Printing your digital photos allows you to preserve memories in a tangible form, whether for albums, frames, or gifts. With numerous online photo printing services available, choosing the best one can be challenging. This review examines several popular online photo printing services, evaluating them based on print quality, cropping options, packaging, and overall user experience to help you find the Best Places To Print Pictures.
What to Look for in an Online Photo Printing Service
Selecting the right online photo printing service involves considering several key factors to ensure satisfaction with your printed photos. These factors directly impact the quality of your prints and the overall convenience of the service.
Print Quality: The most crucial aspect is the quality of the prints. This includes color accuracy, sharpness, detail reproduction in shadows and highlights, and the overall finish of the photo paper. High-quality services should deliver prints that faithfully represent your digital images.
Print Sizes and Cropping Options: Different cameras and smartphones capture photos in various aspect ratios. A good printing service should offer a range of print sizes and, importantly, provide options to print photos without unwanted cropping, especially for smartphone photos which often have a 4:3 aspect ratio. Services that force cropping can significantly alter the composition of carefully framed images.
Packaging and Shipping: Proper packaging is essential to protect your prints during transit. Prints should be shipped in rigid, protective envelopes or tubes with sufficient padding to prevent bending, creases, or corner damage. Damage during shipping is a common complaint, and reliable services prioritize secure packaging.
Price and Value: While price is a factor, it should be balanced with quality and service. The cheapest option isn’t always the best, especially if it compromises print quality or packaging. Consider the overall value, taking into account print quality, shipping costs, and any additional features or services offered.
User Experience and Ease of Use: A user-friendly website or app makes the ordering process smooth and efficient. Easy uploading, clear size and option selections, and straightforward checkout processes contribute to a positive experience.
Customer Support: While ideally you won’t need it, accessible and responsive customer support is valuable should any issues arise with your order, such as damage or quality concerns.
Top Online Photo Printing Services: Detailed Reviews
This review analyzes several prominent online photo printing services, based on testing and user feedback, to determine the best options for printing your pictures.
Mpix
Mpix is a widely recognized photo service, offering a convenient app for ordering prints directly from smartphones. Despite its popularity and user-friendly app, Mpix received the lowest ratings in print quality from panelists in tests. A significant drawback is Mpix’s inability to print smartphone photos without forced cropping. This is a major concern for users who carefully compose their shots, as important parts of the image may be cut off. Services like EZprints and RitzPix offer smartphone-friendly 4:3 aspect ratio print sizes, while Printique and Nations Photo Lab allow uncropped printing regardless of aspect ratio mismatches, options currently unavailable at Mpix.
Alternatives Offering Better Cropping Options: EZprints and RitzPix
EZprints and RitzPix are mentioned as alternatives that accommodate smartphone aspect ratios better than Mpix. However, reviews of their overall performance reveal significant issues.
EZprints, in tests, produced prints that were consistently described as hazy and washed-out, lacking sharpness and clarity. Tones appeared mottled, indicating subpar print quality.
RitzPix also faced challenges, particularly with packaging. An 11-by-14 print ordered from RitzPix arrived damaged due to insufficient packaging. It was shipped in a flat envelope with thin backing boards, which offered inadequate protection. The print suffered corner damage when the package was crushed during shipping. This damage was preventable with better packaging, especially considering RitzPix charged a high shipping fee of $14.95.
Corner damage on a RitzPix photo print due to inadequate packaging during shipping, illustrating risks in choosing online photo printing without careful shipping consideration.
Bay Photo
Bay Photo is noted for offering small print sizes suitable for smartphone photos and for using sturdy packaging. However, print quality was described as “middling” in tests. While not the worst, Bay Photo prints were rarely chosen as top picks in blind comparisons. Participants typically ranked them as a “reasonable second choice,” suggesting decent but not outstanding quality.
Snapfish
Snapfish stands out as one of the most affordable services tested. Unfortunately, the low prices come with significant compromises in quality. Prints from Snapfish, in both 8-by-10 and 4-by-6 sizes, exhibited harsh contrast, resulting in loss of detail in shadows and highlights. Portrait photos showed noticeably orange skin tones, indicating color accuracy issues. Packaging was also a problem. Smaller prints were shipped in thin cardboard envelopes without padding, offering minimal protection. An 11-by-14 print, although shipped in a tube, lacked internal padding, leading to edge damage when it hit the tube’s end cap during shipping.
Close-up of a damaged photo print from Snapfish, showing a crease from shipping, highlighting packaging issues with online photo services.
Shutterfly
Shutterfly was among the more expensive services tested, yet print quality was only rated as average. The primary complaint with Shutterfly was packaging. Small prints were shipped in a thin flat envelope, and 11-by-14 prints arrived in a tube, causing them to curl significantly. Curled prints require flattening before they can be displayed, which can be inconvenient and potentially lead to damage if not done carefully.
A curled photo print from Shutterfly after being shipped in a tube, demonstrating the common issue of print curling with certain online photo printing services.
Zazzle
Zazzle offers photo printing but is primarily designed for single-item custom orders. Its user interface is not optimized for ordering multiple prints efficiently. Selecting print sizes involves a tedious drag-and-drop process for each image on individual order pages, making it impractical for ordering more than a few prints at a time. Paper options are also limited. However, Zazzle is featured in an image demonstrating how to flatten curled prints.
Flattening a curled photo print using heavy books, a common method to correct damage from shipping tubes used by some online photo printing services.
Winkflash and FreePrints
Winkflash and FreePrints are briefly mentioned and easily dismissed due to significant concerns. Winkflash has numerous negative customer reviews, including reports of lost photo access due to ownership changes and poor customer service, with only web form support available. FreePrints, while offering a large number of free prints annually, provides very limited information online, raising skepticism about the quality and overall service.
Amazon Prints
Amazon Prints offers competitively priced 4-by-6 prints. The ordering process is simple, especially for Amazon Prime members who use Prime Photos. Print quality was rated as mid-range – not exceptional but not the worst, with a slight orange tint in skin tones. Packaging was a letdown, consisting of a flat mailer with thin cardboard, resulting in corner damage to one print.
Walmart
Walmart provides a 4-by-5.3-inch print size, which accommodates smartphone 4:3 aspect ratio images without cropping. However, their overall selection of print sizes is less extensive compared to other services.
Conclusion: Choosing the Right Photo Printing Service
Choosing the best place to print pictures online depends on your priorities. If uncropped smartphone prints are essential and quality is paramount, services like Printique and Nations Photo Lab, mentioned as alternatives to Mpix for cropping, might be worth exploring further, though they were not directly reviewed in this article. For budget-conscious users, Snapfish and Amazon Prints offer lower prices, but be aware of potential compromises in print quality and packaging. Services like Mpix, despite popularity, may disappoint due to forced cropping and lower print quality ratings in tests. Carefully consider print quality, cropping options, packaging reliability, and user experience when selecting an online photo printing service to ensure your printed memories are preserved beautifully and safely.
