Introduction
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The holidays are right around the corner, and if you plan to send out cards or make prints as gifts you’re probably in the midst of figuring out where to get your photos printed. There seem to be more options than ever when it comes to online printing services, which makes choosing one a bit overwhelming.
So to figure out what service you should use, we tested out five popular online printing companies and assessed them based on their ease of service, price, turnaround time and most importantly, print consistency/paper quality.
Print services:
- Printique
- MPix
- Amazon Photos*
- Shutterfly
- Snapfish
We placed an order for three 8×10 and three 4×6 prints on the same day (October 23rd) from Snapfish, Amazon, Shutterfly, MPix, and Printique (formerly known as AdoramaPix). We used the automatic ‘smart crop’ feature on each website when preparing the prints and, when it was possible, requested that the image be printed on Lustre paper. All prints were shipped with the economy shipping option.
After receiving and assessing our prints, the service you should use this holiday season is…
Our choice: Printique or MPix
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We recommend ordering your holiday prints from either Printique or MPix. These companies had the most consistent results and were the truest representation of the digital files that we uploaded. |
Although all of the print services are fairly easy to use, the winners are pretty clear. Based on our print orders we would gladly recommend ordering from Printique or MPix. These companies had the most consistent color results, the best paper quality and were the most true to the digital files that we had uploaded through the sites. They aren’t the cheapest options on the list, but they are also not the most expensive – at $ 16.72 (Printique) and $ 13.96 (MPix), they both fell in the mid-range level in terms of pricing. MPix did offer a nice 25% discount on our order and it arrived a few days before the order from Printiques. But we preferred Printique’s overall photo/paper quality.
Now let’s take a closer look at each of these print services including the process of ordering, the speed of delivery, the condition prints arrived and the overall quality of our purchase. First up is Printique…
*FULL DISCLOSURE: DPReview.com is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Amazon but is editorially independent of our parent company.
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)