Kodak Gallery Photo Card Printing Review

Review Table of Contents/Criteria	Star Rating
Introduction
Quality
Pricing
Account Setup
Image Upload
Photo Sharing
Storage
Card Designs
Customization
Customer Service
Ordering
Packaging and Shipping
Conclusion and Overall Rating

Introduction [ Table of Contents | Kodak Gallery ]

With Kodak’s long standing name in the photo print business it is no surprise that they offer online printing services including photo cards. Kodak had a surprisingly late entry to the online photo printing business but made up for lost time by acquiring Ofoto in 2001 and later rebranding it Kodak Gallery. In October of 2009 Kodak re-vamped their web site with a much more modern gallery and professional printing options on their Endura paper.

Kodak Gallery’s photo card lineup includes simple one-sided print cards and single-fold greetings like most other printing services. What makes Kodak Gallery’s photo card offering unique is their famous name designer cards. A few examples include Simon+Kabuki, Martha Stewart, and Eric Carle. Kodak Gallery also offers some unique card styles including their “Accordion Fold Card” and “Tri-fold Card”.

Quality [ Table of Contents | Kodak Gallery ]

To make a quality comparison with other services, we uploaded a test image (a color photo of tulips) to Kodak Gallery and several other online services that print photo cards. We then ordered two folding greeting cards from each service as well as pack of 4”x8” photo paper cards to compare the print quality between services.

Kodak Gallery gives you the option to enable or disable their “Kodak Perfect Touch” technology. This is a feature offered by Kodak that “scans your photos and automatically corrects flaws such as dark shadows and backlighting, producing more vibrant color and richer detail” (Kodak’s Description). If you are a pro photographer and you have already tweaked your photos then you may want to disable this feature. We did so for our test images. You can find this setting under “My Account” and then “Advanced Print Options”.

Print quality (photo paper cards)

The Kodak Gallery photo paper cards we ordered had very accurate colors and excellent clarity. This is pretty consistent with the other services. If you are just ordering photo paper cards you really can’t go wrong with any of the printing services we tested from a quality perspective. Naturally the cards were printed on Kodak paper.

Kodak Gallery Photo Paper Card

Print quality (folding/card stock cards)

The folding greeting cards we ordered from Kodak Gallery had excellent color with a matte finish. Upon close inspection though we noticed some horizontal banding in darker areas of the photo. This was barely noticeable and the print overall was pretty good but we can’t justify scoring Kodak Gallery as high as some of the other services that don’t have this problem so we are subtracting a star in this area.

Kodak Gallery Folding Photo Greeting Card

Pricing [ Table of Contents | Kodak Gallery ]

Pricing (photo paper cards)

Kodak Gallery’s 5”x7” photo print cards are sold in sets of 10 for $9.99 ($1.00 per card). The 4”x8” photo paper cards are sold in sets of 10 for $6.99 per set ($.70 per card). We like that we can buy as few as 10 photo paper cards. Some of the other services will only sell photo paper cards in packs of 20 or more. Kodak Gallery also offers volume discounts for purchasing more that two sets of cards.

When you look at the prices under the cards in the Kodak Gallery shop, be careful to note that the prices are preceded with “from:”. We feel this is a little deceiving at first because those prices are only if you buy 20 packs of cards or more. When you click on the design you will see the full price list including the price for purchasing just 1-2 packs. This seems to be a pretty common marketing ploy amongst all the photo printing services.

Pricing (folding/card stock cards)

Kodak Gallery generally offers their “Classic Fold” cards for $2.49 per card in quantities of 1-10. There are volume discounts if you purchase more that 10 cards.

Overall we found Kodak Gallery’s pricing to be very competitive with other print services.

Account Setup [ Table of Contents | Kodak Gallery ]

Like most photo printing services, Kodak requires a sign-up before you can upload and order cards. The signup process is relatively easy. Often Kodak will offer free prints (not including shipping and handling) when you sign-up for the first time so be sure to check our discount page.

There is a checkbox to opt-in for Kodak marketing in the lower right hand corner away from the main signup form. It is checked by default so if you don’t want to receive e-mail from Kodak containing offers and news you may want to uncheck this.

During the sign-up process you can optionally enter your mobile phone number so that you can upload your camera phone pictures to the gallery.

Image upload [ Table of Contents | Kodak Gallery ]

There are a number of ways to upload photos to Kodak Gallery:

For most needs the upload interface provided on the Kodak Gallery website should be adequate. Some of the other upload options such as the desktop interface and Firefox add-on allow you to upload photos by dragging and dropping files to the interface but we found just browsing for the files using the web interface was just as easy.

