The 9 Best Online Photo Printing Services We Tested (2024)

Google Photos compresses images when you upload them to the cloud, keeping them under 16 megapixels. But on my little 7-inch paperback, I can’t see any pixelation or digital artifacts in the images. About half of my shots were from my Pixel phone with a 12-megapixel sensor, the other half from a nice Ricoh point-and-shoot camera with a 24-megapixel sensor. The photographs in my book look nice and sharp, and I can’t say they are compressed. —Michael Calore

The best to sell your photos

From $13 per month

If you are looking for something that goes beyond printing your snapshots, SmugMug is our best option. It is popular among professional photographers for its online displays, RAW file storage, and print sales options. You upload your images, place them in a gallery, and can show them to clients and even sell prints directly from those galleries.

SmugMug takes care of all the details of getting your online images to a print lab. It automatically sends your image to a printer every time a client requests a print, which is quite useful if you are selling your work. Printing in the US is handled through EZPrint labs; In Europe he works with Loxley. However, SmugMug is not free. Access to the basic plan, which gives you unlimited online storage, private galleries, and tight integration with Adobe Lightroom, among other things, will cost you $13 per month.

Best for printing business cards and postcards

From $21 for business cards and $23 for postcards

I covered SXSW for WIRED back in 2006 and one of the strange things I remember was that everyone I met was handing out these clever little mid-sized business cards that came from a company called Moo. Moo still offers those cards ($21 for 100 of them), but it has also grown into a full-service printer that can make anything from business cards to personalized postcards to water bottles. Moo wouldn’t be my first choice for photography, as that’s not really his specialty, but for artwork, invitations, postcards, brochures, and just about everything else, I’ve been impressed.

I printed some postcards with some custom designs (including photos and some of my kids’ artwork) and was impressed with the accuracy of the colors. All the paper I’ve tried has been high quality and the color matching is probably the best of all the services I’ve tried. You can upload your own designs for most things or use Moo’s templates, which offer some customization options. That would be my only real criticism: Moo’s online tools don’t offer as many customization options as I would like. Fortunately, it’s easy to do your own work in free software like GIMP and then upload your files as PDF or JPG.

Printing Services to Avoid

Amazon Photo Printing: This service produced the worst images, not only of this particular test, but also the worst prints I have ever seen. The best thing I can say about it is that it’s fast. I had my prints in less than 24 hours. The problem is that of the 25 prints I ordered, eight had printing errors. Convinced that a 30 percent failure rate must be some kind of fluke, I shot another round of 25 (different) images, and this time seven of them were printed poorly. I guess it’s some kind of progress, but I wouldn’t recommend it. I didn’t bother trying again and suggest you avoid Amazon’s photo printing service.

Walmart/Target/CVS/Walgreens: Technically, 1-hour photo kiosks didn’t die. They infiltrated pharmacy chains. There is nothing wrong with these services. They are convenient and still the fastest way to print your images, as uploaded jobs are typically processed within a few hours. But results vary greatly from store to store. Like the old 1-hour services, the quality of prints you get depends on the condition of the machine and the skill of the technician working that day. You may be able to get some good prints at your local store and it may be worth checking out if you’re not happy with other options, but for most people this option is very hit or miss.