| Image: VSCO |
VSCO has long been an app photographers turn to for film-inspired presets, but now the company is making a pivot toward something far more ambitious. This week, it announced two interconnected products that aim to serve photographers far more broadly: Studio Pro, a dedicated professional batch-editing app, and VSCO One, an all-in-one platform launching later this month that bundles editing, client galleries, booking and more.
Studio Pro is the more immediate piece of VSCO’s new platform. At launch, Studio Pro is fairly limited in features, with a primary focus on editing colors and making minor tweaks to JPEGs. VSCO says it’s intentionally shipping the first version now so that it can gather feedback before rolling out additional features. It says it plans to regularly release improvements and new features “based on real-world professional workflows.”
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| Image: VSCO |
To start, one of its primary features is batch editing, allowing photographers to apply VSCO’s film presets and adjustments like HSL, grain, exposure, contrast and white balance on up to 100 images at once with one tap. The tool is aimed at portrait, wedding, sport and event photographers who need to be able to quickly edit larger sets of images.
Studio Pro also offers Style Match, which analyzes a previously edited reference image and replicates its color and tonal character across new images. The tool promises to make it easier to achieve a consistent look across image sets, allowing photographers to develop a distinct style. Lastly, the app will allow photographers to post images to VSCO Galleries, making it easier to share finished work with clients.
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| Image: VSCO |
Raw file support, something most professional photographers would consider a must-have, is listed as a planned future feature, not something available immediately. Likewise, manual culling with star ratings, custom crop tools, tethering and advanced export options such as file renaming and resolution control are all slated for the product roadmap. There’s also a macOS desktop version planned for later this year.
Studio Pro enters a crowded and competitive field that includes Lightroom Mobile, Darkroom and Halide, apps with more mature feature sets and, in Lightroom’s case, years of well-established professional workflows behind them. Whether photographers find enough in Studio Pro’s current iteration to trial it depends largely on how central VSCO’s preset aesthetic already is to their work. For shooters already living in the VSCO ecosystem, the batch workflow could be a meaningful upgrade. For everyone else, it may be worth revisiting when Raw support arrives.
For everyone else, it may be worth revisiting when Raw support arrives.
What could be enticing to photographers, though, is the promise of a more complete ecosystem under one umbrella. Historically, photographers have had to stitch together various tools from different companies to manage all aspects of the business. That could mean Lightroom for editing, Pixieset for gallery delivery, HoneyBook for contracts and invoices, Squarespace for websites, and the list goes on, with each carrying its own subscription. VSCO puts the costs at $800 to $3200 annually.
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| Image: VSCO |
VSCO’s upcoming ecosystem, VSCO One, aims to ease those costs and the pain points of dealing with multiple subscriptions with what it’s calling the “Connected System for Photographers.” The platform is designed to cover the complete photography workflow, from creative to business needs, and it bundles the company’s existing offerings under one subscription that costs $500 a year.
VSCO One isn’t launching until the end of June, but it will include two editing programs (Studio Pro and AI Lab), galleries for client delivery and sharing, portfolio websites, client collaboration and creative planning tools, a camera app and community.
Additionally, the subscription will include VSCO Workspace, a tool for client management, booking, scheduling, invoicing, contracts and studio operations. It will also provide access to The Freelance Photographer, a business education and mentorship platform that VSCO acquired last year.
VSCO’s new Studio Pro is available for free on iOS now, though you will need a subscription for some features, such as the company’s full preset library. VSCO One will be available at the end of the month.