Features
Online photo printing
20070917 [Computer Buyer]
Online photo processing stores
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1 Bonusprint www.bonusprint.co.uk Bonusprint offers a good range of printing options. You can upload from your browser, use a downloaded application, or take advantage of the rare option of ordering direct from your desktop using the Windows XP Online Print Wizard. The website maybe isn't quite as slick or professional-looking as Snapfish or Photobox, but it's still easy to use, as is Bonusprint's downloadable Pix software, which lets you specify your whole order before you actually upload the files, so you can leave the upload running while you go and do something else. Bonusprint also offers online storage galleries with 300MB of free space. The range of gifts and novelties includes Disney greetings cards. Bonusprint is one of three services in this group of eight that use Kodak paper, the other five using some variant of Fuji stock. Our prints were a little washed out, and though the colour reproduction was accurate it lacked the punchy quality that some of the others managed. Some of the detail was also lost on some images. If you're not too bothered about the difference between good-enough and really sparkling prints, Bonusprint offers solid service at reasonable prices. Verdict: Bonusprint has been known for good-value processing since before the days of digital, and it's still very competitive. 3/5 |
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2 Boots www.bootsdigitalphotocentre.com The high-street chemist has long been many people's default destination for photo processing in the UK. Boots' online digital photo printing service has been running for several years now, but it's still somewhat hidden on the main company website, and it took us a while to find the link. We wondered if Boots might be happier to see customers bringing their digital media into a shop. The upload and ordering system is basic, but it does offer online storage for your image files, and you get points on your Boots loyalty card for using the website. There's a web-based quick upload tool, or you can browse and select images individually. The options for organising and adjusting your photos are limited, but all the necessary features are here to enable you to get your order sorted. The Boots service is quite significantly more expensive than the others, which might not be surprising for an in-store service but seems hard to justify online. Delivery time is quoted as up to five working days, which isn't very fast. Our prints were very good indeed, though, with bright and accurate colours and overall quality among the best on test. That's one good reason to consider Boots, but no excuse for the high prices. Verdict: The one-hour service in stores is handy, but if you're going to order online you don't need to pay as much as this for decent prints. 3/5 |
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3 Foto.com www.foto.com Er, Foto who? Foto.com is certainly less prevalent in this country than some of the other names on test here, but it offers a similar type of service, though with fewer formats and novelties than most. The website isn't as polished-looking as the rest of the bunch, and doesn't give much of an impression of well-established quality, but the company is widely represented around Europe and handles vast numbers of prints.As it turned out, everything worked fine for us when we ordered ours. Despite the lack of frills, the usual storing, sharing and editing tasks are adequately catered for. Foto.com works out the cheapest of all the services on test for basic print runs, and this doesn't seem to affect the quality: the images were some of the best. Accurate and sharp, our prints also showed spot-on brightness and colour reproduction. The packaging was impressive, too, featuring a semi-hard plastic box to protect prints while in the post. It took a week for us to get our prints, which was the slowest of all the services on test, though acceptable. This delay could have been a one-off, and the excellent print quality was worth waiting for. If you want good prints at the best price, Foto.com fits the bill. Verdict: The brand may not be so familiar, but top print quality and value for money mean it's well worth getting to know. 5/5 Best Buy |
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4 Klick www.klick.co.uk Klick is one of the photo processing companies here that also has a chain of high-street shops. Whether this in itself implies that their printing services benefit from more experience in the trade, or are likely to be more reliable, is open to debate. After all, running a web-based digital printing service is a rather different business from serving customers in a shop. The website does look reasonably decent. File transfer options consist of a web upload facility (Java-based, with a single file alternative if your browser isn't up to it) or a separate application that you download. As with the other services, there's an online storage function to let you keep and share prints as well as print them. The Klick site offers a good range of photo gifts as well. Our prints were a bit of a mixed bag, with some of the example shots reproduced with crisp definition and accurate and nicely saturated colours, while others looked slightly washed-out and as if the brightness level had been arbitrarily knocked up a few notches. The prices for small quantities of prints are a touch more expensive than average, but in general the prices are competitive. Overall, a middle-of-the-road performance. Verdict: This well known name delivers a functional online service but without anything very special in terms of quality or price. 3/5 |
