Which Digital Asset Management tool?

[Hello Velo]

Hi all,
First post here.
I am a freelance sports writer. I would like to offer to both private and commercial clients, photos taken at cycling races .
My question is, are any of the various DAMs viable and/or useful? I have looked at Smugmug and Photoshelter etc.

I'd be grateful for your valuable experience and advice.
Many thanks.
Lee.

 

[Rich_A]

I'm not a fan of online, cloud based systems as once you've started paying for storage, you must pay forever and should you choose to change products, you've then the problem of moving potentially, terabytes of data. So I have mirrored terabyte drives locally that are additionally backed up online using the same standard backup service I use for all my computers. The DAM I use to manage this is ACD Systems Photo Studio Ultimate. It uses a database and multiple search criteria (keywords, categories, assignable ratings and labels, etc.) that one can create. But more importantly the application resides on your own computer. As a software engineer, I find the database management tools and the DB itself to be very robust - this is important! My biggest criticism is that it can be slow at times. While it provides complete post-processing capability, your not restricted to using their tools. I use also Photoshop, Topaz, and DxO.