Snapfish is an online retailer offering a variety of photo gifts and print services. They are mostly known for their robust photo books, which are created by uploading dozens of your own photos and arranging them on pages with designs and text to be bound into a book. Prices start as low as $19.99 for a Linen cover 8x10 photo book with 20 full color pages.
When you visit Snapfish to create a photo book you must first select the size that you want to go with. There are several hardcover options - 8x8, 8x11, and 12x12. Two different options for 8x11 are available - Leather or Linen cover, with a "window" cut to display a portion of the image on your first page, or a custom printed cover or jacket. If you decided you want to switch between these two options you can do so in the designing area.
Before you can get started working on your photo book you have to first register with Snapfish. When you get to the desiging area it is best to start by uploading all of the images you want to use in your album. Once you have all your images uploaded, you are given the option of autofilling the photo book. The design system will then layout all of your images in a variety of ways, in order of how they were uploaded. Sometimes it will put one on a page with text, sometimes three on a page with no text, etc. This is a good option for the less-creative or people who don't want to spend a ton of time on the process.
The design system is very robust. If you try to expand an image too much and it becomes low resolution you will be warned. Photo adjustments can be done from this area, including red eye removal, cropping and resizing, vertical and horizontal flipping, 360 degree rotation, color enhancement, and brightness adjustment. If you so choose you can also convert the image to black and white or sepia tone, or colorize the image.
Page backgrounds are based on the theme you choose prior to the design area, but can be altered on an individual basis by selecting the "backgrounds" tab. The "Layouts" tab allows you to choose how many images you want on a page, if and where you want text, and how large images are. There are 78 different layouts to choose from, many of which have included text areas. You can also have borders on your images by going to the "Borders" tab but these are not compatible with all of the Layouts.
To keep track of which of your images you have or have not used, the pane on the far right side of the design area shows a checkbox on all images that are currently used in the photo book. You can also remove images from this area.
When your photo book is completed you can preview it by clicking "Preview" at the bottom of the design area, which gives a very convincing navigatible rendering of what your photo book will look like.
The base price of your photo book includes 20 pages. Additional pages (2 at a time) cost an extra $1.99. You can have a maximum of 120 pages.
It only takes 2-5 days from the time you order for your book to be processed, printed, and bound. Standard shipping is $7.99 and also takes 2-5 days.
