The client orders images or videos to be retouched ;
The producer receives the order notification, and gives to the photographer the link indicated in the notification email along with additional instructions ;
The photographer opens the link to see in the library the ordered files, then replaces the initial versions in the library by new, retouched versions, putting them in state FINAL. Once all files are processed, he/she informs the producer ;
From the client order page, the producer checks that all files are correctly processed, and when appropriate, hits the button to deliver all files to the client.

This is an example and many variations are possible!

Stock agency / Event agency example

Let’s consider an agency that sells images or videos from multiple contributors, and which website is managed by an administrator. The process for each new contributor could be:

The administrator creates the contributor’s team member account as well as a dedicated media library, providing them at least the BASE, WRITE and DELETE rights (no rights on the agency’s website) ;
The contributor imports their images and videos, making sure the Author medadata field is correctly set with their name ;
The administrator checks the new files, and publishes them for sale on the agency’s website ;
When a customer places an order that includes the contributor’s images, the order report will include the information that will for example allow allocating a share of the sale to the contributor.