Cheaper, more creative holiday photo products coming

Every autumn at our house, we promise that this will be the year we take the family photo early, and mail out all those the photo greeting cards by Thanksgiving.

Sound familiar?

Yup, hasn't happened with us either. This year, however, we've been looking around at photo options (pre-Halloween even), and right away some amazing deals are popping up from Snapfish, Shutterfly, Kodak and other biggies in the photo printing world. For example, the price of hardback photo books have dropped down from the "Absurd" level to the "Sure, maybe" level. Years ago, a basic photo book could run you $50 or $60. Now they start at just $13. And for the kids, there are ways to put their photo into a Jonas Brothers poster, or Sesame Street storybook.

And more photo companies are waking up and cooperating with the Web sites where everybody posts their photos already: Facebook, Flikr and so on.

Picking which shot to upload may never get easier, but to help you sort through a blizzard of options, here's a very arbitrary sample of neat new items from some of the biggest providers.

Facebook/Flikr

To kick it off, Target this month announced a new corporate deal that will let customers walk up to the Kodak photo kiosk, pull in photos from their personal Facebook profile page and print them on the spot for as little as 15-cents apiece.

I'll leave the data privacy question up to you, but if your BFF tagged you in photo, you can make it your cheesy holiday photo card to mail to all your friends and family - in the U.S. Mail - with a sticker stamp and paper envelope and everything.

How retro.

But what if you've already posted a ton of pix on Flikr? Lucky you. Flikr has a direct relationship with photo printer Snapfish. So all the Snapfish deals will work with your Flikr pix. Presto.

Hardbacks

Time was, just the prospect of trying to produce a whole photo book online was enough to turn you off to the whole holiday project. Who had time to select all those pix, then upload them and, geez, do all the layout - and hope the online system didn't glitch out and lose all your work. Not me.

Now, photo companies promise their systems are better, and they're offering lower prices. Some even print images right onto the cover for a dramatic look as the book lays on the coffee table.

Kodak, for instance, has a system that will automatically draw in photos you already have in their Kodak Gallery, then fit them into a book template. This year, Kodak dropped prices by about 25 percent. A 14-page starter soft-cover book is $7.49, plus 22 cents for additional pages. A luxurious 12"x14" hardback with linen cover was $70, but now starts at $52.

And for a middle option, Shutterfly has a nifty 8"x8" softcover, 20-page version for just $19, or "designer" versions pre-loaded with templates by graphic artists for a bit more.

Sesame Street

Shutterfly has a neat feature this year that lets you upload pictures of your kids, and park them into things like a Jonas Brothers wall poster or kid's books. What's more, the system will weave your kid's name into the storyline of a Sesame Street, Dora the Explorer or Sponge Bob book. Price $39.99. If all this starts to sound profitable to you entrepreneurs out there - you're right. Snapfish is getting with the self-publishing fad and offering a system called "Snapfish Publisher." Aspiring DIY graphic designers can sketch out their images for a greeting card, upload them to Snapfish, then market the daylights out of them to potential customers. If they're lucky enough to sell 5,000 cards through the system, they can make a cool $1,000.

Basic printing

If all this sounds too much, and you just want basic printing, I wish I could say there's a simple answer. There isn't. Every company prices their basic prints a bit differently.

The primary variables are: Design, size, finish, shipping and envelopes. Bargain customers can simply print basic shots for as little as 8 or 9 cents each, then write out meaningful holiday messages with a Sharpie on the back. Other options go up to $1.99 apiece for premium papers with high-design graphics and envelopes included.

We've used Kodak before and this year they have a good value, with 4"x8" photo cards on nice paper stock for 69 cents apiece.

Super service

The Internet also offers a blizzard of other options for quirky designs and services to save you time. The site Moo.com will send customized cards for different holiday events, so Grandma will get a Hanukkah card, while someone else gets a sports-themed one. Upload all the birthdays and special occasions in your extended family, and JackCards.com will ship you pre-produced cards in advance, so you don't end up forgetting an event. They'll even pre-stamp and address the cards in advance.

Tinyprints.com also lets you design your own stationary, and will pre-stamp and address cards for you. Saves a step.

Wildcards

Then there's a whole category of oddball/adorable photo items. Among them: Shutterfly's ceramic photo ornament for the tree: $15.99, and a LIVESTRONG card where part of the proceeds go to cancer research: 25-count for $1.99 per card.

Snapfish has a plush photo blanket. Just name your favorite team/military branch and cozy up on the couch under that photo for $54.99.

Hallmark, meanwhile, started something new last year: Photo paper plates. A package of 10 costs $10, so you can munch through your fruitcake at the holiday party until you peer down into a really cute photo of the kids on the beach.