Regular Life

Be honest. Does at least one person in your family still prefer looking at prints in a photo album, but your digital pictures just sit there on your hard drive or memory card? Does finally getting a print from your digital photos cause marital strife? Does your printer either lack the quality you want, or usually run out of at least one color while you’re printing?

If you answered “yes” to any of the above, then read on for my review of three services that can help you solve these problems.

I’ve looked at online printing labs located far away, but invariably I come back to the same thing: they may offer attractive printing prices, but unless I order lots of prints, the shipping cost overshadows any savings over taking them to a local photo lab. Of course, even if I do order enough to beat that spread, then there’s additional risk and time of shipment. If I want a quick print of Aunt Myrtle kissing Uncle Woodrow, this just isn’t a good option.

This is where a hybrid service comes in. I can upload pictures to their Web site at any time of day or night, and pick up my prints at a local store. Several stores feature this service, and I review three here.

First, I used Walgreen’s. It was very easy to join. Although I had to choose the pictures I wanted one by one, once I had the list, I started the upload and turned my attention elsewhere. After that, I had a brand new online photo album on the site and had no problems navigating through the selection of the size and quantity of prints. A one-click feature makes ordering a 4×6 of each print quick and easy. I did this very late at night, so the site informed me I could pick up my prints by 9:47 the next morning. The site makes it easy to find the participating store nearest you. At about 8:57 a.m., I received an e-mail informing me my prints were ready. I didn’t have to provide any credit card information online; I paid when I picked them up. The print quality was excellent, very sharp with great color. Price: First 10 prints free; 19 cents per 4×6 after that.

Wal-Mart
As much as the pull-for-the-little-guy spirit in my hates to say it, the photo quality here was top-notch and the features placed it right up there with the competition. There were a few technical snags, but once I figured out the root of the problem, it went very smoothly.

With two different Web browsers, it said it was unable to install the photo upload tool, but that I could upload individually. I didn’t want to spend time figuring out why, and they should offer several methods of uploading multiple photos. Even the free version of Fotki.com offers that. I chose 12 files individually, and when I hit Submit, I was shown a blank page. When I hit the Back button, all my selections were gone. Ugh. Also, the most one album can have by this method is 12 photos, and it is limited to 20MB at a time. Once I set Internet Explorer to prompt me for ActiveX installations, I was able to use the multiple photo selection and upload tool, and up to 200MB at a time.

Wal-Mart’s site featured image-editing capabilities including Red-Eye fix, cropping, adding a border, and a Color tab with two different black-and-white conversions and an Auto Adjust feature. Once a border or a color enhancement has been chosen, it can be applied to the entire album with a click.

Wal-Mart still doesn’t have it quite right, but I would not sit through adding 62 photos manually on Walgreen’s site. Wal-Mart also allows .tif files, which is nice if you want to edit a file before uploading but do not want to lose quality by saving as a .jpg again. Unless you pay for storage, the albums you create last only 60 days before deletion. Pricing options vary depending on the option chosen: one-hour service from the local lab ($0.19 per 4×6), printing at a remote lab with pickup at the local store ($0.15 per 4×6), or printing at a remote lab with shipment directly to the customer ($0.12 per 4×6).

To test the In-store Pick-up option, I ordered a 5×7, which is the size where this option really starts making a huge price difference. Although it mentioned a 2-3 day pick-up, when I ordered on 11/30, the resulting printable receipt said it was due between 12/05 and 12/08. That is not 2-3 days, but the print looked very good. I saw no option to pay upon pickup.

Target
Target takes a different approach. Rather than host the photo albums themselves, they partnered with Yahoo! Photos. I already had a Yahoo! account, so getting started was very easy. Just like on Wal-Mart’s site, I was able to drag-and-drop multiple photos. The Edit Photo button is a bit deceiving, as instead of allowing manipulation of the image itself, it merely refers to file management operations like rename, etc. The picture quality was very good, although a few pictures that came out great in an earlier Wal-Mart order were too bright. Like Walgreen’s, Target allowed me to pay when I picked up the prints. Price per 4×6 print: $0.20.

Although both e-mailed me order confirmations, neither Wal-Mart nor Target notified me when my photos were ready. Walgreen’s earns points for that feature, as it removes an extra step for the customer.

Conclusion
All three have their strong points. Although Wal-Mart’s features outweighed the others, it did not offer the option to pay upon pickup, and required ActiveX for multiple file upload selection. For someone who tries his best to use Firefox exclusively, that’s a big drawback.

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