photo apps: shutterfly + free prints

Back in Pennsylvania, a woman at church started selling Creative Memories scrapbook supplies and I always had fun going to scrapbooking parties with my mom and sister. Plus, my mom had some really cool scrapbooking tools. But when I moved to Texas, I did so without buying any scrapbooking supplies of my own, so my photos mostly live in the cloud, on my computer, on social media, on an external hard drive, and on my phone.

I rarely print any of my photos, but I really wanted a hardcopy that I could keep, especially since I don't even look at most of my photos and they really just take up memory space. Plus, I kept seeing Project Life spreads pop up in my Instagram feed, and since it looks a little more convenient than scrapbooking, I decided to give it a try.

That's where Free Prints and Shutterfly come in (I mentioned both a couple of weeks ago), and have now received prints from both companies.

Free Prints allows you to print up to 85 4"x6" photos for free each month (you pay for shipping); 5"x5" photos are $.49 each. There is a 1,000 photo yearly limit and you can only order one of each photo. I tried that app first; it was simple and even notified me if some of my photos would turn out blurry, which I appreciated. Free Prints allows you to select photos from you phone, Facebook, Instagram, Dropbox, Picasa, Google Drive, Flickr, Amazon, and what I believe is the Microsoft Cloud (I can't tell from the logo). Also, they upgraded my shipping for free on my first order.

When the photos arrived, I received a coupon code for a free 5"x7" photo in return for letting the company know my order arrived. I was slightly disappointed with the photo quality, but I wasn't sure if that said more about the fact that I took photos with an iPhone (and sometimes used filters) or if it was more about the company's quality. However, I do really like the thick, even border around my Hipstamatic photo.

Next, I tried Shutterfly. I had only used Shutterfly once before, but I've heard positive things about the company from others, so I decided to pay a little extra for my photos--4"x6" photos cost $.15 each, while 4"x4" photos cost $.25. I like to use square photos, whether the 5"x5" ones from Free Prints or the 4"x4"s from Shutterfly, for Instagram photos.

This process was also pretty straightforward. Shutterfly lets me import photos from my phone, Facebook, Instagram, and Shutterfly, so it was slightly more limiting than Free Prints. However, I could order as many copies as I wanted to and there is no limit to the number of photos I order in a year.

I recently received my order from Shutterfly and was very impressed with my photos. I should have ordered some of the same photos that I did with Free Prints in order to compare them better, but the clarity and color of the Shutterfly photos (even though some were taken with Hipstamatic or Instagram) definitely outranked Free Prints. I was a little disappointed with the borders around my Hipstamatic photos--you can see in some of the images that they are uneven. I also preferred the thicker border that Free Prints gave me. The weird photo on the bottom right occurred because I accidentally ordered a square photo as a 4"x6" (I just checked my order to verify that the error was on my end).

Overall, you get what you pay for. Free Prints seems more streamlined and really focuses on the photos, while Shutterfly also includes a variety of other products. However, Shutterfly also seems to be of higher quality, which is reflected in the price. There are pros and cons to both apps and I will most likely to continue to order photos from both companies.