Best Online Digital Photo Printing Services: What to Look For

The best online photo printing service is one that is convenient, easy to use and offers a balance of flexibility, creativity, quality and reasonable prices. But there are so many photo companies on the web and prices and features vary widely, it can be confusing to know which one to use. Here is what to look for when choosing an online digital photo processor.

Features

Digital photo services do a lot more these days than merely digital photo developing. You can get an amazing variety of products and gifts, including photo books and calendars, greeting cards, stationery, t-shirts and other clothing items, tote bags, mugs, puzzles, large canvas prints and posters, and the list goes on. Shutterfly particularly excels at this and offers a vast range of customized gifts.

The best online digital photo printing services, however, also offer social media integration. Some sites allow users to upload photos from Flickr or Facebook, create online photo galleries and albums to share your photos with friends. Shutterfly and Kodak Gallery and even offer users their own private sharing site.

Cost

There is a surprising diversity of pricing amongst online photo services, so it pays to check around. On average, a digital photo printing service costs between 8 cents to 27 cents for a 4×6 print, which is a pretty big range. However, it is generally a lot less than printing at home, which will run you around 27-50 cents per photo on average, depending on your printer, the cost of the ink cartridges and paper. With regard to online digital photo processors, you don't necessarily have to pay the most to get good quality. There are several online photo printing services such as Snapfish that offer cheap prices and high quality prints.

Quality

A good digital photo printing service will print your  [http://shirtsandapparel.com/customized-apparel/5227-custom-photo-clothing-well-print-your-image custom photo clothing]  as close to the original colors as possible with vivid color, avoid over- or under-saturation, and with proper cropping. Some digital photo processors, including Kodak Gallery, will optimize images for balanced color, accurate neutral areas, and proper exposure. Most companies offer a choice of glossy or matte prints and use acid-free archival photo paper.

More and more sites are offering the convenience of in-store pick-up at retail locations. However, if printing is done at the retail partner there may be some quality variation versus having photos processed directly by the digital printing service.

Online Photo Editing

Most online photo processors offer online image editing. Some just offer basic cropping and red-eye removal while others also feature color and exposure correction and other editing tools. If you think you will need to do more extensive editing, it is best to do that in a dedicated photo editing software program prior to uploading photos to an online photo service.

Online Photo Storage

Most online photo services will offer you unlimited free photo storage, but most require that  [http://shirtsandapparel.com/customized-apparel/5227-custom-photo-clothing-well-print-your-image custom photo clothing]  make at least one purchase per year. Shutterfly is one company that does not delete your pictures and there is no minimum purchase requirement. Several sites including Kodak Gallery offer the ability to download your stored images in full-resolution.

Finding the best online photo printing service is a matter of deciding what is important to you, whether it be the lowest price or the variety of customized photo gifts, and finding the photo printer that most closely meets what you are looking for. Fortunately, there are many excellent digital photo services that you will be quite happy with.