Free Photo Sites Not a Snap to Use

By KAREN KAPLAN

July 27, 2000 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

I regularly send thousand-word e-mails to family and friends. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then I figured I could save a lot of typing time by using the Internet to send photos instead.

I’m not inclined to plunk down a few hundred dollars for a digital camera or the scanner I would need to convert my regular paper prints into digital files. I’m also not too keen on the notion of paying an extra $6 to have Kodak put my pictures on a CD-ROM when my film is developed.

And why should I? About a half-dozen Web sites are willing to digitize my pictures for free. Some of those sites will even develop the film gratis. They’re hoping to sell enough prints to me--and to the friends and family who will view my pictures online--to recoup their costs and even turn a profit.

Internet photo shops have some advantages over drugstores. Processing is free, and after viewing the pictures online, you order only the prints you want. Relatives and friends can order their own copies instead of relying on you to send them by mail.

All four services I tested--PhotoWorks.com, Ofoto, EMemories.com and Snapfish--offer free film processing, and some throw in extra goodies such as free film and prints.

But in the end, even the freebies didn’t win me over. As I should have expected, I got what I paid for.

Viewing my pictures online was never a problem. But setting up custom albums often was. Friends and family members who visited my albums found them frustrating to use. They often had difficulty logging in, leaving comments and reading captions. And for the most part, the prints I ordered weren’t as sharp as the pictures I get from the drugstore.

Only two of the sites, PhotoWorks.com and Ofoto, were equipped to develop the special Advanced Photo System film used by my tiny Canon Elph Jr. camera. To test EMemories and Snapfish, I had to use disposable 35mm cameras.

To start using an online photo service, you have to register at the company’s site and wait for a starter kit to arrive in the mail, which usually takes five to 10 days. The kits include postage-paid envelopes for mailing the film and stickers bearing a unique customer number to affix to envelopes and rolls of film.

After the film is developed and the pictures posted online, sharing them is usually as simple as typing in the e-mail addresses of friends and family members. They will receive a message that includes a link to the online album (PhotoWorks’ system was the one exception). The sites will send your negatives back, but some may charge a fee if you don’t order enough pictures.

Which photo service is best for you depends on your needs. PhotoWorks provided the highest-quality prints. Snapfish’s album was the easiest to use, but that was largely because it offered few bells and whistles.

PhotoWorks

Of all the services, I had the highest hopes for PhotoWorks.com. Formerly Seattle FilmWorks, the company has been processing film since 1978, and its customers have stored more than 100 million images in its online archive.

PhotoWorks.com customers get free processing for their first roll of film and one free set of prints. Image-scanning and online photo storage are always free.

Four days after mailing my film, PhotoWorks.com sent me an e-mail to let me know my pictures were ready for online viewing. The thumbnail images--about 1 inch high and 1 3/4 inches wide--came up right away. Clicking on one calls it up in a normal size.

In retrospect, I should have stopped there. I could have forwarded my notification e-mail to anyone else I wanted to share the pictures with, allowing them to link directly to a Web site where my photos were displayed.

Instead, I decided to create a custom album, only to learn that I couldn’t share it with my far-flung friends and family. Downloading the free PhotoWorks Desktop software was easy. Figuring out how to manipulate my pictures was an exercise in trial and error.

Clicking on most of the icons eventually revealed a way to add captions, rotate images, and delete unwanted pictures. After reading through several pages of the PhotoWorks User’s Guide, I even figured out how to crop my pictures to make them look more professional. When I was done, I had created what I considered an attractive desktop slide show.

But I was exasperated to learn that I could show it only to people who could view it at my desk. That certainly defeated the purpose of using a Web-based service. At the suggestion of a PhotoWorks.com tech support staffer, I tried e-mailing my album to two computer-savvy family members. But neither of them could get the slide show to work.

Those weren’t my only problems. I didn’t realize that my first roll of film would automatically be made into my free set of prints. By the time it arrived on my doorstep, I had already placed duplicate orders online, at 25 cents per print. The invoice that came with my free roll of film also included a $4 charge for a new roll of film, which I didn’t order and wasn’t delivered. A customer service representative at 1-800-PHOTOWORKS said she would remove the charge.

Ofoto

My PhotoWorks.com experience left me crossing my fingers for Ofoto, the other company that develops APS film--and always does it for free. But the company, at https://www.ofoto.com, took 12 days to process my film, the longest wait of any of the services.

