PhotoLofty Prices but Great Prints!
Written: Mar 10 '00
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This review of PhotoLoft.com is the second of five reviews that I’ll be doing on online digital photography sites. As mentioned in the initial article; I recently spent a Sunday evening by joining five of the sites, uploading photos and ordering prints and enlargements from each one. After I have received the prints from all the sites, I will include a summary so that the reader will not have to go through all five reviews to do a comparison, unless specific information is wanted on a particular site or sites, since much of the five reviews will be repetitive and use the same format.
Overview
Today, the ability to capture or scan images into a digital format is not only a convenience but also nearly a necessity for many. As consumers demand higher resolutions (more pixels) files sizes increase and storage becomes a problem. What if a hard copy is wanted, or the image needs to be shared. You could buy a true photo quality printer and photo quality paper and make your own prints, but that would be expensive. And, you could email the image or put it on your website, but what if you have lots of images and lots of people share them with? One convenient and economical solution is the online digital photo service. After uploading and storing your images on one of these sites, you can have prints made and/or share them online, plus lots of other options.
PhotoLoft.com
They, like Club Photo, are pioneers in online photo sharing; their site was launched in February of 1999. To join, you simply give your name, email address, and zip code and then select a user name and password. Membership and 50 mega-bytes of guaranteed online image storage is free (an additional 25 MB is available for $19.95 per year). To upload images after signing up; select “Create a New Album” from the homepage menu, give the album a title (description, topic and password protection are options), then press submit. Next, you can select browse and find the image on your PC or you can choose to upload via email. Bitmaps (.bmp), GIF’s (.gif), JPEG (.jpg), PhotoCD (.pcd) and Portable Network Graphics (.png) files are currently accepted. Multiple images can be uploaded, but you must first download their free “Upload Client” software. Once your photos are onsite, the only image editing option available is cropping. Any number of albums can be created and there is no limit to the number of photos that can be placed in each album, as long as the 50 MB limit isn’t exceeded.
Albums can be viewed by selecting “ GO To My Loft” and then choosing the specific album. The screenshot of the album will show thumbnails (small images) of the photos and by clicking on the thumbnails; the images are shown at a higher resolution. PhotoLoft has a nice feature that some, but not all of the photos sharing sites have, which is the ability to see the image at full resolution. You simply check “Actual Size” after initially selecting the image and then press “Apply”, to do this. Your photos can similarly be viewed at either 256X256, 512X512 or 1024X1024 pixels if desired.
PhotoLoft’s Services
Online sharing - you can choose to send an email invitation or simply share the album or photo URL address. In either case, it sure beats uploading multiple files to multiple recipients!
Photo-personalized cards – a variety of cards for most any occasion are available. Prices range from free for emailed cards to $1.72 for an individually snail mailed card. Boxed sets are priced at $1.25 per card if less than 25 are ordered, but the prices drop substantially as the quantity increases, and there is a $2.99 handling charge per order.
Photo finishing – 4X6, 5X7 and 8X10 inch prints priced at $.49, $2.95 and $7.99 respectively.
Gifts – mouse pads, posters, mugs, coasters, magnets, puzzles, growth charts, memo pad cubes and stuffed animals are available to be photo customized.
Auction photo hosting – put descriptive photos of your items for sale on eBay and elsewhere.
Free software – members are offered free image-editing software to enhance photos for do-it-yourself printing.
Photo Finishing Details
I selected six photos and uploaded them to a new album, which can be seen at: http://www.photoloft.com/album.asp?s=plft&u=193604&a=220490. Image 001 is a 1200X1600 pixel pet portrait, images 002 and 005 are 1200X1600 macros, image 003 is a 1200X1600 landscape, and images 004 and 006 are approximately 1500 X1000 professionally scanned landscape images from a Kodak Picture CD. Images 001PL through 006PL are scanned images of the prints I received back.
Each photo was uploaded individually and the total upload time was approximately 15 minutes, on a 56K modem connected at 48K. I then ordered 4X6 prints of the first five images ($.49 each) and an 8X10 of the sixth image ($7.99). The ordering process is easy. Multiple prints from the same album and in the same print size can be simultaneously, unlike Club Photo. It took an additional 11 minutes to order and check out, which included setting up a new billing account and supplying credit card and shipping information. $13.13 was the total including $1.70 shipping and $.99 handling. I was given an order number for future reference and an email confirmation was received moments after the transaction was finalized. The order was placed Sunday evening and the prints were received six days later in Saturday’s mail. All the prints arrived in one large white envelope with thin cardboard protectors and were undamaged.
Photo Finishing Results
I scanned the prints from PhotoLoft at 300 dpi and then uploaded them back to the same album so that the original and scanned print images could be compared online. I’ll refer to the original images as 001 through 006 starting from the top and going from left to right and then down. The scanned images of the PhotoLoft prints will be referred to as 001PL through 006PL and they immediately follow the originals. One curious thing I noticed when I uploaded the scanned files is that the thumbnails are noticeably blurry. I uploaded the first one to Club Photo (see image 001PL at: http://members2.clubphoto.com/dave220812/samples/ and it displays well as a thumbnail. If I can’t resolve the problem, I’ll reload all the images to the Club Photo album, as this will also aid in comparing the print results from all five sites anyhow.
Image 001PL – color accuracy and sharpness on this pet portrait are very good. There is a very slight darkening that results in minor loss of background details. I like the fact that no cropping was done on this or any of the other 4X6 prints, even though the result is a ¼” white border on both ends of the 6” dimension, but at least none of the original image is lost. If you want the image to fill the print, my suggestion would be to crop to the print aspect ratio before uploading.
Image 002PL – this is a close up of some coins and I would have to say that PhotoLoft did a remarkable job on this print. I’ve spent a considerable amount of time trying to find something to criticize, but can’t!
Image 003PL – another very accurate print with just the slightest darkening, resulting in loss of detail in the trees behind the barn.
Image 004PL – a very good print overall, which is just slightly darker than the original, and therefore a little detail is lost.
Image 005PL – this macro print of colored paperclips has accurate and nicely saturated color and only lacks a little sharpness, but overall is a fine reproduction.
Image 006PL – this is the 8X10 print of Wolf Island in Ontario. When I noticed the $7.99 price tag for 8X10’s at PhotoLoft, I thought there was no way that they could justify that price, when most others are only charging $2.99. Well, I was wrong. They did an excellent job, the color and clarity are great, and they even printed it on oversized 8.5 by 10.75 inch stock in order to get the entire image on the finished print!
Conclusion
I think that you will find that the PhotoLoft site is convenient and easy to use, and offers lots of handy services. Multiple image file types can be uploaded and viewed at different (including full) resolutions. Although they limit the amount of free onsite storage and their printing charges are steep, they are worthy of consideration based on the quality and consistency of their photo finishing alone.
I hope you have found this review to be interesting and informative, but above all useful. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. It’s always good to hear from fellow Epinions.com members and /or photography enthusiasts!
Recommended:
Yes
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About the Author
Member: D. McCandless
Location: Rural Pennsyltucky
Reviews written: 51
Trusted by: 313 members
About Me: To insure success, try to eliminate failure.
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