Printing your digital photos allows you to bring memories to life, whether for framing, creating albums, or sharing with loved ones. With numerous online photo printing services available, choosing the right one can feel overwhelming. This guide reviews some of the most popular options, comparing them on print quality, packaging, and overall experience to help you decide where to get your photos printed.
Mpix is a well-known service with a user-friendly app for ordering prints directly from your smartphone. Despite its popularity and convenience, our tests revealed some significant drawbacks. Panelists consistently ranked Mpix prints as their least favorite, primarily due to the service’s inability to print smartphone photos without considerable cropping. This forced cropping can be a major issue if you pay close attention to image composition, as essential parts of your photos may be lost.
Services like EZprints and RitzPix offer smartphone-friendly print sizes with a 4:3 aspect ratio, accommodating standard smartphone photos without cropping. Printique and Nations Photo Lab go a step further, providing the option to print your images uncropped, regardless of the aspect ratio mismatch. Unfortunately, Mpix currently doesn’t offer these flexible options, which limits its appeal for smartphone photographers seeking uncropped prints.
Bay Photo provides small print sizes suitable for smartphone photos and uses robust packaging for shipping. However, the print quality in our tests was only average. In blind comparisons, participants usually placed Bay Photo as a decent second choice, but rarely as their top or bottom pick, suggesting a middling performance overall.
For budget-conscious consumers, Snapfish is often the cheapest option. However, the low prices come at a cost in print quality. Both 8×10 and 4×6 prints from Snapfish showed harsh contrast, resulting in a loss of detail in shadows and highlights. Portrait photos also exhibited noticeably orange skin tones. Packaging was another area of concern. Smaller prints were shipped in a flimsy cardboard envelope without padding, offering minimal protection. While the 11×14 print arrived in a tube, the lack of internal padding led to damage during transit, as shown below.
A close-up of the edge of a rolled-up print from Snapfish showing damage from shipping.
Snapfish’s inadequate packaging resulted in a damaged 11×14 print, highlighting the risk of choosing the cheapest option when print condition is a priority. Photo: Amadou Diallo
RitzPix also experienced packaging issues. Our 11×14 print from RitzPix arrived damaged, shipped in a flat envelope with thin backing boards similar to those found in inexpensive photo frames. The envelope was barely larger than the print itself, and when crushed during shipping, the print’s corner was damaged. Better packaging, such as a larger envelope or a box used by other services, could have easily prevented this damage. The $14.95 shipping fee, more than double the average of other services tested, made the inadequate packaging even more disappointing.
A close-up of a damaged photo print corner from RitzPix, emphasizing shipping damage.
Damage to this 11×14 print from RitzPix due to insufficient packaging raises questions about balancing cost and quality when choosing where to print photos. Photo: Amadou Diallo
Like Snapfish, EZprints delivered prints that were notably subpar in quality. Every print had a hazy, washed-out appearance, as if veiled. These were the least sharp prints among those tested, and areas of consistent tone appeared somewhat mottled.
Shutterfly, while being the second most expensive service we tested, provided only average print quality. The main issue with Shutterfly was packaging. Small prints arrived in a thin, flat envelope, and the 11×14 print came rolled in a tube, resulting in a significant curl that required flattening before display. Uncurling prints from tubes can be tricky and potentially damage the print, although there are methods to minimize risk.
A curled photo print from Shutterfly, illustrating the inconvenience of tube packaging.
Shipping prints in tubes, as done by Shutterfly, can lead to inconvenient curling, requiring extra effort to flatten photos before they can be displayed. Photo: Amadou Diallo
Zazzle offers photo printing, but its user interface is geared towards individual, small orders and lacks extensive paper options. Ordering multiple prints is cumbersome, requiring users to drag each image onto a print-size template on its own order page. This process is too time-consuming for larger print orders.
Coffee table books flattening a photo print, showing a method to remove curls from rolled prints.
Flattening curled prints under heavy objects like books, as shown here, is a necessary step when services use tube packaging. Photo: Amadou Diallo
Winkflash has accumulated numerous negative reviews. Beyond customer reports of lost photo access due to ownership changes, many users have complained about poor customer service, with only a web form available for support and no phone or email contact options. These issues made Winkflash an easy service to dismiss.
FreePrints advertises up to 1,000 free 4×6 prints per year, requiring only payment for shipping. However, the service offers minimal information on its single-page website, and ordering is exclusively through a phone app. The lack of transparency and limited online information raise concerns, aligning with the adage, “if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is.”
Amazon Prints offers 4×6 prints at a competitive price. Amazon Prime members who use Prime Photos for storage can order prints directly from their online albums. The ordering process is straightforward, and print quality is decent, falling in the middle range – not exceptional, with slightly orange skin tones, but not the worst either. Prints arrived within six business days. Packaging, however, was again a letdown, consisting of a thin flat mailer with minimal cardboard protection, resulting in corner damage to one print.
Walmart provides a 4×5.3-inch print size, which accommodates the 4:3 aspect ratio of smartphone photos without cropping. However, their overall selection of print sizes is less comprehensive than some other leading services.
Conclusion
Choosing where to get your photos printed online requires balancing factors like print quality, price, convenience, and packaging. While some services offer lower prices, this often comes with compromises in print quality or protection during shipping. Services like Mpix, despite their popularity, may not be ideal for smartphone photos due to cropping issues. Ultimately, the best service for you will depend on your specific needs and priorities. Consider print quality and packaging reliability alongside price when deciding where to print your cherished photos.