No maximum upload size is specified by Kodak Gallery and we were able to upload a 21 Megapixel 61 Megabyte TIFF file using the desktop upload utility so whatever the max file size is, it must be pretty large!

Kodak Gallery only accepts JPEG image format via the web upload interface. Some professional photographers may find this a bit limiting because JPEG is not a lossless compression mechanism but saving to a JPEG using a very high quality setting should be adequate in most cases.

The Kodak Gallery desktop upload software accepts “BMP”, “GIF”, “PNG”, and “TIF” file formats in addition to JPEG. It doesn’t seem like it would be to much effort to allow these other formats via the web upload interface as well.

The basic, in-browser upload interface in Kodak Gallery supports multiple file uploads via a Flash interface. When you click “Upload” and then the “Browse” button you can either hold down your “Ctrl” and single click multiple files or hold down your “Shift” key and select a whole range of files from the same folder on your computer. The Kodak Gallery’s upload interface allows you to select and upload up to 200 JPEG files at a time.

Using the web interface the upload speed was effectively 4.5 Mbs which is very good. Uploading an 11MB image file took 19 seconds. Unfortunately many broadband ISPs provide only a fraction of upload bandwidth compared to their download bandwidth so you may experience slower upload performance. If you are uploading more than 10 files a good strategy is to select all the files you would like to upload, click the upload button and then go do something else.

Some notes on the Kodak Easyshare Software package:

If you decide to download the Kodak Easyshare Software package be aware that it will also install a bit of “trialware” from ArcSoft. You may be able to unselect this if you choose a custom install. In addition, an icon will show up on your “system tray” (the area next to the clock on right side of your taskbar in Windows) and the software will launch every time you start your computer.

I don’t like any program that sticks an icon in my systray and runs in the background (especially when I am not even using it), much less one that starts up every time I start my computer. In this case it is really annoying because there doesn’t appear to be an easy way to disable it short of removing the software entirely. For these reasons I recommend just sticking with the web interface or the stripped down, Gallery upload utility.

There is a way to at least stop the software from starting up everytime you start your computer. In the Kodak EasyShare software, click on “Tools” the “Preferences” and then the “Gallery Settings” tab. Put a check next to “Turn off the Latest News and Deals at startup. This will not get rid of the systray but at least the Easyshare software won’t launch everytime you start your computer. To get rid of the systray icon on Windows, click “Start” > “Programs” > “Startup” and then right click on “Kodak EasyShare software” and choose “Delete”. You can then right click the icon in your systray and choose “Shut Down Kodak EasyShare software”. The next time you restart your computer you won’t see the icon in your systray but you will still be able to launch software using your start menu.

Photo Sharing [ Table of Contents | Kodak Gallery ]

Like many other online printing services, Kodak Gallery allows you to share your photos with others. When you upload your photos you are asked to create a gallery which is a group of photos centered around a particular theme such as a vacation or event for example. Once you have created a gallery you can add and delete photos in the gallery.

One area that particularly impressed us is Kodak Gallery’s new slideshow. It has a nice look and feel and is easy to navigate. You can choose a couple different backgrounds, change the view to a full screen view, and adjust the speed of the slideshow. Visitors can also post comments and choose to make them public or private.

Kodak Gallery Slideshow

Once you are happy with your gallery you can then share it using the “Photo Sharing” interface where you enter the e-mail addresses of your friends and family you would like to share with. You can setup groups so you can easily e-mail the same group the next time you share a new gallery. Kodak will retain all your contacts so that you don’t have re-enter everyone’s e-mail address each time you share a gallery.

Your recipients will receive an e-mail from Kodak Gallery with a link they can click to see your gallery. You can require visitors to enter a user name and password to see your gallery if you like. If your recipient doesn’t have a Kodak Gallery username and password they can sign-up for one.

Kodak Gallery allows you to see which of your recipients visited your gallery and who left comments using their “Share History” and “Comments” features.

Storage [ Table of Contents | Kodak Gallery ]

Kodak Gallery provides free online storage for 90 days from when you upload images to your account. To keep your images after 90 days you must make a minimum purchase before the 90 days are up and then one every year after that.

If you have less than 2 Gigabytes of images the annual purchase requirement is $4.99 and $19.99 if you have more than 2 Gigabytes of images.

