Shutterfly Photo Book Review

Shutterfly is a good site for a beginner to intermediate user. The only photo book software option they still lacked and kept them from getting an A+, was the capability of using a picture as a background, with the option of putting pictures on top. Also, keep in mind that they carry "regular" and "premium" books. The regular books have more options available when you're creating a book. There are options to change backgrounds, layouts and edges of the pictures. The premium books are laid out with predetermined backgrounds with very little options to change.

In designing your book you have a new storyboard tool that will help you organize your photos before you design your book or help reorganize them after you are done.

Shutterfly recently introduced "Simple Path" books - layouts that are created for you from you pictures. This is a little more sophisticated than an "autofill" option. It does create a nice book, but does not give you much flexibility. Be sure to edit your photos before you add them to the book because it does not allow in-book editing as it does with the regular books. I also had a case where I had taken my pictures with less resolution than usual and one layout showed the picture to have too low of resolution. I tried switching several pictures and that didn't work. What I could not do was to change the layout on the page to have a smaller picture. But all in all, it is a good option if you want a to put together your book with a touch of a button.

This photo book printer is partnered with Target and you can order pictures and print them directly to your local Target store for pick-up in as little as one hour.

Shutterfly has a large Gallery section with a wide assortment of books submitted by users. I loved the fact that you could sort through the tags and find your area of interest quickly.

Shutterfly lets you share your stories or send out your favorite photos through customized share sites that are easy to create. See how simple it is at Shutterfly Share Site.

Besides photo books, you can also make cards, calendars, posters and a nice variety of other photo gifts. Visit our Coupon Page for current deals and promotions.

For the six steps you'll need in creating a photo show DVD with Shutterfly, visit Create Your Own Photo Slide Show.

Need help, have questions? Help comes in the form of email submissions which will usually be answered within the next business day.

Specifications

Paper Weight	110#
Max. # of Pages	101
Shipping for one book	$4.99 - 11.99
Mac Compatible?	Yes - if using Firefox not Safari

Updated: March 11, 2010

Shutterfly Photo Book Review

What is the Quality of the Photo Books?

The review on this page only reviews the software that you use to make your photo book. In order to review the quality of the photo book you receive or the quality of any help please go to Photo Book Experiences. Here you will find what other people have said about different printer/publishers. These reviews have been broken out by each individual publisher.

The quality of these comments are only helpful if Make Your Own Photo Books site visitors take the time to leave comments about their experiences. Please pay it forward to other site visitors by taking the time to leave a comment (good or bad)if you have made a photo book.

Comparative Photo Book Software Review

Background Themes	Nice variety
Layout Variety	A wide variety
JPG as a Background	No
Digi-Scrapbooking Friendly	Extremely
In-book Editing	Yes
Text - Variety and Full Page	Good variety, also able to easily change font.
Embellishments and Corners	Top variety of edges that you can apply to your pictures.
Full-Page Bleed	Yes
Final Grade	A