Once my pictures were online, the service was easy to use. Figuring out how to delete unwanted photos, add captions, and arrange them was simple. But when I tried to save my rearranged album, it wouldn’t take. I was also unable to crop or rotate my pictures (to turn some of them right-side up), even after reading through Ofoto’s extensive list of frequently asked questions.

Like all good complainers, I sent an e-mail to customer service at [email protected]. To my surprise, I received a reply less than two hours later. Unfortunately, the news wasn’t so good. Cropping and image rotating are not available, though the latter is on the way, I was told. Ofoto engineers were also at work to fix the bug that prevented me from saving my rearranged album. By the time I tried it again three days later, it was fixed.

Ofoto’s slide-show presentation is easy to maneuver, displaying each picture with a caption and allowing the viewer to control the speed of the show. One problem: Guests who signed in were at first presented with thumbnail pictures instead of the album I’d created.

Ordering prints was easy. Ofoto offers 50 free prints, so the 20 I ordered cost me nothing. (They would otherwise cost 49 cents each.) First-class shipping would have cost only $1.49, but the company gave me a shipping credit. I received my pictures in six days.

Another big problem: Some of my subjects’ heads had been cut off. (APS cameras like mine can take pictures in three sizes, but Ofoto can handle only standard dimensions.)

EMemories

The film I sent to EMemories was processed much faster--the pictures were online in five days--but the album-making process went far more slowly.

EMemories albums are flashier, with about 75 choices for background patterns such as “beach,” “extraterrestrial” and “wedding.” I couldn’t find any way to preview them first, so I gambled on one called “Expressionist” and got a stylized version of Southwestern Red Rock country. EMemories also gives you more options for doctoring your pictures before putting them in an album. Photos can be cropped, enlarged, rearranged and captioned.

But it took me several minutes to implement each of these changes for each of my photos--and that was on a corporate network with a high-speed Internet connection. Altogether, it took an hour and a half to turn 24 mediocre pictures into an album of 11 attractive shots. I can’t imagine doing this with a dial-up Internet service provider.

EMemories charges 49 cents per 4-by-6-inch print. (The company doesn’t offer free prints, but it never charges for processing.) My 11 prints took two weeks to arrive in the mail, and the quality was disappointing. As with the other services, the prints came on a thin variety of photo paper. The EMemories prints also looked murky, with poor color balance and low resolution.

Snapfish

Snapfish, at https://www.snap fish.com, also develops film for free and offers one free set of prints. Mine arrived in the mail eight days before the electronic versions were available on the Web.

The digital photos weren’t ready until 17 days after I had mailed in my film. Before I could view my pictures, I had to answer three marketing questions. I found this annoying, since I’d already provided some personal information when I signed up for the service.

Turning the Snapfish thumbnails into an album was simple and much faster than with EMemories. There were clear icons for rotating or deleting an image and adding a caption. Cropping and rearranging pictures were not options. Double-clicking on a picture enlarged it to normal size, with the caption visible. Viewers can click on “next picture” to move through the album I created.

The order form is also straightforward: click the “order here” button and type in the number and size of each picture you want. I didn’t order any reprints because I got my first roll free, but standard 4-by-6-inch prints were 50 cents each, and shipping for the entire roll was $1.69. One visitor reported that it was easy to order pictures, but they took more than a week to arrive and were sent to me instead of to her.

After three weeks of testing these services, I took my next roll of film to a discount retailer. It processed my film and provided one set of 25 prints for $7.40 (that would have cost about $12.50 with the online services, if I wanted copies of all my pictures), and did it in about an hour.

Then I headed over to Kinkos.com and learned that I could use the store’s scanners to digitize my paper prints. I’ll rely on this comparatively low-tech solution until the photo sites become more user-friendly and improve their picture quality.

Times staff writer Karen Kaplan can be reached at [email protected].

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Online Photo Developing

PhotoWorks.com picturewhat’snext*:

Film developing cost: $10, including shipping and a free roll of replacement film.

Cost per 4”x6”print: 25 cents

Freebies: First roll processed free; free set of prints.

Ofoto:

Film developing cost: Free

Cost of 4”x6” print: 49 cents

Freebies: 50 free prints.

ememories.com: