Photobook Publisher Upload Speeds

While creating a new photobook publisher comparison chart I thought I would time how long it took to upload the same pictures to each publisher. At first this seemed to be a good way to compare the different publishers -- thinking that the fast the upload the better the upload software. First thoughts aren't always the right thoughts.

The first test consisted of 10 photos that ranged in size from from 7.3mb to 46kb for a total of 24.2MB. The upload speeds ranged from 21 seconds to 9 minutes! This was interesting, so another timed test was done with a second set of low resolution pictures - 61 pictures in all for a total of 9.89 MB. This upload ranged in time from 2 minutes and 3 seconds to 5 minutes.

The test created some questions -- why did some publishers upload the high res files so much faster than other publishers while they were almost the same speed when uploading the low res photos.? Our supposition was that some of the programs compressed the higher res photos. After researching all the sites I did find an explanation by Kodak that explained that they did a JPG compression that would give a good 20" by 30" print. They also did significant testing to prove that this compression did not make any difference to photo quality when viewing a picture that was 20 x 30" and viewed from 16".

So, from this statement you can assume that the sites that were significantly faster uploading the high res photos did some sort of compression that they tested and felt it made no difference in the photo quality given. One can understand that because it does make sense that a 7MB picture has more resolution than required to print a 4 x 6" picture, and there is a great time savings when the sites do the upload compression (which does decrease the picture resolution).

If you are uploading a high resolution picture because you are going to zoom into a small portion of the picture, it would be a good idea to edit the picture before you upload it. That way you will be sure that the smaller portion of the picture you really want will be of high quality. Also, if you really want the higher res picture uploaded, be sure to choose one of the sites that uploads the whole picture (you can tell because they take longer to upload).

So speed isn't always the best feature to compare photobook publishers. There are several other features that are more important in making your photobook publisher decision. Our Photobook Feature Set chart points out these elements.

Linda Reavill enjoys making photobooks and what started out as a way to organize wedding photos has turned into a passion for photobooks. If you need any help with photobooks, please visit http://www.make-your-own-photobooks.com

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