Stacy’s Picks – Shutterfly

The days of signing up for more than one online service to handle your photo printing, storage and sharing needs are over. You’ve tried the competition and they’re OK. But that thing you like that they do so well, Shutterfly does it better. Here’s how:

Those sites that offer low-cost image storage are great. But Shutterfly offers free unlimited image storage and Shutterfly wouldn’t dream of compressing them into smaller, lower resolution files. Though some printing services trash your image files when they’ve completed the job, Shutterfly claims to have never deleted a single pic. Your files are safe!

Some photo printing services make you wait for your order to be delivered in the mail. Shutterfly users have the alternate option of picking their prints up themselves at their local Target, CVS or Walgreens. Shutterfly also offers to deliver prints, gifts or cards to anyone you’ve added to your address book. What’s more, every photo and card can be personalized for free with a short message on the reverse side. And unlike those printing services that won’t give you a price list up front, Shutterfly has nothing to be ashamed of! Some printing sites force you to submit different sized images for each photo gift you order, for instance, one suited for mugs and another resized for a mouse pad. Not Shutterfly. Their Express Uploading software makes it super easy to import even your largest image files. Make sure to upload the image in its largest resolution and Shutterfly’s amazing online image editing and optimization tools will help you place that image into future projects of all sizes, whether it be photo books, greeting cards, wall decals, magnets, or the like.

Just in case those reasons aren't incentive enough to switch, Shutterfly also provides free online photo sharing! Friends and family can view the pictures you share without having to log in or sign up for an account of their own. And unlike some image hosting sites that force you to conform to their boring web-design and static format, Shutterfly goes above and beyond by providing a wide variety of web gallery templates to show off your photo collections. You know what else Shutterfly does right? Excellent customer support; contact their Live Chat Support or shoot them off an email and expect a quick and courteous response. Know what else they’re great at? Coupons! Sign up to get great offers sent to you via email and I’m betting you’ll be amazed by the discounts and freebies that regularly stream in. In the last month alone, I’ve received offers to get a 40% discount off all greeting cards, a discount of 50% off photo books, an offer to take $10 off my next order, free address labels, 10 free cards (which I took them up on), and a free magnet (which I also snagged).

I’m a big fan, if you couldn’t tell already. I could go on all day, but I’ll wrap things up by saying that if I had to narrow it down to only one reason to make the switch, it would be this: high quality prints. Award-winning prints. Shutterfly uses Fuji Crystal Archive paper, which gives your photos amazing depth with rich, vibrant, true-to-life color. As the old adage goes, seeing is believing, so go ahead and take them up on their offer of 50 free 4x6 prints to all new users!