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Q: How to use effects
A: To use effects (such as sepia tone), click the green View & enhance button and navigate to a picture. (You can also navigate to the picture when you are in other parts of your account, such as 'Share online' and 'Order prints'.) Then click the green 'Effects' tab. You will be able to select color tone, saturation, or soft focus; and you will be able to control the amount of each.

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Q: What is "VividPics®"? When do I want Shutterfly to automatically enhance my pictures using VividPics?
A: Shutterfly analyzes your picture and automatically applies adjustments to the picture to improve the exposure and colors in order to give you the finest-quality prints. We call this proprietary image processing technology VividPics®. VividPics is applied by default to all Shutterfly prints.

However, if you have already edited your pictures for color, brightness, or contrast in an application such as Adobe Photoshop, we recommend that you turn off the VividPics setting for the edited pictures. To do this, click the green View & enhance button and navigate to the picture in question. (You can also navigate to the picture when you are in other parts of your account, such as 'Share online' and 'Order prints'.) You can either navigate all the way to an individual picture, or you can navigate to the "Pictures" view and then click the Enhance/fix pictures link on the right.

Then click the green Effects tab. On the bottom left, click the checkbox that turns off the VividPics setting for that picture ("Do not apply any automatic corrections to my picture"). If you have a number of pictures selected, you can click the Apply this effect to other pictures link, and then on the next page click Next to apply the setting to all the selected pictures. Pictures printed with this setting turned off will be printed exactly as they were uploaded, with no automatic image adjustments or corrections.

Additionally, if you are an imaging professional such as a graphics artist that works in a color-managed environment, we recommend that you turn off the VividPics setting. If your digital images are in an sRGB color space and you have previewed the image on a calibrated monitor, your Shutterfly prints should be very close to what you see on your monitor when printed with VividPics turned off.

Please note that although our VividPics® technology does work to improve exposure, it will not fix images that are poorly-exposed to begin with.

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Q: Can I have pictures printed by default in the uncorrected mode instead of with VividPics?
A: Your pictures are corrected by VividPics by default. Currently the only way to turn this setting off is by selecting one or more pictures; check the box that says 'do not apply any automatic corrections to my picture', and then click the link on the left that says 'Apply to all selected images'.

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Q: What is "Color Tone"?
A: Color Tone allows you to add the equivalent of a color to a black and white version of your pictures for an artistic effect. Try moving the arrow below the color selector to apply different colors to your pictures.

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Q: What is "Saturate"?
A: Saturate allows you to decrease or increase the amount of color in your picture.

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