Last Photo Entry… For Now

This will be the last I talk about my Maine photos. It’s starting to bore me, and they’re my shots!

Yesterday I complained about Winkflash’s process for designing a photo book. I was hoping their software wasn’t the same as everyone else’s… and it wasn’t! Sorry Winkflash – on this one you lose (though, as you’ll hear, I did give them some business). I went instead to Shutterfly

What is it with photo processor names? Along with the two I’ve already mentioned, there’s Snapfish. C’mon. We’re being put on, right?

These were the best names available?

Shutterfly’s web based software is similar to Winkflash’s, but works much more quickly and efficiently. There are also more choices to customize the photo book.

Actually, there were too many choices including page and cover color, layout and text. More choices means it takes more time. I also have a tendency to become more insecure, worrying I’ve done something stylishly stupid.

The biggest problem switching to Shutterfly was uploading my chosen photos again! Even with high speed Internet access it took a few hours.

I am pleased with my finished book. At least I’m pleased with how it looks online. In the past I’ve found the printed version of photos always looks better than what’s on the screen.

My 25 page book, with at least 75-80 pictures (most pages feature multiple pictures), will cost $19.26 shipped. Not bad.

Having finished the book, I looked to print a few 8×10 and 5x7s. I couldn’t believe Shutterfly’s prices. They were much more than what I had seen elsewhere.

Since the photos were already loaded at Winkflash, and their price was much more reasonable, I ordered the singles there. My 5-5x7s and 3-8x10s were $8.41 out the door (and since they’re coming from Rhode Island the wait shouldn’t be too long).

You might be wondering how I got to these two companies to begin with? The answer is Picasa.

Though I process my photos with Photoshop, let me go on record recommending Picasa if you deal with digital photos.

Picasa is one of those Swiss Army Knife programs which does a lot of different things. It will pull photos off your camera to your PC. Then it acts as a file manager to let you see what you’ve got on your hard drive.

You can easily (I mean without a manual or reading the directions) sharpen, brighten, crop and enhance any photo. If you burn your photos to a disk, Picasa will add a slide show function that plays right off the CD. It also handles the upload to a photo processor or blog.

Did I mention, it’s free and from Google?

Now comes the last step in vacation photos – waiting.

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