No More Finger Smudges On My Prints!
Written: Oct 25 '01 (Updated Nov 02 '01)
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The Bottom Line
You may be able to salvage a good pose with their editing features. Could save money by only printing the best photos and let friends print their own!
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| Full Review |
This is a great site to buy photos and to share your photos online for those who use digital cameras or for those who develop film. There are plenty of tools here to enhance your photos prior to printing (such as crop, blur, red-eye, black/white, border, etc.).
Company
Shutterfly has been around since June 1999 and is a privately owned company with investors such as Adobe Ventures, Mitsubishi, and Texas Instruments. Privacy is ensured by the TRUSTe Privacy Program (nonprofit organization) and Verisign so your credit card and information transferred is encrypted and secure.
Appearance
The overall appearance of this website doesn't do it for me. Orange and green and pink is the UGLIEST set of colors I have ever seen for a website. I guess maybe they're trying to appeal to teens, maybe females. I want all the grandparents (all in senior citizen status) to check out our pictures so this isn't my choice for online display!
Website Ease Of Use
The website is very easy to use. I think anyone could use it without effort. There is a lot of features on the website and they are easy to find and navigate around.
Lets Talk Price
Before anyone can get excited about a website they'll need to consider the printing prices (this always makes or breaks the deal fore me):
4x6" .49
5x7" .99
8x10" $3.99
Wallets(4) $1.79
$4.00 for postage paid envelope to developed and posted to website ONLY (then you have to buy the ones you want)
Shipping:
01-10 prints - $1.49
11-19 prints - $1.79
20-29 prints - $1.99
30-49 prints - $2.49
50-75 prints - $3.99
76-100 prints - $4.99
+ $2.50 for every 50 additional prints
For those who have film developed, it may be cheaper and faster to take it to a one-hour developer. For those who only have digital images, this is a very competitive price.
I'd just like to add that it costs more than .49 to print a photo at home (Photo printer, Photo Paper, Photo Ink, time, and error)
Film Developers - Prepaid Mailing Envelopes
In my mind, the old fashioned way is still the best. Your local drug store can develop your film within an hour and you'll face to complain at if you don't like the service. It is indeed cheaper especially when you get the double print deal.
If you live in the sticks or you're in the middle of an ice storm, you may just prefer this service. Regardless of how fast they develop your film, it's still going to take a few days coming and going in the mail. There may be something special on your film like a birthday party where you want to add some features like borders or special effects.
NOT TRADITIONAL! Keep in mind they don't develop your film and send you pictures! You order an envelope for $4.00. They develop them and ONLY return the negatives to you. They put the pictures on their website and you can order and pay .49+ for each one you want + shipping/handling. If you're doing the math you can see how this can really cost you! Of course if you're an amateur photographer this may save you some money or if you just want to share your photos online. I know of all the photos I take, most of them I really don't need to print.
If you are looking for a traditional service to develop your pictures and mail all of the prints back to you I'd suggest Snapfish (www.snapfish.com)
Add Ons
For a price you can add features like a picture on a card, snapbook albums, and picture frames. The cards are kind of expensive -- $2.99 and less in bulk but still costs less than a Hallmark card and would probably bring a bigger smile!
Uploading
I give this company ***** 5 stars for upload software because they support Windows, Mac, and Linux. It's easy to download and install then you ca send your photos up quickly.
Storage
If you store your pictures on your computer, you'll know they require A LOT of room! Shutterfly has free unlimited storage for printed photos / 50 megs for unprinted photos.
Sharing Online Photos
Any of the pictures uploaded to the website can be shared. You can share a whole album or individual pictures. There is a place on the website to put the e-mail addresses of those you want to invite.
Shutterfly will send your friends a link to your album. This will be a little cleaner than what you see. They will not have to enter a password (unless you request) or fill out e-mail addresses, or register like some other online photo sites do. They have an option for a slide show that presents the photos nicely and automatically goes to the next photo. They have the opportunity to buy their own prints off of your album so your off the hook!
Shutterly allows the guest to save your pictures into their own album and edit and enhance them as they would like before printing. This is a feature other sites don't offer.
Ordering Prints
I ordered identical prints from both Shutterfly and Ofoto the same day and received both of them a day apart. (I don't remember how many days it took but it wasn't long). They were almost the same in quality, side by side there wasn't much of a difference. Ofoto's was a hair better but I'm not really picky, they looked good to me and I was pleased.
They don't use Kodak paper. I don't know what they use, but it's not Kodak.
CAUTION - I was at another photosite called Snapfish (www.snapfish.com) and wanted to order some prints but Snapfish said my quality wasn't high enough. I looked and my camera was accidently set on lowest quality which is too small to print a 4x6 from. I tried to print the exact same image from Shutterfly just to see and it said it would be a recommended print size. I would imagine I'd be pretty disappointed if I paid .49 each for copies of photos that should never have been printed. A minimum of 900x600 pixels is recommended minimum for a descent 4x6 photo.
Newletter
The newsletter includes tips and announces what specials are going on, etc. You can sign up to receive the newsletter or you can view the current and past newsletters which have some good info on their website: http://www.shutterfly.com/refdesk/newsletter/index.jsp?return=aboutus
Free Prints
They're currently giving away free prints which is an excellent way to see if you like the service. You can also share your photos with others free of charge at any time. The site is worth a try!
Recommended:
Yes
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About the Author
Location: Nashville, TN
Reviews written: 723
Trusted by: 187 members
About Me: DNT TXT & DRV
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