At first we thought this was pretty reasonable considering that many photo sharing sites are more expensive and don’t give you any prints for that yearly fee. After taking a look at some of the other photo services however, we found that Kodak Gallery is actually a little pricey in this regard. PhotoWorks for example, allows unlimited photo storage and you only have to make a purchase once per year (no set amount) to keep your account active. Considering the competition we have to give Kodak Gallery four out of five stars for their storage policy.

A nice benefit of Kodak Gallery is that you can now download your original, high-resolution photos. We wouldn’t depend on Kodak as a backup of your photos but this is kind of nice for accessing your high resolution photos from a few different computers (i.e. work vs. home).

Card Designs [ Table of Contents | Kodak Gallery ]

Kodak Gallery offers the typical 5”x7” and 4”x8” photo paper card designs in packs of 10. Traditional 5”x7” and 3.5”x5” folding card designs are offered as well and can be purchased individually. The Gallery also offers alternative card formats including their Accordion and Tri-fold cards. There are many card designs to choose from including famous name designer cards.

We were pleased to notice that since the first draft of this review went out, Kodak Gallery now allows you to filter cards not only by occasion, but also by design, format, and the number of images in the design. This is quite handy to help sift through the hundreds of designs they have available.

Customization [ Table of Contents | Kodak Gallery ]

The user interface for customizing cards is pretty intuitive. You can enter your own message, pick different font styles, sizes, and colors.

Kodak presents you with a few different layout options depending on the design you choose. Once you have picked a design, you can retrieve photos from one or more of your galleries and drag and drop them on to the card.

After your photo has been added to the card you can click on it to pull up the “Picture Tools” dialog. This rather well hidden dialog allows you to:

Position your photo inside the layout window
Apply black and white or sepia tints
Rotate the photo
Enlarge or reduce the photo

On folding card designs you can also include a small image and some text on the back of the card. This is a nice feature that allows you to place your own “brand” on your cards.

Envelops are included with all the cards designs. When you order a folding card you may also be presented with the option to choose an envelop color which is a nice touch.

Customer Service [ Table of Contents | Kodak Gallery ]

Kodak Gallery offers Live chat support from 6AM to 6PM Pacific Time which is a nice feature. In addition they provide a support form, e-mail address and phone number under the “Help” option of their website.

Ordering [ Table of Contents | Kodak Gallery ]

The checkout process is pretty straight forward. Kodak will save your shipping information and optionally your credit card information. You can update quantities during checkout and enter any applicable promotion codes. Be sure to check our site for the latest Kodak promotions before you checkout.

Non-folding, photo paper cards can be ordered in packs of ten and folding card-stock cards can be ordered individually. Kodak offers discounts when you order larger quantities.

Shortly after we placed our order we received an e-mail confirming it with an estimated arrival time. Roughly 24 hours later Kodak sent a followup e-mail telling us our order had shipped.

Packaging and Shipping [ Table of Contents | Kodak Gallery ]

You can choose from a variety of shipping options including 1 day, 2 day, and 3-10 day shipping to different locations within a single order if you like. Shipping costs are relatively reasonable but the 1 and 2 day options are quite a bit more expensive so it pays not to wait until the last minute! Kodak provides an “Estimated arrival time:” that includes the time it takes for Kodak to print and package your order.

If you are ordering a photo paper card you will get the option to pick up your order the same day at a local participating Target store. This is a nice feature in a pinch. It does not appear that the Target photo centers are capable of printing the folding card stock cards or at least it is not an option during checkout.

Our photo paper card order arrived four days after we placed the order in a heavy weight paperboard envelope. They seemed pretty well protected for the journey and arrived in excellent condition.

Kodak Gallery Photo Paper Card Envelope

Kodak Gallery Photo Paper Card Packaging

The two folding cards we ordered from Kodak Gallery also arrived four days after the order was placed. They came packaged in a light card stock envelop that was placed inside a rigid outer paperboard envelope.

Kodak Gallery Folding Card Outer Envelope

Kodak Gallery Folding Card Inner Envelope

The outer envelope feels rigid enough to stand up to any abuse it may seeing during shipping and the cards were indeed in excellent condition.

Conclusion [ Table of Contents | Kodak Gallery ]

Overall Kodak Gallery has a compelling photo card offering. There are plenty of designs to choose from and we were pretty happy with the results. The only faults we could find with the service was the banding we noticed in the darker regions of the folding photocard prints and their storage policy.

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