Best Websites to Print Your Photographs

Blog post: Where to print

As the holidays roll around, it’s time for families to make the difficult decision of selecting which photo(s) will be featured on the holiday card, photo gift, or hung on the wall in your home. I always recommend printing photos. There’s something magical about opening the packaging and holding the photograph. I think it makes you see more than what was on the screen.

The big question is where to get your photos printed? To help with that decision, I have listed some of the best websites for prints based on my personal experience. Each site may offer a variety of products, but I’m going to let you know what I personally have ordered and why I was happy with it.

What a great feeling to have your photos hung in someone's home. My friend printed this shot of mine of the Roman Forum onto a 3-panel canvas.

Wall Prints: Mpix.com. Mpix has a variety of offerings such as holiday cards, photo gifts, however their print quality sets them apart from others. Every photo that I print in the house comes from this website. I often get the matte finish prints and occasionally have done the metallic for black and white or landscape photos. The colors really pop on the metallic paper. What I like the most about Mpix is that the images feel true to their digital counterpart, whereas some sites tend to color correct or oversaturate.

Photo books: Snapfish.com. After some of our big trips, I make it a point to create a hardcover book as a keepsake. They are fun to show when we have visitors and to flip through from time to time as a way to reminisce. What originally drew me to Snapfish for this project was a promotion that was going on, but I was a bit surprised by the quality of the books Snapfish offers. They are easy to assemble with the software assisting in laying out images on the pages. Colors are great, and the hardcover binding feels professional.

For a softcover small book, I gave Google Photos a shot as a small gift. Since I use Google Photos to share photos with the family, it was quite easy to pick the desired photos and set up the book to print in very little time.

Holiday Cards: Simplytoimpress.com Many places offer holiday cards, but I’ve been using Simply to Impress for 6 years. The templates are great, especially for someone like me who likes a simple design. Cards come in a variety of shapes and sizes and are a matte print on cardstock. They also offer envelopes with pre-printed return addresses for that nice extra touch. They usually run sales around the holidays.

Ornaments: Shutteryfly.com Every year we gift the grandparents an ornament of the kids for their Christmas trees. We keep coming back to Shutterfly because it is one of the few places that provides a double-sided printed ornament.

I hope you find this list helpful. Please do not take your photos to CVS to get printed. They do a wonderful job of filling your prescriptions, but they are not the appropriate source for your photo prints.

If you have any other suggestions to add, I’m happy to do a test run and update the blog.