13.3. Sending Photos to a Printing Service All four of the big photo-sharing sites offer printing services, should you decide you want some hard copies of your pictures. True, printing photos at home on an inkjet photo printer has an appeal all its ownnamely, that you get the pictures right now . But, the truth is, when you factor in the special photo paper and all the ink those printers guzzle down, you might find that, economically speaking, ordering prints online is actually a better deal. Flickr, Shutterfly, Snapfish, and Kodak let you order prints in all shapes and sizes and have them mailed right to you. The Web is also crawling with services that do nothing but create prints (and de- emphasize all the photo-sharing stuff): -
Winkflash . You can upload your photos to Winkflash and use the site's free organizing and editing program (Windows only) before ordering prints. If you connect to the Internet with a dial-up modem and don't particularly relish the thought of spending the entire weekend uploading photos, Winkflash will mail you a CD; you burn your photos to it and mail it back to them with your print order form. (www.winkflash.com) -
dotPhoto . With free software for Windows folks called dotPhotoGo, you can crop, adjust, and upload your digital images to the site. Basic membership is free, provides Web space to show off pictures, and lets you order 3 x 5-inch prints for 15 cents each. Monthly plans ($5 and up) give you a certain allotment of prints per month. (www.dotphoto.com) -
Walgreens . The venerable Main Street drugstore chain has gone high tech. You can upload your pictures to Walgreens' photo site or email them in (even by cameraphone) to place your print order. If you live near a Walgreens store, you can pick them up in person an hour later; alternatively, the service can mail you the goods. The digital pictures you upload for printing stay on the siteno chargeand can be viewed by your pals. (http://photo.walgreens.com) Wal-Mart stores (www.walmart.com/photo-center) have jumped into online photo-processing with in-store pickup as well, so check with your area stores to see if that's an option. GEM IN THE ROUGH
Greeting Cards the Online Way | | You don't have to spend two hours and a trip to the mall just to give someone a Hallmark moment. Like everyone else, Hallmark has moved online (www.hallmark.com); among other perks, it lets you send free electronic greeting cards to people's email boxes. To send an e-card, sign up for a free Hallmark account, pick out a style and personalize it with your own greeting, fill in your recipient's email address, and send it on its way. For a few dollars, you can also choose a physical greeting card, direct Hallmark to print your personal greeting on it, address the card to your recipient, add your return address, and mail the whole thing off. (Emily Post Alert: If it's a sympathy card, paper cards are still probably a better way to go than an e-greeting.) American Greetings (www.americangreetings.com) offers e-cards as well, and you can download and print your own cards and other projects. They offer several monthly membership plans based on the types of things you want to do, as does its subsidiary, BlueMountain (www.bluemountain.com). If you're looking for personalized cards, say for a college graduation announcement, don't forget the photo-sharing and printing sites, which will only be too happy to whip up 50 custom greeting cards or postcards from one of your own pictures. |
Tip: Mac OS X fans can order and buy prints, cards, calendars, and photo-books right from the iPhoto program that comes free on new Macs. Those with .Mac accounts ($100 a year at www.apple.com/dotmac) get a gigabyte of online storage to use for email accounts and displaying photos.If you, your friends , and family use iPhoto 6 (or have an RSS reader see Section 5.5), you can even publish photocasts . These are sets of pictures that you've broadcast to selected friends and family, which they can view online at no charge. What's cool is that every time you update your set of "published" photos, your subscribers can see the changes, too.
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