Top pick
This print lab offers the best combination of quality, price, options, and service, delivering good-looking prints in secure packaging.
Nations Photo Lab lets you upload images easily from both a computer and a mobile device, has a simple-to-use interface, creates prints with accurate-looking colors in a timely fashion, and packages them securely so that they’ll arrive at your home undamaged.
Uploading is as easy, pricing is as clear, and configuring your print order is as simple as you’ll find in any online print service. After you’ve uploaded your photos, drop-down menus let you select the sizes and paper type you want, with the prices listed as you choose.
As you build your order, you can reconfigure the paper types; add options for mounting on foamcore, gatorboard, matboard, or styrene; and select sizes ranging from pre-perforated sets of eight wallet-size images up to 30-by-45-inch prints, though not all sizes are available for all paper options. For example, you can get a 30-by-45 only in a luster finish, but the other papers go as large as 20 by 40 inches, and metal prints are limited to 24 by 36 inches.
Our prints arrived on time. Nations has a variety of options for shipping and delivers on its promised turnaround times. For previous orders we’ve selected expedited service, and in those cases it printed and shipped our order the same day, and we received them in New York City the following day. Most recently we selected free economy shipping, and we received our order in nine days, one day less than the stated 10-day promise.
The prints look great. Prints we received from Nations showed plenty of detail, even with high-resolution images that contain a stunning amount of detail. They were better than, or as good as, any of the prints we’ve ordered from competing services. Colors look accurate to life and match the source images in terms of contrast, including across the full range of skin tones we included. If you’re worried about the files you uploaded, Nations offers color correction for a very small fee so your casual snapshots can look their best.
When we held our test panel, participants consistently ranked Nations among the top. We have seen consistently good results every time we’ve ordered from them.
Their standard packaging is the most secure we’ve seen for shipped prints. Our prints arrived in a 21-by-17-by-1-inch box. The size of the outer packaging will likely vary based on the largest-size print you include in your order, but inside you’ll find windowed paper envelopes of prints you chose. Larger sizes come in clear sleeves that are sandwiched inside cardboard. Smaller envelopes are held to the cardboard holding larger prints with plastic wrap, creating one unit inside the main box so nothing moves around during shipping. The corners of our prints arrived in perfect condition. Some competitors’ prints shifted in transit, so corners were damaged.
Gift packaging is available. Whether you want to send prints to loved ones or to clients, Nations will let you ship prints in gift boxes, complete with ribbon, with their Boutique Packaging option, which costs an extra $6.84 as of this writing. For $17.75 more you can create Custom Presentation Boxes, and add images or a logo for a special or professional look.
Flaws but not dealbreakers
They should add “odd” print sizes that match the 4:3 aspect ratio. If an image file’s aspect ratio doesn’t match the print size you select, Nations will automatically crop the image, usually from the top and bottom, to fit the paper. If you’re picky about cropping, you’ll have to crop before you upload, or use image-editing software to add blank white edges to the image file if you want the whole image printed.
If Nations added odd sizes, such as 4 by 5.3 inches, you could get your whole image without any fuss. Of course, most paper suppliers don’t offer such sizes, so it’d add a lot of complication for Nations, but it’s still irksome that this remains a problem when digital images in these aspect ratios have been around for decades now.
The ROES (Remote Order Entry System) software is Java-based. Nations offers this app mostly for professionals to place bulk orders, but it’s also a nice alternate interface for technically adept photographers. Because the software is Java-based, to use it you may have to install Java first, and for security purposes, you’ll want to make sure that your version of Java is up to date. ROES has a nice interface, though, and it will automatically add white edges to images that don’t fit neatly on the paper sizes offered by Nations.
We’d like Nations to let you print metadata on the back of photos. It might seem antiquated to have the date printed on the back of your photo, but it’s also a convenient way to keep track of when a photo was taken (assuming you have the date and time set properly in your camera).
There’s also a wealth of info in metadata, such as camera and lens model numbers, camera settings that can be useful for budding photographers, and sometimes even location data.
It’d be nice to be able to have Nations print (at least some of) this data on the back of your photo, even if it only turns out to be useful when your kids or grandkids look through your prints in the distant future. Some services, such as Shutterfly, let you add a message on the back of your print if you choose.
