Can someone tell me about Shutterfly?

[millerpjm]

Hi all...

I see some of you use shutterfly for photos... do you actually order the prints from them? Are they reasonable? Or do you just post photos there for people to see? We have a digital camera and a photo quality printer, so I can print out pics for myself but I have family members online who are always asking for new photos. I was also wondering if my computer savvy relatives could download photos from the website. Does it cost anything just to have pics there? We are debating about setting up a website, but I was wondering if this would be a good option. I am not real computer savvy, so a brief explanation of this site would help. Thanks!

Jen

Proud mama to Thomas 2/3/03

[flagger]

I haven't read into their agreement, but I know that Photoworks will store your pictures indefinitely as long as you order at least the equivalent of one roll per year from them.

It is nice to use their albums and send people the link so if they want your family can order as many prints as they like.

I find it less expensive over the long run to have an online printer do my pictures than printing them out myself. Especially for larger prints.

[August Mom]

Shutterfly will store any amount of photos for free indefinitely, whether you order anything there or not. I actually haven't ordered any photos from there yet. I have printed some myself and I am just way behind in my album. :) My mom orders there quite often and has the prepaid plan, making 4x6s $.29 each. If you order them individually, they are $.42-.49, depending on how many you order. Usually there are sales of between 10 and 20% off. Shutterfly is nice because it is easy to upload photos, you can arrange them, give them titles and descriptions and your description can be printed on the back of the photos you order at no extra charge. There are cheaper places out there to buy prints, like photoworks.com, clubphoto.com, and webphotos.com. My original plan was to share photos on Shutterfly and buy them cheaper elsewhere, but that plan has never gotten off the ground. I will say that I got our Christmas photo card from webphotos and thought the quality was very nice, but the software on that site is not very advanced.

Most of our family members just view the photos on Shutterfly's website, but they can order directly, cutting down on you providing everyone with new photos all the time. You cannot merely print the photo directly from the Shutterfly website though.

The process at Shutterfly is basically that you set up a album, upload photos (you can download software from the website that easily allows you to select groups or folders of photos to upload). It is fairly quick to upload groups of photos with a cable modem, but my SIL has complained about doing too many at once with dial up. Once the photos are in your album, you can just leave them as is, add names and addresses to your address book and select those whom you wish to receive the pictures and send them out. Or, you can play with them like me, arrange them in chronological order, title them and add short descriptions. I also send different photos to different groups of people. My mom wants every single photo of DS ever taken, so she gets all the photos in the album, but our friends only get a handful of the highlights. You can also do some basic cropping and fixing, but I always do this in Photoshop before uploading. You can also create projects with your photos. We did a calendar from Shutterfly for Christmas presents and it turned out great. You can also make cards and all kinds of other things.

HTH

[houseof3boys]

I think AugustMom described it perfectly so I just wanted to add that I bought the prepaid package for the .29 a print and am very happy with the quality and the convenience of Shutterfly!

There are a few posts on some of the other services that people like if you want to research those for comparison.

[mamahill]

I have been a Shutterfly customer for over a year now, and have been extremely pleased with the results. We tried Ofoto at first and were not impressed. The options Shutterfly allows and the quality are just better. I've ordered... oh... probably over 300 pictures from them already. They are so fast, too. The pics arrive within 2 days. Last week I ordered on Thursday and they were here on Saturday - woohoo! Plus, your first 15 prints are free, so you can try them out without investing too much. I also email (or "share," as it's called) links to friends and family so if they complain about me not sending pics, I just say, "You can order as many or little pics as you want!" No more complaints! And if you share or tell someone about it and they order, you get 15 more prints for free!

HTH

[brubeck]

I have been using Photoworks because it has all the benefits described above for Shutterfly (except printing your caption on the back) AND you do NOT have to pre-pay to get the 29 cent print price.

Photoworks also gives you 24 free prints (including free shipping) to start if you use their uploader software.

The other thing I like about Photoworks is that they are actually a film developing company that set up a web site, as opposed to some programmers who decided to develop film. Photoworks has been around for more than 2 decades.

[mamahill]

Unfortunately (for me) their upload software is for PC only. I can use Shutterfly's software on my Mac just fine. If I had a PC, I'd definitely consider Photoworks, but the software is the kicker. I generally upload 25-40 pics at a time, so I like to set them all to upload and go fold laundry:).

[dogmom]

I went with Shutterfly because I like their interface better and they had plenty of options. You can actually set up different projects and get multiple copies of them (snapbooks, calendars, announcements). They will actually MAIL things for you. If I had known that ahead of time I might have sent out birth announcements. I guess we *could* do it cheaper, but our printer doesn't do quite the same quality of prints. Besides, then I'll run out of ink, and paper, and then I have to go to the store to get more.

Also, if you share with people they can order prints. I sent some to my mom and she got 15 free prints and ordered one 5x7. My family is extremely cheap, so if they are willing to use the service it is reasonable. I did a little snapbook of my DS and ordered 3 copies for all grandparents, it is laminated so not to tear up easily. Sure, I could have done it myself, but who has the time? Everyone is getting calendars for Christmas this year.