China Photo Album

TelecorderTelecorder Registered Users Posts: 73 Big grins
edited April 9, 2007 in The Big Picture
Hi all... New to the Dgrin but been around for a few years w/other forums. Thought some would like a view of my new Shutterfly Photo Album that I just had printed -- 8.5x11.

As a way of background, we received a coupon for a free, $30 - 20-page Cloth-cover Photo Album last October when we applied for our passports at the Post Office. I was able to get them to agree to extend its use-by date to 3/31/07 and worked on the images/layout using their web-based software last week. I finished Saturday and placed my online order -- mailed from NoCal on Tuesday and received in Thursday's mail.

I have a 1.6GHz Pentium w/1-GB of RAM and a DSL connection. By & large, their web flash software was fairly easy to use, they have a good assortment of page layouts/print fonts to use. I did have issues with using their bulk uploader - probably due to software conflict w/my SmugMug software - so I had to use their indvidual file (10 images/upload) approach.

This sometimes proved to be problematic in that trying to upload multiple 2+GB images would sometimes hang and I'd have to sign-in and navigate back to where I was only to find that some of the images were never uploaded.

Other minor issues were ensuring images' cropping were where I wanted in some layout scenarios; lack of a spell checker, sometimes small, hard to read print for proofing; finally realizing that the upload sequencing of images determined their position/sequence in the thumbnail gallery for choosing which image for which page - I had originally uploaded small resolution images for doing the layout -- when I uploaded the high resolution images, they were appended to the end of the thumbnail gallery for choosing; one good aspect is the ability to 'hide' a thumbnail image once its been used.

All in all, though, it was fairly easy to use although a down load of their software to use offline would be preferred. Their album pricing for the 8.5 x 11 page/8.75" x 11.25" leather cover is currently $39.95 + $1/page above 20 (2 pages/sheet); max of 100-pages-50-sheets/album.

Critical rating of the finished product--
8 of 10 for cover/binding
8 of 10 for image quality of less than full bleed images
7 of 10 for image quality of full bleed (printing to page edge)


The 4-color process and 80-# paper used seemed to have a bit of excess saturation of reds; lost a lot of the contrast of the full bleed images due to the flat, less shiny ink used -- just not the 'pop' one would hope for although, in good viewing lighting it does improve somewhat.

Personal opinion - overall a 7 of 10. Definitely not for the pro for a portfolio but for a memento of the trip and showing as a small coffee-table book - its probably worth the money paid.

I've down loaded Blub.com's software and will next try them as they have pricing for 13 x 11 with up to 440-pages. A couple of threads on this forum that I found w/good info about online photo album alternatives/insights...

t=38968
t=55176

Lessons Learned--
Don't rush -- proof 2 - 3 times before hitting order button (I did have some minor typos/mis-spellings/poor crops I missed in rush to order before deadline); Process/Upload in sRGB ICC profiles; Size and upload high rez images saved to image ~9x12 at 250 - 300 dpi for all images - even if to be printed on 5-images/page; confirm final image crop locations for all images

Would/will I order more from Shutterfly based on this first purchase? Probably yes; I'll have a better feeling once I try Blurb.com's software and finished product -- more due to their better pricing for large number of pages (I have 5,000+ images from China to work with...)

Is the 8.5x11 a nice product - yes but I feel the $-shots will, hopefully be more impressive when printed in a 12x12 (Shutterfly's largest) or Blurbs' 13x11...

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Telecorder (Dave)
Apple Valley, CA
D50-BIGMA-70-300VRII-35f2D-18-70DX-FZ30
My SmugMug Image Galleries
My Nikonian Image Galleries

Comments

  • ian408ian408 Administrators Posts: 21,904 moderator
    edited April 9, 2007
    I'm going to move this over to The Big Picture. I think it'll get some more
    comments and be of use to those in BP.

    From the shots in the album, it looks like you had a wonderful trip!
    Moderator Journeys/Sports/Big Picture :: Need some help with dgrin?
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