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5 Kodak Gallery www.kodakgallery.co.uk The grandaddy of photographic film and printing, Kodak has many years of photo processing experience and plenty of expertise behind it. As with the others in this roundup, the company's online service offers much more than just prints. You can upload your pictures through a separate software tool that you download to your PC, or directly to a web browser window. The website looks professional, but isn't as well organised as some of the others, and finding your way around the options isn't as immediately obvious as it could be, although there's plenty of explanatory text. There are no big problems once you know what you're doing, and the editing tools are more comprehensive than most. As you might hope, Kodak Gallery gave us some of our best prints. Colours were accurate, and detail and sharpness were excellent. There were some prints from other services that gave punchier colours - more pleasing for holiday snaps, perhaps at the expense of strict fidelity - but overall the Kodak Gallery prints provided the most uniform and pleasing results. Unfortunately, they were also more expensive than most. Verdict: The Kodak name offers reassurance of quality, and if you don't mind paying extra for that, the prints won't disappoint. 3/5 |
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6 myPIX www.mypix.com The myPIX website is French-based and a spin-off of the well known online discount retailer Pixmania. The prices and options are much the same as the other offerings here, but we had some misgivings about the process of buying prints. As usual, we uploaded our images, decided what sizes we wanted, and finally clicked to check out. Here we were surprised to find that there was a charge for an index print (a sheet showing thumbnails of all the photos ordered), and some photo frames had been added to the order. It was simple enough to remove these extras, but to insert them automatically seemed a bit underhand. (Pixmania also adds unrequested extras to goods orders.) There was also a £1.70 'handling charge' on the receipt. The meaning of this was mysterious, and none of the other companies added such a charge. Still, when our prints arrived they were undeniably good. There was a consistent quality to all the images, with solid colour reproduction and a high level of detail. We would have rated myPIX much more highly if its sales approach had been more straightforward. As it stands, we can't recommend it. Verdict: Good features and great prints are the strong points of this service, but it's let down by a hard sell approach that could cost you extra. 2/5 |
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7 Photobox www.photobox.co.uk Photobox offers comprehensive online storage and sharing facilities and an enormous range of print options. As well as standard prints, you can get everything from keyrings to calendars of your images, and it's all presented in a very neat website. To upload your shots you simply drag the files directly onto the web browser window. It's one of the simplest methods around, and even though the various other uploading methods could hardly be described as difficult, we found the Photobox interface the most hassle-free to use. Our print order came supplied with a calibration print (at no extra cost) to help us get the most accurate colour reproduction on future orders. Calibration works by comparing the printed result to the original digital image. It's a really sensible touch, and the website provides full instructions on how to calibrate your PC using it. Ironically, it was the colour calibration of our first set of prints that gave us pause. They were sharp, but colours were a touch muted and whites had a hint of yellow compared to the results from other companies. The one Achilles heel of the Photobox service is that the end results were outshone by others. Verdict: The prints aren't among the very best, but quality is still acceptable and the website is a pleasure to use. 4/5 |
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8 Snapfish www.snapfish.co.uk Snapfish is owned by computer giant HP, and it's the service that photo retailer Jessops uses for online printing in the UK, so it certainly has a good pedigree. The wacky name sort of makes sense if you think about it. We found the website attractive and very easy to follow, and getting your digital images uploaded is a simple process. Transferring pictures from your PC can be done one file at a time or through a QuickUpload tool. As with some other services, you can only upload files in JPEG format, but that should cover the majority of photos from compact digital cameras (more advanced models use TIF to avoid loss of quality). You can store and sort your images into albums within the site. Delivery options include the ability to pick your prints up at a local Jessops store, and some of the Jessops affiliates even offer express one-hour pick-up, so you can order your prints online and have them output immediately. If you prefer to have the images delivered to your door in the usual way, this takes 1-2 working days. The quality of prints from Snapfish was very good, with well-balanced colours and very sharp detail. At prices that are average among the services tested, they're good value. Verdict: Another well presented website, and this time the quality of the prints matched up. The Jessops tie-in could prove handy, too. 4/5 Recommended |
