I Finally Found an Online Photo Place!
Written: Mar 29 '03
| Site Ease of Use: |
 |
|
|
| Full Review |
Ever since I’ve started using a digital camera, I’ve been looking for the perfect place to get my pictures printed. Printing them out on my home printer just doesn’t cut it. I want my pictures to look like I took them with a film camera. Since I print most of my photos with the purpose of including them in my scrapbook in mind, I need to have them in the correct size; I prefer 3 1/2 x 5 prints for most pages. I also like the look of matte prints in my scrapbook.
So, when I look for a digital developer a lot of online stores are automatically disqualified because they either don’t print matte photos, or they don’t print in the 3 1/2 x 5 size. Club Photo was once disqualified for that reason. I’m glad I checked back with them, because they are my new favorite place to get my digital prints done.
My search for the perfect photo place started with Timeless Photo. They met all the qualifications, but one day while putting together a mega-order of over 100 pictures, I discovered that their shopping cart can not handle more than 50 photos at a time. They also charge exorbitant shipping. My next stop was Dot Photo. They were able to handle my large order, but the pictures arrived back and they were not as sharp as I would have liked. So I continued searching.
I tried Club Photo again and I was impressed with the results. The shipping time was average, and the shipping prices were decent. For up to 30 prints shipping prices are $1.99, every 30 prints after that add $1. They will ship to military mail addresses, and will also ship second day mail or overnight (unless you have a military mail address). They also ship internationally, but their rates are higher. When my photos arrived I was impressed with the results.
The Shopping Experience
To shop at Club Photo, first they need a digital copy of your photos uploaded to their site. Your photos are uploaded into albums, which can contain up to 100 pictures each. You do not have to pay to become a gold or a platinum member to buy pictures at Club Photo, but there are benefits attached to doing so. There are four ways to upload photos, through their web program, Living Album software, with their Photo Drop software, or with their Ishare plug in (for use with Adobe Photoshop).
I used the Photo Drop software to upload my pictures. I have not tried the Ishare plug in or the Living Album software, so I can’t rate the ease of them. I haven’t uploaded photos directly from the web site either, although I would imagine that it would be time consuming if you had a lot of pictures, as you can only upload 5 pictures at a time that way.
The Photo Drop software is very easy to use. All you have to do is pick an album and open the folder on your computer that the pictures you want to upload are on. Pick an album to upload to. Drag and drop the pictures onto the Photo Drop window. Tell it to start uploading. That’s it. The upload speed will depend on your internet connection, but you can walk away or do something else while your pictures are loading.
Club Photo also allows you to send them a CD or send in your film to be developed. I don’t think that they do Advantix processing here though. You can order single or double prints that way, and as an added bonus the pictures that you develop will end up uploaded on their web site automatically, making it easy to order reprints. I have not used this feature either.
After uploading your photos, you are now able to order prints. Their software is user-friendly, and allows you to select all pictures or deselect all pictures in an album… a plus if you are ordering a full 100 picture album, as you don’t have to click on the boxes below every single picture to order them. When you are ready to order, all you have to do is click “Add Checked Items To Cart”.
Once you get to your cart, it is easy to order different sizes. At the other two places I shopped at, you had to mark individually the quantity of pictures that you wanted. Not so at Club Photo. If you want to order double prints of all your pictures in 4x6, there is one button at the top that you have to click to do that. If you want to order more than double, or if you want to order different quantities in different sizes of individual pictures, you will still have to enter that in all of your photos, but for most people, this handy feature will save people a lot of time. It is on this screen that you can also choose between matte and glossy, or whether you want to order the prints using Smart Crop or whether you want a white border around the picture (with Smart Crop you may lose some of the picture at the edges).
If you are ordering pictures from more than one album, or if you want to order some glossy prints and some matte prints, or a combination of Smart Crop prints and prints that are not cropped, here is where the tricky part comes in. You click on the next button and continue shopping. All the groups of pictures that you order this way will appear as different line items in your final purchase. Don’t worry that going back and shopping from another album will make you lose your picture order from the other album, they will be saved on the server for the duration of your shopping session.
Products Offered
Club Photo shines in the amount of products that they have available for purchase. They have all your standard photo sizes, including 3 1/2 x 5, 4x6, 5x7, and 8x10. They have a new 4xD feature that is specifically designed to avoid cropping with digital cameras as well. Then they have a wide variety of photo gifts.
When I say they have a wide variety, they do. I have never seen this many unique photo gifts at one site. If you are buying for someone who has everything, well, this has something for every budget.
Club Photo of course has your standard items, such as photo CDs, posters, mugs, and mouse pads. They also have more unique items such as barbeque aprons, photo night lights, puzzles, and cookies. If you are trying to spend a lot of money, you can order photo stones, 14kt gold pendants, hand drawn sketches, and photo oil paintings. If you’re cheap you can send photo greeting cards for free. They have a whole page full of photo items, and you can probably find something to fit your taste and budget.
Gold and Platinum
Club Photo allows you to become a gold or a platinum member. If you order a lot of photos you probably would want to join one of these. Gold membership is $14.95 a year and allows you to store 30 albums, gives you free pictures, and 5% off all purchases (especially pays for itself if you decide to order a photo oil painting). Platinum offers more benefits, including 60 albums and a 10% discount, and costs $24.95. You can order a 2 year membership for a reduced price.
I purchased the gold membership. I was unable to find out what a “Basic Album” did, but from reading other reviews it seems that those albums must get deleted after a certain period of time. The gold albums will stay as long as I maintain my membership, and I can share them with friends and family. So far, I am happy with this company, and am glad that I paid for the gold membership, as I plan on ordering all my pictures from this company.
Other
Prices for digital prints seem to be falling, but as of today, March 29, 2003, the prices for prints at Club Photo are as follows:
3 1/2 x 5, 4x6, and 4xD prints - $.25
5x7 - $.99
8x10 - $3.99
Sheet of 4 wallets - $1.79
I recently received an email from this company saying they hadn’t heard from me in a while, offering me 20 free prints, all I had to do was pay for shipping. I certainly didn’t mind that (it has been less than a month since I ordered from them).
Club Photo is a company that I would recommend to anyone that wants to print and share their digital pictures. They have good selection, decent prices, and good quality.
Recommended:
Yes
|
|
|
|
About the Author
Location: Phoenix, AZ
Reviews written: 214
Trusted by: 40 members
About Me: Homeschooling mom of two cute kids.
|
