Dropbox, Google Photos, iCloud … there are many ways to have our photos stored in the cloud, with services that offer more or less functionalities, that cost more or less money, but always keeping those photos away from us, on remote servers under services with policies of use that should always be read in detail.
Today I will talk about the option that Synology has so that we can have our own Google Photos on our NAS, Synology Photos.
We are talking about the evolution of Photo Station and Synology Moments, a platform that helps us manage our photos with automated tools capable of grouping, filtering, organizing and sharing content.
A little bit of photo history on Synology
Photo Station, launched in 2007, was based on folder classification and permission management, something similar to what we have on our computer, but with the option to immediately share content over the Internet. All this before the arrival of the photographic world on mobile phones.
Ten years later they released Synology Moments, for more personal use situations than the previous option. It helped us to make backup copies of mobile photos, and it allowed us to share albums or images. Moments offered facial recognition functions, images presented in chronological mode and ease of creating albums, both on desktop and mobile devices.
Synology Photos, as an evolution of both solutions, is a new photo management package designed for everyone, both professionals and individuals, with new functions and a new interface design. In this article you have the changes made from the previous versions.
How to upload photos and videos to Synology Photos
It is a software that allows to migrate folder and file structures automatically from previous solutions.
To use it, we only have to upload the data, photos and videos, and there is even a mobile app for it.
That app provides a much faster loading experience, as the thumbnails are generated on the client, potentially making the process 100 times faster than before.
We can also upload files from any other client, with the same upload experience.
Backups to Synology Photos
One of the main reasons why it is important to use these types of solutions is to make backup copies. In this case, the content cannot be accidentally deleted, as Synology Photos can automatically backup the entire photo gallery.
It has custom copy options, offering greater flexibility when deciding how to manage storage.
After uploading the photos to Synology Photos, we will have access to the appropriate tools to easily manage the entire photo gallery.
In a similar way to Moments, we can examine all the memories organized chronologically, being possible to have different folder structures, and explore them in a traditional folder view (as in Photo Station, we can switch between chronological view and folder view).
Artificial Intelligence in Synology Photos
The platform is capable of automatically creating albums.
These albums can be based on AI-recognized friends and loved ones, places we’ve visited, or tags we’ve put on.
For example, we can create a family album by establishing specific conditions, ordering all the images of the family members recognized in said album. Then the photos we upload to Synology Photos in the future will be automatically added as long as you have the same relatives.
Share content on Synology Photos
When it comes to professional collaboration, we can share the album we just created with anyone, even if they don’t have an account on Synology NAS, as they just need to send the link.
Shared space is recommended for sharing photos with a client, a feature that creates a more professional shared folder environment. As an administrator, we can activate the shared space for other users, facilitating the sharing of different project folders.
This shared space includes full permission settings to customize the experience. For more private projects, we can even create a specific password for the folders, even if it is shared internally or externally.
Synology Photos Smart Search Filters
The solution has filters that allow you to easily search for images. These filters can be based on facial recognition, location or the year it was made, or even combine them all.
It is also possible that the photographer can instantly filter his gallery or folders even according to metadata: objectives, exposure time or aperture, for example.
How to get Synology Photos
To enjoy this application it is necessary to have the latest version of the NAS operating system installed, DSM 7.0, which you can download from this link, once done, we can put the Synology Photos platform on our NAS and use the app, available on android and iOS, to start uploading content.
The advantage is that we decide the space, since if we need more, we only have to expand the capacity of the hard drives that are responsible for storing all the information on our Synology NAS.
