Photobooks reviews ring in the holiday season

It’s that time of the year again when consumer press sites try to generate clicks and affiliate links with reviews of photo books for their holiday gift guides and roundups. Let’s take a look at what reviewers were responding to.

The New York Times‘ well-regarded Wirecutter blog once again reviewed photo book services. The site picked Mixbook as the “best online photo book” service, after writer Erin Roberts claimed to have conducted “more than 100 hours of research and testing (which included creating 23 photo books and consulting with a master printer on the results).”

“Creating photo albums is fun with Mixbook, which gathers images from your computer, social media profiles, online photo-storage accounts, and even your smartphone,” wrote Roberts. “In our testing, it offered the best book-building experience of the bunch, as well as some of the best-themed layouts. Our finished album looked vibrant, with accurate colors, and had a high-quality feel.”

For budget shoppers, Wirecutter recommended Vistaprint, saying the service “can get the job done at a cost significantly lower than our top pick. It offers some of the best album-creation software we tested, including a Smart Assistant option that made album design a snap. Although the cover photo wasn’t as color accurate as that of our top pick, the photos inside were almost indistinguishable, as was the paper quality.”

The feature article also summarized some other top services:

• “Snapfish was about the same price as our top pick but, as in past years, delivered a book with dull and muted photos and some of the thinnest pages we saw in testing. Snapfish also sent us the most promotional emails following our order—at an annoying pace of about one every other day.” (Roberts seemed unaware Snapfish and Shutterfly are the same company).
• “The photo book we built with Pikto looked a lot like the results from our budget pick, VistaPrint, but the service cost a bit more, and its software was clunkier, with no swap button.”
• “Walmart Photo is a past budget pick, but the album we created this year wasn’t as good as in previous years. The cover image was oversaturated, making skin tones appear pink and not true to life.”
• “Though Shutterfly was previously a top pick, the last time we physically tested the service, its image quality was a letdown. We took a fresh look for this update but found for its price, about $10 more than our top pick, other photo book services offer better editing tools.”
• “Though we love the minimalist look of Artifact Uprising’s designs, the books we ordered were both oversaturated. We tested the Hardcover Photo Book and the Photo-Wrapped Hardcover Book, the two most-expensive options we tested. In each book our photos were oversaturated, but especially so for the Photo-Wrapped Hardcover Book.”
• “Google Photo’s photo books are the path of least resistance for people who already use Google Photos. Although it’s a fast and brainless solution, the automated process allows for little control or creativity. Photos are autofilled in chronological order, and it’s a hassle to move images around if you’d like a different format.”
• “We also checked out Amazon Photos. As with the Google option, creation is a breeze as long as you’re already using it to store your photos. The online software allows for slightly more control over image placement, but it doesn’t have image-editing tools or enough design options overall.”
• “Apple also allows you to create a photo book right from Photos, using the Motif app. But just like the Google Photo and Amazon Photo, this option is very specific to the platform, and you have very little control over design or photo editing.”
• We made two books with Blurb—one with its web-based software, Bookify, and another with its downloadable software, BookWright. We were disappointed with the options available in Bookify; it had very few layouts, and they had too much white space for our liking. BookWright, meanwhile, offers a huge range of design options, including layouts and fonts, with very little glitching. It reminded us a great deal of Photoshop or InDesign, so if you’ve used those programs before, you may be familiar with the added controls. We also liked that Blurb allows you to upload a PDF to create your book, and that it offers plug-ins for Adobe InDesign and Lightroom. BookWright could be a good choice for amateur photographers or anyone looking to print a series of books.
• “Nations Photo Lab, our pick for the best online photo printing service, continues to disappoint us with photo book software that offers almost no photo editing and only basic layouts, at a more expensive price than our top pick.”

Tom’s Guide chooses Mixbook, Printique, Vistaprint

The venerable review site, Tom’s Guide, also did a round-up written by a friend of the Dead Pixels Society, Dan Havlik. In Havlik’s view, he made Mixbook his top pick as the best overall photobook service. Also receiving recognition were Printique, for best image quality, and Vistaprint, for best value. “Simply put, Mixbook remains the best service of the five we tested for making photo books,” concluded Havlik. “While some competitors excelled at one thing or another, Mixbook does just about everything right. Its software was refreshingly easy to use and also a lot of fun. Beginners will love it, but at the same time, advanced users will appreciate the range of ways they can customize their photo books. Most importantly, the image quality of our book was excellent, coming in a close second to Printique.” Havlik also gave good reviews to Shutterfly (four stars) and to Snapfish (three stars).

Techradar didn’t do a holiday round-up but did do an unflattering review of Shutterfly’s web software, written by Harry Padoan, a staff writer with no significant photo industry experience. “Though it may offer a tidy set of templates and page type options, Shutterfly’s photo book tool is often clunky, prone to glitches, and overly restrictive,” wrote Padoan. “And even though its prices are pretty much in-line with competitors, it still feels like you’re not getting your money’s worth, due to a below-average user experience.”