Bridging the gap between digital and analog; High quality pics and fast turnaround
Written: Jan 10 '00 (Updated Jan 31 '00)
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Got a ton of shots taken with your digital camera? They're up on your website, right? Too bad you didn't have prints of your favorites to send to people or place in your photo album, huh? That's where Ofoto.com comes into the picture. They offer photo-finishing services for digital camera users like myself (see my review of the Canon Powershot A50 digital camera).
Since Ofoto had their 100 free 4x6 prints promotion going on, I decided to upload some pics taken from my Canon Powershot A50 and have them printed. I had 26 pictures printed at 4x6, 1 at 5x7, and 1 at 8x10. Their interface to upload pics is simple and straight-forward to use. Unfortunately this is also where I see the biggest drawback of this service is:
1) uploading images can take forever if you're connected via a 56k or slower modem. I've got DSL fortunately, but it still took a while to upload a bunch of pics as my upload speed is only 128kps. It only gets compounded if you have several high resolution .jpgs to upload (
eg. Ofoto recommends a minimum 1280x960 image to print a 8x10- pics at that resolution averaged 300-400k on my digital camera). This is not their problem per se, but rather a limitation of the user's internet connection.
2) Also, if you've got a lot of pics to upload, say for example 25 pics, it's a cumbersome process since you have to specify each file to upload one at a time, up to a max of 10 per upload "session" via form input fields. (UPDATE 1/31/2000: OfotoNow software is available which is a downloadable application for WIN 95/98/NT that lets you 1) preview images from your hard drive, cd, or digital camera, 2) trim, rotate, and remove red-eye, and 3) most importantly upload multiple pics at the same time!
I got my pics in the mail 4 business days after I ordered them. I was actually surprised at the quality of the prints (done on Kodak Professional paper no less). The 4x6 prints of 640x480 resolution .jpgs showed graininess under close examination, but it otherwise looked fine (in other words, it didn't really bother me, although I will make sure to snap digital pics at the higher 1280x960 resolution in the future if I'm considering printing them out and not just using them for the web). The 4x6 and 5x7 prints of 1280x960 resolution .jpg's came out great..no noticeable graininess. The 8x10 of a 1207x960 image came out great, with slight graininess, but an 8x10 of a shot taken with regular 400 speed film would probably come out similarly.
Overall, I'm impressed with the quality of the prints delivered by Ofoto. The majority of people would be hard-pressed to discern that these prints came from a digital camera (unless you told them of course)!
Recommended:
Yes
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About the Author
Location: San Francisco, CA
Reviews written: 11
Trusted by: 7 members
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