Sorry for the delay

I've been wanting to post about Easter. But I've been having issues lately with photo websites. I liked Shutterfly for so long. They always had great customer service and their prints and products were always satisfactory. However, in the last year, I have been disappointed on several occasions. We had to have our Christmas cards reprinted because the first batch was too dark (the second batch was only slightly improved). The calendars I had made at Christmas contained one picture that was extremely dark. You can also tell by their calendars that they have some sort of new printing process. The paper is different. AND I ordered a mug for my grandmother for Christmas and it was shipped to me inappropriately packaged causing the handle to break. Of course, I asked them to send me another one. They packaged it exactly the same way and the handle was broken AGAIN! The third time I finally received an intact mug.

At any rate, what I really don't understand is that the images do not print at all like they look on the computer screen. As a rule, most of the prints are darker and have less contrast than what I can visually see on the computer. Now, it's not just my monitor. This is true of any computer I look at the images on. So, why is it that the prints/printed items I order don't look the same or as nice as the computer images? This is very annoying to me.

So I thought I would finally throw in the towel with Shutterfly and find a new online photo service. I have discovered a few things during this quest. First, Shutterfly definitely has the best features for online web sharing. It's free of charge and you can create a web page to link to or have people access to look at your photos. And this is separate from your actual account where your photos are stored. I have not found any other websites yet that contain the same features and with the same ease of use at no charge.

Secondly, Shutterfly's online tools (cropping, eye fix, etc) are fast, simple, and do not require extra steps. I discovered that ofoto.com (a Kodak website) is somewhat similar and I was excited to try it out. It uploads extremely slowly (even with the special download software). And there are extra steps when cropping and editing the images. So there is added time there. None of the websites I browsed had the same number of borders and backgrounds available when compared to Shutterfly. Another downside to ofoto.com, you have to pay a fee in order to have a webpage to share your photos.

So, I decided I really couldn't make a decision until I saw the prints. I ordered 15 pictures from both websites. The exact same images. And some were better at Shutterfly and some better at Kodak. A total draw!!! UGH!

So now, I'm at a loss. I'm not sure what to do. And my real dilemma is that I haven't ordered any prints to put in albums since Lily was 9 months. Yes, you read that correctly. So I have hundreds of prints to order someday when I finally get around to it. And I want to make sure they are good quality.

So that's the long version of a reason for my lack of posting lately. I am trying to figure out what to do about our photos. If anyone can shed some light on why the images would look great on the computer and crappy on the prints, I would love to be enlightened. I just don't understand that. And I really don't want to pay for calendars and whatnot and then be unhappy with the product.

Sooo....maybe I'll get a real update posted soon....In the meantime....I'm going out to shovel AGAIN! It was 50 degrees yesterday and now we've received at least 4 inches of snow today. AAhhhh!