I first sent my film to Seattle FilmWorks last year because it could return my pictures as prints, slides, or on disk. Now, it has gone one better. With PhotoMail, I get shots back via email. It's simple: register at the Web address, then request PhotoMail delivery with your processing order. FilmWorks lets you know electronically when your pics are available at its Web site.
Photos come compressed, but you can read them with PhotoWorks freeware for Windows or Mac. If you get your shots on floppies, you don't need PhotoWorks to view them but the software does let you crop, rotate, flip, mirror, posterize, change colors, and adjust brightness, contrast, and gamma. I wish it let me edit parts of the photo instead of making global changes, but you can export photos into many formats. PhotoWorks lets you undo changes, for which I'm often grateful. Maximum resolution of the images is 640 by 480, but they look better than standard VGA thanks to their 24-bit color depth (16 million colors). Each frame takes up 15 to 70 kilobytes.
Email or disk photos: US$13.90 for 24 exposures. Seattle FilmWorks: +1 (206) 283 9074, on the Web at www.filmworks.com/.
STREET CRED
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