Kodak Easyshare Gallery Review & Contest

[bmattock]

I don't have a photo-quality printer, and probably won't buy one. The consumables are expensive, and unless you use the thing fairly frequently, the ink nozzles tend to dry up and clog. Cost per print is about the same as having it done.

I have been using Walmart's one-hour digital upload / print facility for some time now, and it works rather well. I can upload either digital images from my Pentax *ist DS or scanned negs from any of my film cameras and print them as I wish. I can print them at my local Walmart, or at the Walmart nearest to whatever family member or friend I want, which is nice. They also mail prints, and that seems to work well too. I only print the images I want - after crop/tweak, etc - better than traditional one-hour film developing/printing and less expensive too.

I used Walmart's 8x10 printing to make four prints that I matted and framed for a recent contest here in Wilson, and that went well. But for bigger prints than 8x10, I started looking at some of the other services.

I just had some prints made at Snapfish (www.snapfish.com). Cheap and not bad (140+ 4x6 prints for around $20 including shipping), but the photographic paper used was very thin - good for an album, bad for handling - they feel 'flimsy'. They have 'premium' paper availble, but it is much more expensive.

Then I thought I'd try Ofoto - but it isn't Ofoto anymore. Now it is Kodak (www.kodakgallery.com).

Here, I found a very cool thing. I found this online album thing that let me choose a photo album, populate it with 24 photos, make captions, and the whole thing was sent as a bound book kinda thing for $29.

I just got the album, which I gave as a birthday gift to a neighbor, and it was a big hit. I'd have to say that this is a use I had not thought of for remote printing - I was thinking only in terms of traditional prints. They also do poster-sized prints, coffee cups, mouse pads, etc.

They also have a contest that just started, win a trip to Cozumel or something, so I thought I'd mention that.

http://kodak.eprize.net/sharethoseshots/

Well, that's it.

OH yeah, one other thing...

Since I run Linux and not Windows, I can't use the free 'upload tool' that all the services use (Walmart, snapfish, kodakgallery, et al) - it only runs on Windows. So I have to upload my photos one at a time - this takes time and is a hassle. I wish they'd fix that with a pure Java solution that would run on everything, but they'll get there, I hope.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

 

[Richard Black]

Bill,
I usually burn a cd and take to W-M or Walgreens and use their system. I find their prints, even B&W, to be quite acceptable. The best B&W here is at Cliff's, the operator is a wizard on digital images. I scan the negative and do what I think is best and she does the rest.
I have the Kodak thing but I didn't know you could get a book out of the deal.

 

[bmattock]

Bill,
I usually burn a cd and take to W-M or Walgreens and use their system. I find their prints, even B&W, to be quite acceptable. The best B&W here is at Cliff's, the operator is a wizard on digital images. I scan the negative and do what I think is best and she does the rest.
I have the Kodak thing but I didn't know you could get a book out of the deal.

I have burned a CD and taken it to Walmart, but my jpg files must be really big or something - it seems to take a long time for them to read my CDs. But yes, that works. And although I use the local Walgreens to process my negs, I don't use their digital kiosk - it is nearly always broken. Just not reliable.

I am not familiar with Cliff's - but I spent a week in Enid, OK, once. Wow! I was there in the early 1990's, but it was a pretty torn-up and run-down town - no offense intended, but between the local fields set on fire that kept me away from the airport and the downtown area, I was somewhat depressed. But the people were really nice to me while I was there (I was doing some work for the local Culligan's dealership). What kind of photography do you do there in Enid?

This was my first try with the Kodak thing - the album was nice - the prints are made when the page is printed, so it's not a 'mounted' print - they print the whole thing, artwork, text, and photo as one page, printed on both sides, and then bind it into the book cover you've chosen. It really does look nice. Price is not all that great, but it does make a nice gift, so not something you'd do all the time.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks