Update 3/16/2011: PhotoWorks notified users today that they will be closing. Users have until April 4, 2011 to complete and order projects. They are recommending Shutterfly as an alternative and provide a utility to transfer your photos to Shutterfly.

Introduction [ Table of Contents | PhotoWorks ]

PhotoWorks, formally Seattle FilmWorks, was acquired in 2008 by a subsidiary of American Greeting Corporation. Given the combination it is to be expected that PhotoWorks offers a variety of photo cards. PhotoWorks recently updated their website in October of 2009 with a warm and yet modern look and feel.

The PhotoWorks photo card lineup includes simple, one-sided print cards and single-fold greeting cards like most other printing services. What makes PhotoWork’s photo card offering unique is their die cut cards. They have a cute design called a “Round About” which is essential three circles held together with a grommet. The other design we have not seen elsewhere is their “Peapod”. It is square in the middle with four half circles on each side that fold into each other. PhotoWorks also now offers a “Poster Card” which, is similar to what other services call an “Accordian” style where there are multiple back-to-back folds but the difference is that it opens up even further into an 11 x 17 poster with plenty of room to write a full letter.

Quality [ Table of Contents | PhotoWorks ]

To make a quality comparison with other services, we uploaded a test image (a color photo of tulips) to PhotoWorks 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.

Print quality (photo paper cards)

The PhotoWorks 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. Interestingly, the PhotoWorks cards are printed on Kodak paper.

PhotoWorks Photo Paper Card

Print quality (folding/card stock cards)

The folding greeting cards we ordered from PhotoWorks had good color with a matte finish. We were very happy with the print quality and couldn’t find any excuse to give them anything less than five stars. That said, if you prefer more of a glossy finish on your folding cards you may want to go with SnapFish but we think that is more a question of personal taste than anything else.

PhotoWorks Folding Photo Greeting Card

Pricing [ Table of Contents | PhotoWorks ]

Pricing (photo paper cards)

The PhotoWorks 5”x7” photo print cards are sold in sets of 25 for $24.75 ($1.00 per card). The 4”x8” photo paper cards are sold in sets of 25 for $18.75 ($.75 per card). We would have liked the sets to be smaller. Not everyone may need 25 cards or if they need 27 they would have to buy 50. PhotoWorks offers volume discounts for purchasing more that one set of cards.

When you look at the prices under the cards in the PhotoWorks shop, be careful to note that the prices are preceded with “as low as”. We feel this is a little deceiving at first because those prices are only if you buy 9+ 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 pack. This seems to be a pretty common marketing ploy amongst all the photo printing services.

Pricing (folding/card stock cards)

PhotoWorks generally offers their folding cards for $2.95 per card in quantities of 1-19. There are volume discounts if you purchase more that 20 cards. This is a little more expensive than some of the other services we reviewed but PhotoWorks is often has discounts or free shipping available that easily make up the difference so be sure to check our discounts page.

Overall we found PhotoWorks’ Pricing to competitive with other print services. That said, we really would have liked the option to purchase around a dozen photo paper cards at a time instead of 25 and the folding cards are a bit pricier so we are taking a star off here.

Account Setup [ Table of Contents | PhotoWorks ]

Like most photo printing services, PhotoWorks requires a sign-up before you can upload and order cards. The signup process is relatively easy. Often PhotoWorks will offer free shipping when you sign-up for the first time so be sure to check our discount page.

There is a checkbox to opt-in for PhotoWorks marketing e-mails towards the bottom of the signup form. It is checked by default so if you don’t want to receive e-mail from PhotoWorks containing offers and news you may want to uncheck this.

Image upload [ Table of Contents | PhotoWorks ]

The default upload page on PhotoWorks only allows you to select one photo at a time. PhotoWorks also offers a Java uploader. To enable the Java upload click on “Switch to faster multi-file uploader” on the upload page and then accept the option to run the application when prompted. This is a little annoying we prefer some the Flash enabled multi-file upload interfaces implemented by other services that just work without requiring you to confirm that it is OK to run the app.

Once the applet has loaded you will be able to either drag and drop files to the upload box or click the “Browse” button and Ctrl-Click or Shift-Click to select multiple files.

PhotoWorks limits uploads to 10 Megabytes in size or less. This may be a bit limiting as the resolution of cameras continues to increase. You can adjust JPEG compression to reduce file size but after a point the image quality will degrade and that will hurt the quality of the print. For now, most users shouldn’t have a problem. If you do, the best option would be to resize your image since photo cards are relatively small in size and do not require the maximum resolution a pro-SLR can produce.

PhotoWorks only accepts JPEG image format. 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.

Using the web interface the upload speed was effectively 6.6 Mbs which is very good. Uploading a 9.8MB image file took 12 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.

Overall we found uploading photos on PhotoWorks to be pretty easy but we feel compelled to detract a star for the less than polished multi-file Java upload interface and the file size limitation.

Photo Sharing [ Table of Contents | PhotoWorks ]

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

The PhotoWorks slide show feature is adequate but not quite so spectacular as Kodak Gallery’s. You can adjust the speed of the slide show and there is a full screen mode but otherwise there weren’t too many options. In addition, we didn’t see a way for visitors to post comments.

Once you are happy with your album you can then share it using the “Share by Email” interface where you enter the e-mail addresses of your friends and family you would like to share with. PhotoWorks does provide an address book so you can just click to add recipients the next time but we didn’t see the ability to add groups like some of the other services offer.

After you click “Send” your recipients will receive an e-mail from PhotoWorks with a link they can click to see your album. We didn’t see an option to require users to sign-in to see the album like some of the other services offer.

Overall we give PhotoWorks three out of five stars in this area because it is not as full featured as some of the other services.

Storage [ Table of Contents | PhotoWorks ]

We couldn’t find PhotoWorks’ storage policy on their web site so we contacted their customer support and received a response back the next day. Per PhotoWorks customer service, PhotoWorks allows you to store an unlimited number of photos once you sign up and you only have to place an order once per year to keep your account active.

PhotoWorks allows you to download your original high resolution photos which wasn’t always the case with many photo services. 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).

We think PhotoWorks’ storage policy is very competitive with other services so we can easily give them fives stars.

Card Designs [ Table of Contents | PhotoWorks ]

PhotoWorks offers the typical 5”x7” and 4”x8” photo paper card designs in packs of 25. As mentioned before we would really like to be able to order 10 or 12. Traditional 5”x7” and 3.5”x5” folding card designs are offered as well and can be purchased individually.

PhotoWorks also offers alternative card formats including their die cut, “Round About” and “PeaPod” designs as previously noted. In addition their Poster Card is definitely worth a look if you like to send a family newsletter with your photo cards around the holidays. We also like that PhotoWorks offers Postcards as well. These make nice RSVP cards.

Oddly, one design we didn’t see when we ordered our test prints was a simple 4″x8″ photo paper card with an edge-to-edge image on one side and spot for text on the remaining section. We found one that was close as shown in our test print photo above but it still has a border around the image. This seems like a pretty basic design we would expect to find in any photo card line.

PhotoWorks allows you to browse by card style, occasion/theme, and recipient so it is pretty easy to narrow down the results to find what you are looking for.

Customization [ Table of Contents | PhotoWorks ]

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

PhotoWorks 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 albums and drag and drop them on to the card. Different designs will allow you to enter varying amounts of text so if one design doesn’t have enough room for your message there are others to choose from.

After your photo has been added to the card a small menu will appear above the photo that will allow you to:

• Position your photo inside the layout window
• Rotate the photo
• Enlarge or reduce the photo

Envelops are included with all the cards designs.

We found one of the coolest customization features on PhotoWorks completely by accident. When you view your photos in an album, each has an “Actions” drop down menu below it. One of the options is “Edit Photo in Picnik”. If you are not familiar with Picnik, it is a free photo editing site where you can manipulate your photos online.

Apparently PhotoWorks has integrated with Picnik so that when you click the “Edit Photo in Picnik” option, PhotoWorks opens up your photo in Picnik where you can apply a variety of effects and corrections such as red-eye removal, exposure correction, etc. You could upload your photo to Picnik separately from PhotoWorks and do all this but we think it is pretty cool you can upload once to PhotoWorks and do everything there before printing off your card. If you have a family portrait with some red-eye you could just skip your desktop photo editing software, upload your photo directly to PhotoWorks and fix the red-eye in Picnik.

Once you are done modifying your photo in Picnik you just click the “Save and Continue” button. You will be given the option to either overwrite your existing photo or save to a new. Very cool. We are kind of surprised PhotoWorks hasn’t made this feature more visible.

Customer Service [ Table of Contents | PhotoWorks ]

PhotoWorks offers Live Chat but it isn’t clear what hours they are available. In addition they provide a support form and phone number on both the top and bottom of their main landing page.

Ordering [ Table of Contents | PhotoWorks ]

The checkout process is pretty straight forward. PhotoWorks 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 discount page for the latest PhotoWorks promotions before you checkout.

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

Packaging and Shipping [ Table of Contents | PhotoWorks ]

You can choose from a few shipping options including Standard, Second Business Day, and Next Business Day. We didn’t see the option to ship parts of our order to different addresses.

PhotoWorks’ shipping costs seem a little pricey compared to some of the competition but still reasonable as long as you don’t require second or next business day shipping. Each item in your cart will indicate how many days are required for production. Keep in mind that shipping times are in addition to production times.

It does not appear that PhotoWorks has a relationship with any retailers for in-store photo paper card pickup like some of the other photo services do.

Our photo paper card order arrived five business days after we placed the order which is bit later than some of the other photocard services. This might be simply because they are shipping from the West coast and we are in NY.

The photo paper cards came in a stiff paperboard out envelope that is relatively difficult to bend. In addition, there was an inner folder made of card stock to further ensure the cards were not easily bent. They seemed pretty well protected for the journey and arrived in excellent condition.

PhotoWorks Photo Paper Card Envelope

PhotoWorks Photo Paper Card Packaging

The two folding cards we ordered from PhotoWorks also arrived five days after the order was placed. They came packaged in a light outer paper envelope and sandwiched by two pieces of stiff paperboard to prevent bending.

PhotoWorks Folding Card Envelope

PhotoWorks Folding Card Packaging

Overall the folding photo cards felt well packaged and able to handle the rigors of shipping.

Conclusion [ Table of Contents | PhotoWorks ]

Overall PhotoWorks 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 were the limited photo sharing features, slightly unpolished multi-file upload, and that we had to buy 25 cards at time if we wanted photo paper cards.