Before you tell me what a photography purist truly is, let me share my perspective. To me, it’s someone who enjoys taking quality photos and finds inspiration by studying and analyzing the work of others. A decade ago, numerous sites and apps catered to this passion, with dedicated communities for each. Platforms like Flickr, 500px, Facebook, Instagram, and Photoblog were havens for photography enthusiasts. However, many of these sites were either acquired by larger competitors or succumbed to algorithms prioritizing influencer video content over genuine photography. VSCO strives to maintain that original spirit. If you’re frustrated with your photos’ limited reach on other platforms, their web version is definitely worth exploring.
Table of Contents
A Brief History
Founded in 2011, VSCO, aka Visual Studio Company, has earned a solid reputation in photography circles for its presets that transform digital photos to mimic classic film stock. Their Lightroom Classic-compatible presets are particularly delightful to use. Traditionally, users were confined to mobile apps or desktop software for processing images with VSCO presets. However, this limitation has been lifted with the introduction of a web version of their platform.
VSCO For The Web
Signing up for the site is fairly straightforward, but VSCO clearly makes it clear to you upfront that their paid plans offer a lot more than the free ones. Still, you get at least 15 of those awesome presets that will help you dip your toes into their ecosystem.
Free
The most basic plan on VSCO‘s website costs absolutely nothing for now. It comes with a few features to try and entice you into upgrading your plan. What you currently get on this plan is:
- A public profile to post your work
- The ability to view other profiles (even paid ones) and follow the community and VSCO Spaces (sort of like Flickr’s groups)
- 15 photo editing presets and 1 recipe (a one-click option that allows you to save a set of ingredients like tool and preset adjustments)
Plus
The most cost-effective plan on VSCO comes at $2.49/month (billed at $29.99 annually). With this plan, you get:
- Full community access
- A member profile to showcase your identity
- The ability to create your own VSCO Spaces
- The option to engage in discussions
- Tools
- 200+ presets and advanced mobile editing tools
- Unlimited recipes to recreate your favorite looks
- The ability to create and edit videos
Pro
As if the Plus plan didn’t provide you with enough already, VSCO has a Pro plan that includes the following (currently on iOS and desktop):
- Professional listings for photography jobs in VSCO Hub
- Your professional profile with work details
- Portfolio showcasing with galleries
- Full community access
- The option to create your own VSCO Spaces
- The ability to engage in discussions
- Exclusive curation opportunities
- The full VSCO suite of tools on mobile and desktop
- Pro presets with refined controls
- Cloud sync across devices
- Adobe Lightroom integration
- Unlimited recipes to recreate your favorite looks
- The ability to create and color-grade videos
I signed up for the Free plan to explore VSCO for the web.
Adding Images To Your Profile
What should have been a straightforward process turned into a few minutes of confusion due to file size and resolution restrictions on the Create Post option. Attempting to upload high-resolution images—one as small as 16 megapixels—yielded no progress bar or any visible changes on the site. It was only when I tried uploading a 4-megapixel image that a popup appeared, indicating some limitations on the platform.
Oddly enough, the page didn’t auto-refresh itself, so for a few minutes, I was left wondering if I had done something wrong again. When I manually refreshed my page, I saw that the image did get uploaded.
Clicking on the photo enlarged it and showed the caption, but the low resolution was evident on my large monitor screen.
In a nod to Instagram’s early days, VSCO displays only images from photographers you follow.
VSCO Explore
In a nod to Instagram’s early days, VSCO displays only images from photographers you follow. To discover inspirational photographers, you can use the search option located on the left side of the main site. Scrolling to the bottom of the page automatically loads more images, which appear to be sorted chronologically.
If you click on an image you like, you’re shown a larger version, with the option to favorite the image and follow the photographer.
Want to see some inspiring photo stories about your favorite topics? Click on the Journal tab in the search results, and you’ll be presented with relevant results from the VSCO Pro Spotlight Series.
Your VSCO Feed
Once you’ve followed a few photographers, you can head to the Feed page to see their latest photos in chronological order.
Hovering your mouse over an image gives you options to star and repost photos. It also shows you if the photographer has used a certain VSCO preset to edit these images.
Find Inspiration Easily
The Explore tab doesn’t seem to have any shortage of options for photography inspiration. The VSCO collection shows you some of the best work from trending photographers.
VSCO Learn
If you want to brush up on some photography skills, there’s the VSCO Learn page, where you can find numerous articles on the basics of photography as well as tips and techniques. Nothing groundbreaking here, really; most of the content covered here has been done to death on the internet already, especially on YouTube. It’s just presented in a dreamy, romanticized sort of way, with a focus on images that appear to have been edited with VSCO presets
VSCO Studio
VSCO also provides a web tool for editing your photos, even allowing you to use their presets. You no longer need to use desktop presets on Lightroom or their mobile apps; now, you can do it in your web browser anywhere.
Presets
VSCO’s iconic presets, cherished for their simplicity and beauty, are now available for web-based photo editing with just one click. As a free plan user, I had access to a limited selection of these presets, but the Studio tab offers much more than just preset application and intensity adjustment via sliders. It also includes a range of additional editing tools, enhancing the overall photo editing experience.
Tools
Fix your photograph’s exposure, saturation, white balance, and grain using the Tools option
Adjust
Crop your image using various aspect ratios and straighten them if necessary.
Remove
A paid tool but a much needed one nowadays, VSCO provides a brush for spot healing and object removal.
Once done, you can either download the edited image or post it directly to your VSCO profile.
Instagram, once a haven for photography enthusiasts, isn’t what it used to be.
A New Source Of Inspiration
It’s early days for VSCO for the web, but from what I’ve observed, there’s a lot to like. The quality of the photography posted here is anything but mediocre. Dig deep, and you can certainly find more than enough content to inspire you. If you like the retro filter look, which hooked millions onto Instagram when it was launched, you’ll find much more original-looking, cleanly done photos of the same. I can’t say I’ve seen any famous names on here or “influencers,” but that can’t be a bad thing for now. You don’t need to see great photos only from people who have a ton of followers; the average Joe can inspire you, too, if he has an artistic eye. It’s also great that you have some presets available on the free plan, although I suspect that these will reel you into getting one of the paid plans sooner rather than later. The best part of all, you don’t need an app, something that people who constantly run out of space on their smartphones, like me, will love
For avid users of social media, particularly Instagram, VSCO might seem to lag behind. However, it’s crucial to consider whether other platforms are genuinely promoting the best in photography. Are these algorithms truly delivering relevant content, or are they simply pushing products and advertisements our way? Instagram, once a haven for photography enthusiasts, isn’t what it used to be. Meta’s recent track record suggests a tendency to diminish the value of its acquisitions. Let’s hope VSCO remains free from the clutches of algorithm-driven content that prioritizes sales over substance.