My Kodak Gallery Photo Book Review

by Darcy Lewis
(Denver, CO, USA)

Kodak Gallery is not that easy to use - rearranging the page lay out of the album was quite difficult and almost caused me a nervous breakdown - it's supposed to be drag and drop, but it's more like drag and jump, and it never goes where you want it to, and it took me HOURS to rearrange 20 pages, and I'm good with drag and drop!

Also, you cannot move photos from album to album, and it resets what album you're in when you go to upload more photos. Once you upload the photos to the wrong album, you're stuck. You have to re-upload to get them into the right album.

Photo books use specific templates and sizes, and if you're photos aren't the 'right' size, they won't display. They don't really let you zoom in or out on the photos so that you can get the whole image. So I had to keep trying my photo in different layouts to find one that would display it properly - or at least not cut off too much! This is really only a problem if you cropped your photos in advance.

Customer service does not speak English, so even when you chat with them or email, you may get a reply that doesn't make much sense. I had several coupons and discounts, and they kept changing things, then making me fight to get the coupons/credits honored. They eventually honored most of them, but it took a lot of phone calls, emails, chats, and a lot of fighting. Then they refused to honor a coupon that expired while their site was down, even though I had been in the process of placing my order (with my then-valid coupon) when their site crashed.

They didn't get their site up again until after my coupon expired, and even though I had a screen shot of the crash and error message, they refused to honor the coupon.

I eventually got my photo book, and it is very pretty, but there was an error in the text. I couldn't imagine how I had made such a big typo, so I checked the project online, and it wasn't wrong. I contacted them, and they agreed to reprint it and ship it for free.

I have had the book for almost a year now, and the cover is coming off, and the cover laminate is peeling away from the corners - both of which started happening after only a few months. It has not held up nearly as well as I would have hoped, and I'm a bit disappointed in that.

I have had minor problems ordering other items from their site. I am planning on publishing another book this year, and am looking to try other companies, in the hopes that they will be easier to work with and have better quality....