Jessops

I've just taken delivery of a CD containing my latest set of photographs, and although I've always liked Jessops, they've gone up even more in my estimation.

What did I get exactly? Well, I took in two rolls of APS film, 25 exposures on each, and I handed over £11.99 per film and got back the usual negatives, prints and index prints, but also a CD containing both sets of photographs, each picture in five different sizes, large, medium, small, thumbnail and tiny - 250 graphics files in all.

I was wary of trying this because a friend of mine had recently had a Kodak photo CD and was very disappointed that the photographs were in Kodak's proprietary graphic file format, requiring the download of special drivers from the Microsoft website before he could use them in MS software, and even then, he still couldn't get them into Powerpoint properly. The great benefit of the Jessops CD is that all the files are the JPG format, ensuring that the vast majority of programs can access and work with the files. But having the files in five different sizes, greatly reduces the need for changing them anyway.

I've never been too pleased with the APS format, because the smaller prints always seem such a waste when you could use the panoramic setting, whereas the panoramic setting never really seemed suitable for group photographs or smaller views. But with these jpg files you get the best of all worlds, as whatever you want you've got it already among the five sizes on the CD.

The CD itself comes with a variety of software on it, not least being a really useful Print Shop Photo Organiser which enables you to organise the photos into albums, add comments, dates, locations etc, and then file them in any way you wish. I was delighted to see that it will also save the photos and commentaries to a webpage with a variety of backgrounds and styles, and even publishes to a website using ftp. This is a real bonus, as it allows you to share your photos on the web, without having to bother with webpage design or HTML codes. You could easily publish to one of the many free website hosters using this software and wouldn't need to fathom the mysteries of html or ftp. The program even allows you to specify one of four definitions for the photos, and I personally found the low definition perfectly adequate for viewing with a typical computer monitor.

The service took five days to deliver my results, exactly as promised, and I got a free film for each reel I handed in. Incidentally, you can upgrade the free Jessops film to a Kodak, or whatever other brand you require for a small fee - you just pay the retail difference between Jessops and your favoured brand.

Its so good not to have to scan all the photos in myself, I wish I'd discovered the service a couple of years ago. Highly recommended service in my view. Incidentally, if you want to look at my photos of Madrid and Toledo you'll be able to see them www.themos.org/madrid (there's one of Bridport at the front - my mistake).