Chuck Boyd from over at Chuckography made a recent comment here about using Snapfish that reminded me of a great review of online photo services I read recently in a photo magazine. I went back and trolled through my stack of mags (now my wife knows why I keep these handy references!) and found the article.
Basically, they (and by “they”, I mean Popular Photography in their May 2006 issue) took 10 of the more popular online photo printing services and rated each on a scale of 1-6 in 6 different categories: print quality, price, ease of use, turnaround time, storage policy, and poster prints. I took the liberty of compiling a little web page that hits the highlights of the article, and computed an overall score by taking an average of all areas measured. For example, Adoramapix ranked a 6 for print quality, 4 for price, 3 for ease of use, 6 for turnaround time, 4 for storage policy, and 6 for poster prints. The average score for all these is a score of 4.8. The full results of their reviews can be found here: Online Printing Service Reviews
Chucker | 26-Jul-06 at 1:51 pm | Permalink
Thanks for the overview. I have not ordered any prints so I didn’t consider price/quality/turnaround time.
I have created about 7 different albums, each containing about 80-100 pictures and I like the ease of browsing and capturing. Then I can go back and caption each picture after I have assembled the story I want to present.
Two of my albums chronicle my 30-day Amtrak North American Rail pass adventure April & May of 2005. 9,000 miles traveled in the US and Canada and 1200 photos taken.
I love high tech!
Joan | 26-Jul-06 at 3:19 pm | Permalink
Thanks. I’d never heard of a few of them. I use smugmug for storage and albums and have been happy with the prints I do get.
jason | 26-Jul-06 at 5:01 pm | Permalink
Glad to be of help Chuck and Joan - if y’all use an online service not mentioned, let me know what you think of it and I’ll start compiling a “Lowcountry Prefers” ranking of these types of services to include on the same page. Case in point, one of the club members likes a group called Whitehouse Custom Color that has given her really satisfying results. Anyway, just let me know and I’ll add the perspectivesw to the web review page for printing services!
Harvey | 26-Jul-06 at 6:14 pm | Permalink
Good to have them in one spot. I have used mpix, good quality and delivery. I have some freebies coming from shutterfly through a NAPP connection, will send some files to them for test.
I am looking for a print source that does fine art type prints for gallery display, matte finish, inkjet prints. None of the sources in this review do that type of printing, at least what is obvious without joining and getting more details. I think WHCC does, who uses them Jason?
Chucker, I envy your Amtrak trips. I am a train guy from way back. Rode the rails on a couple of west coast trips. My ex destroyed the prints and negatives, I’ll have to do it again.
jason | 26-Jul-06 at 9:57 pm | Permalink
That would be Marti that uses WHCC Harvey, thanks for taking the time to comment. Feel free to throw your input up either here or in the forums for the online services you use and which you like best and why. Love all the input everyone, thanks!
Rusty | 27-Jul-06 at 10:00 pm | Permalink
I’ve happily used Snapfish for years! However, they do not support Nextel cell phone pix.
Nextel has “MobilPics” service which is terribly expensive ( 29 cents per) and horribly slow (more than two weeks). If anyone knows of another Nextel supported site that I should try, please advise.
Chucker | 30-Jul-06 at 11:29 am | Permalink
Hey, it’s Sunday morning and the rains have stopped. At least here in Hanahan. Hope your photo outing yesterday was dry…and fun.
A comment was made by “Harvey” who said he’s a train buff. I don’t see a way for me to respond to him. Can you ask him to contact me directly.
Congrats on the great mention in GMLC. Harriet is a very nice person.
jason | 31-Jul-06 at 11:18 am | Permalink
I’ll pass the word along to him Chuck, I am sure he’d enjoy the “train-talk” companion. As an aside, you can always reach himi through our forum at http://www.scphotogs.com/forums