Who: Ofoto, Shutterfly, and Photoworks, all pioneering the online developing market.
What: Digital prints that can be edited, printed, stored, and emailed online.
When: Now.
Where: At any computer with Internet access.
Why: To make your life easier with better quality photos to share with all.
Digital photography is finally going mainstream. In today's market digital quality is astounding but it's been tough to bring that quality to paper, until now. Instead of having to hassle buying an expensive high-end printer and pricey photo paper you can have your digital images developed for you. Here are 3 online services that are all very similar in producing these high quality digital photos. They all have quite a few advantages compared to traditional in-store developing.
Some of the benefits of these services include the ability to choose which pictures you would like to order, share pictures with others via the web with the ability for them to order prints directly, organize pictures into online albums, and label pictures with captions or titles. Not only do these services offer printing of pictures from your digital camera but they will develop your traditional film into digital photos which you may view online. All these services will even return your processed negatives.
Why it's Different.
You might be thinking that all of this elaborate process will cost you a bundle. But don't worry the prices are very reasonable and you might even save money on gas because all of these pictures come delivered right to your door via U.S. mail or courier. Other fun features that you can use with these services are the different software tools that are provided to edit your pictures. You can trim, add filters, remove red-eye, add titles, create borders, and more at no additional cost. Most services will let you transfer your photos through your web browser or use their free downloadable software. The software is even easy to use so it caters to even the non-technical crowd.
All the photo services will store your photos online, which you can access at any time via a web browser. You can even allow access to others such as family or friends. This is nice because you don't have to get reprints and mail them to everyone. They can go directly to the website and order whatever pictures they prefer. We found one drawback with Photoworks on this topic, they let you store your pictures in high-resolution format but it will cost you $2.50, and you need them stored in high resolution if you want reprints in the future.
More than Photos
Shutterfly and Ofoto both offer photo cards which are quite nice. Ofoto also has photo holders, which are cards that have borders which you slide your photos into. They start at $1.50 per card or holder and that includes the print. The photo cards, where the image and a personal message are printed on the actual card, start at 2.99 each and are available at both Ofoto and Shutterfly. Both Ofoto and Shutterfly include envelopes with their cards and reduce their prices if you order a larger quantity. I prefer the Ofoto cards myself because whoever you send it to can remove the photo and keep it whereas the printed cards are not as versatile. They both offer a variety of borders and Ofoto has recently added borders for baby announcements. Shutterfly and Ofoto have integrated a nice feature into their card ordering system. They will let you order cards with preaddressed envelopes, they will even mail out to your recipients if you want and it will store your address list for any future cards or photos you want to send out. All three services offer frames for your photos, so you can have a picture delivered to someone already framed. The best part is that you can view frames with your photo placed in it so you can see what it will look like. If you are really into creating unique photo gifts, try Photoworks, they will put your pictures on anything from mousepads to aprons.
The Quality
Our advice is to try Ofoto at no cost and see how you like it. Sign up and get your free enrollment kit, which will contain actual sample photos printed by their machines. You'll be amazed by the quality and you can start developing and storing your prints online. And don't forget to email copies of your photo albums to friends, plus for every person you refer that signs up, you will receive 10 free 4x6 prints.
Click here to get 25 free prints from Ofoto.com 
