http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/07/travel/where-to-print-those-vacation-photos.html 2014-09-16 19:33:13 Where to Print Those Vacation Photos We tested several sites to help you decide where to print your shots. Here’s what we found. === Barry Schwartz, the psychologist and author of “The Paradox of Choice,” once said: “With so many options to choose from, people find it very difficult to choose at all.” That’s how I feel when I want to print a few vacation photos. The Internet is rife with companies willing to print your digital snapshots for little more than the cost of a Cronut. But which sites produce the most eye-catching prints? To find out, I uploaded the same 50 images to the websites of more than half a dozen companies to see how each would handle various conditions — photographs taken at night, during sunset, from a plane. The shots included landscapes, portraits and details, along with a few images that were blurry or low resolution. None of the companies were told I was writing this column, and my order was the same to each one: a set of glossy 4-by-6 prints and two 11-by-14 prints. The prices that follow are what I paid and may vary, depending on where you live and what you order. The list includes professional-quality labs, drugstores such as CVS and Walgreens (Target, Walmart and Costco also print photos) as well as the usual suspects, Snapfish and Shutterfly. You can edit photos on these sites, but to keep things simple, I didn’t (though I allowed for color correction if given the option). Obviously a technician can have an off day, or maybe one drugstore is better than another at making prints,so this is an unscientific experiment. Nonetheless, it revealed a few rules of thumb: 1. The quality you get from sites like Shutterfly and Snapfish varies, depending on whether you have prints mailed to you or pick them up at a store. 2. Quality varies from store to store, even within the same chain. 3. In general, you’ll get more consistency — and better depth and more detail — from professional developers. But if you don’t obsess over nuances, you’ll find that some drugstores do just fine. Before I delve into the results, one tip: Coupons for many of these sites are available on ADORAMAPIX.COM Pros Cons: Bottom Line Cost: CVSPHOTO.COM Pros: Cons: Bottom line Cost: MPIX.COM Pros: Cons: Bottom line: Cost: SHUTTERFLY.COM Pros: Cons: Bottom line: Cost: SNAPFISH.COM Pros: Cons: Bottom line: Cost: WALGREENS.COM Pros: Cons Bottom line: Cost: