The Best Photo Books of 2024
We are all photographers now, aren't we? Thanks to cell phones, there isn't a moment we can't and don't capture. Instead of letting your photos fall into a black hole of a hard drive, you can print photos online to hang in your home.
But there's another option that appeals to many, and particularly those who lived it up during the good ol' days of making scrapbooks. Instead of turning to double-sided tape and stickers, you can digitally upload photos directly from your phone to any number of online photo book maker services and turn them into a printed book with binding. Most photo book services allow you to design the book yourself for a truly personal touch.
Not all photo books are equal though. Some design tools have more layout options than others and the printing quality differs greatly. After hands-on testing, Shutterfly (available at Shutterfly) wowed us overall and is the best photo book service for its unlimited customization options and high quality. For something less expensive, check out Mixbook (available at Mixbook), which offers plenty of customizable layouts and text options.
Credit: Reviewed / Liv Birdsall
Shutterfly is the best photo book you can make.
Best Overall
Shutterfly makes the best online photo book. From the ease of uploading photos, to unlimited layouts, a gorgeous print job, and quick shipping—this is the best photo book for your time and money.
Shutterfly offers ample layouts and designs, with additional options for text, graphic, and up to 25 photos per page. Using Shutterfly's online photo book platform, we were able to easily upload our photos and arrange them neatly.
Shutterfly offers one of the biggest layout and design options when it comes to online photo book services, making it easy to find a book style that suits you. You can also add text boxes and graphics to the pages. Though all these features and options give Shutterfly an edge, it’s fair to say the design process could feel overwhelming to some.
The physical photo book arrived and looked just like the online rendering. The cover is bright and shiny, and the pages have a nice weight to them without being overly stiff. Most importantly, the printed photos are colorful, clear, and crisp. Even the photos that take up a full page are high quality. We are incredibly impressed with the creative building process and the finished product, making Shutterly our number one pick for photo books.
Pros
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Unlimited layout combinations
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Great print quality
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Fast shipping
Cons
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May be overwhelming for beginners
Credit: Reviewed / Liv Birdsall
Mixbook is the best photo book you can buy for the money.
Best Value
When it comes to value, Mixbook makes the best photo books. Compared to other photo book services we tested, Mixbook is one of the most affordable print services without sacrificing the quality of more expensive photo books. The online interface took a minute to figure out, but once my images were uploaded, we enjoyed playing around with the various page options and how the photos looked in the different layouts.
There’s also an autofill option if you’d rather have your photos imported straight to the pages. And there are text boxes, frames, and graphics you can add to your pages to make them even more unique.
The front cover is clear and has a slightly matte finish. The interior pages are on the thicker side and the photos are bright, though the binding is flimsier than our best overall pick. Shutterfly. The printing quality is consistent no matter the size of the photo, and the colors are true to life.
And, the Mixbook photo book arrived through the mail quickly. One downside, though, is that the online interface takes some getting used to, mostly because there are so many options shown on screen at once.
For one of the best photo books for the money, you’ve got to go with Mixbook.
Pros
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Bright photos
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Many page layouts
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Quick shipping
Cons
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Slightly flimsy binding
Other Photo Books We Tested
Artifact Uprising is a popular photo book service, especially for remembering events like weddings, graduations, and family vacations. While most photo books will look better with professional photos, Artifact Uprising’s materials and layouts cater to high quality images.
The full-page image options look like they will allow your photos to shine for years to come.
We found Artifact Uprising’s online customization process easy to navigate. It was easy and quick to batch upload my photos and start toying around with page layouts and the order of my images. Plus, Artifact Uprising offers some eco-friendly options like 100% recycled options and reclaimed materials like wood fibers and pine wood blocks.
There was the option to auto-populate the book, which is great if you aren’t sure where to start or want to save time. We had the online system autofill the book and then moved a few things around to our liking. There is also an option to add text boxes. However, the design tool has fewer cover and layout options than our best overall selection.
The finished product is a beautiful, minimalist-style photo book that balances white space with the photos. The page layouts look just like they did when we designed them online. For the most part, the photos are crisp and colorful, but a few are slightly darker than what we uploaded.
One thing we'd do differently next time, though, is make sure not to have photos go all the way to the center of the page because some are slightly cut off by the binding, which we didn’t notice in the online rendering.
Pros
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Soft and hardcover options
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High-quality printing
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Eco-friendly options
Cons
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Fewer cover options
Creating a photo book using Milk Handcrafted Photo Books was fun, straightforward, and rewarding. The online creation tool was easy to use with a quick photo upload, a single cover option, and many page layouts.
It was easy to customize the pages without being overwhelming or confusing, and though the layouts were limited we had more than enough to create a book we liked.
The fabric exterior is a nice touch, though it means there isn’t a label on the spine or front cover; but there is a title page which is unique.
The photos are printed well with accurate colors, clarity, and just enough shine. The pages and bindings are pretty durable, making this one of the best photo books we've tested.
Pros
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Quality photo printing
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Easy to customize
Cons
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No option for text on cover
Picaboo’s photo book process had a balance of pros and cons, but ultimately it ranks lower on our list due to its confusing online customization tool.
The beginning part of the build process went smoothly: The photos uploaded quickly, we chose a cover that rendered well on the surface, and we were pleased with the variety of layout options.
However, we found the online tool overwhelmingly complicated because it had grouped pages in “spreads” with some photos laid out across the binding of the book on one or both pages when the book was flat. We wanted to avoid parts of photos being cut off or hard to see, so we had to ungroup all the spreads in the book before we could pick the layouts we liked and arrange photos.
Despite the headaches, the photo book looked amazing once it arrived. The pages are a bit flimsy but lay flat, which is a feature we love. The cover photo is a bit dark, but the rest of the photos are bright, clear, and true to color.
Pros
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Pages lay flat
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Bright photo prints
Cons
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Confusing customization tool
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No autofill or text box option
From start to finish, Vistaprint offers one of the best photo book services. Our photos uploaded quickly, and we were able to use the autofill option to create the base of the book, which makes the process so much easier.
There are only a few photo layout options, but each offers plenty of room and you can select how many photos you want per page.
One gripe we have is with the cover photo. We wanted to use a horizontal image on the vertical photo book. Instead of letting us zoom out with extra white space, the cover photo is zoomed in and cuts off people in the photo.
In person, the Vistaprint photo book impresses with stunning print quality that looks true to what we created online. Even the full page photos are clear and crisp.
The cover cuts off the left and right edge of the photo, and when we run our hands across it, we can feel some small bubbles in the printing.
As long as you have a vertical cover image and don’t mind limited layout options, the Vistaprint photo book is a solid option.
Pros
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Easy to customize
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Quick batch upload
Cons
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Bubbly cover
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Few layout options
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Flimsy pages
Using Walmart Photos to create a photo book is a bit of a mixed bag—the process was both simple and frustrating. On one hand, we could easily upload photos, select a cover, navigate the layouts, and even use the autofill option.. But on the other hand, Walmart Photos doesn't have any options for text boxes like other online photo book services do.
We found that the size of some images in the layouts seemed small, which meant the final product had a lot of white space and the photos didn’t look as great. The borders for each page are large too, causing the book to look unbalanced.
The photo book itself is low quality: The pages are very thin, the photos are dull, and the cover image is blurry.
Pros
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Ample layout options
Cons
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Flimsy Pages
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No text options
Creating a photo book with Snapfish is an uncomplicated process similar to others in our guide. We were able to batch upload photos, customize the cover, and place photos ourselves or use an autofill option.
Snapfish offers many different layouts, but the main thing that sets it apart from other services is that many of the layouts require five or more photos. We didn’t like how small that meant each photo needed to be, so we opted to use the layouts for four photos or fewer.
When we got the book, we were disappointed to see that the cover photos (and ones inside the book) appeared to be overexposed—too bright for our liking. Additionally, the colors of the images inside of the book were not entirely accurate and differed slightly from what we originally submitted.
The binding of the book is decently strong, but the pages are flimsy to the point that they feel as if they’d rip if you flip through it. Because the product is average, I’d opt for another service that has more layouts and a better final product.
Pros
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Bright photos
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Easy to customize
Cons
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Flimsy pages
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Dull colors
Unfortunately, our experience with Pinhole Press was aggravating from start to finish. The batch photo upload tool didn’t work well and was slow, and once we selected a cover, we weren’t able to resize, zoom, or make it on the vertical page. The bottom line is that the design tool made filling the book with photos more difficult than other photo books we tested. Pinhole Press also lacks options for text boxes, which most other online photo book services offer.
When the book arrived, we were disappointed to see that it looked nothing like the online preview—two people were cut off in the photo and the title text was so hard to read that we barely noticed it was there. Additionally, the color of the photos in the book appeared darker than other photo books we tested.
On the plus side, the Pinhole Press photo book is durable and sturdy, with thick pages similar to that of a high school yearbook. However durable the photo book is, though, it's not the kind of quality you'll get with our best overall pick.
Pros
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Thick pages
Cons
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Difficult cover customization
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Dark photos
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Complicated photo upload
Amazon Photos only makes photo books in a single size with limited design options. It’s a great choice if you’re looking for a simple, barebones photo book, but if you want something truly customizable, check out Shutterfly instead.
Most other photo books come in a variety of sizes, but Amazon's is only available in an 8-inch by 8-inch size. There's also only one image per page—far more limiting than any other service we tested.
You don’t get to be creative with the images or placement, but the book becomes thick the more images you include since each image is another page.
The finished photo book was durable, with a matte cover and thick pages. Most of the photos printed well but have a dark tint that wasn’t present in the original photos and many other photo books we tested.
Pros
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Fast shipping
Cons
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Somewhat dark photo printing
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One photo per page
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One size only
We disliked each step of making a photo book with Printique. For starters, the photo upload tool had one of the longest upload times, which slowed down the design process. Printique has limited layouts, it was difficult to customize each page because I had to manually adjust the images to be the same size or have symmetrical borders. Other photo books we tested automatically adjusted.
Disappointingly, the front and back cover feel like one large sticker spread across the thicker cover material, and in some places there are even bubbles. Printique is one of the more expensive options, so we were disappointed with the poor product given the price.
The interior of the book is quite nice, with incredibly durable pages and brightly printed photos. It’s worth noting that though the pages are thick and strong, the materials are vinyl-like, which we didn’t select. If you’re looking for a flat or matte option this isn’t that—it’s much shinier and almost has a dotted pattern in the light.
Pros
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Bright photos
Cons
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Vinyl-like pages
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Slow batch upload
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Cheap cover
How We Tested Photo Books
Credit: Reviewed / Liv Birdsall
We evaluated each photo book's print quality and brightness.
Each photo book was tested in two steps. The first assessment was an evaluation of the online creation process, accounting for photo uploading, the design tools, and placing an order.
The second test evaluated how the physical photo book turned out, including photo printing quality, page material, book covers, and the like.
The Tester
I’m Liv Birdsall, a contributor to Reviewed where I review lifestyle products ranging from beauty and style to home and garden. I was thrilled to test out photo books because I love memory keeping. I opted to create a photo book using images from my yoga certification training to use as a reference now that I teach yoga.
The Tests
We created each photo book by uploading the same 45 to 50 photos to each site’s online design tool and tried different features like auto filling the book with photos, adjusting the photo sizes, and moving pages around. We used the same image on the cover of each book to see how it would render and print. We made sure to use all the photos in each book, and then completed the orders for all the books.
Once the photo books arrived, we flipped through them and compared the printing quality. Some photos were dark and dull, some were bright, some were exposed or blurry, and some were true to color. We assessed the pages, bindings, cover quality, and how durable each book felt.
What You Should Know About Buying a Photo Book
Credit: Reviewed / Liv Birdsall
We tested the best photo books that you can make online.
Buying a photo book is typically a two part process: designing the book and then ordering the book. The design steps can be as involved as you’d like, similar to scrapbooking.
Some photo book websites allow you to add frames, graphics, and text boxes to each page to customize every detail. Before you begin designing, you’ll first want to gather all your photos for the book in one folder; this is to streamline the uploading process and to get an idea of how large of a photo book you’ll need.
When it comes to designing, give yourself time to be creative. If you want a photo book fast, use the auto-populate tool that many sites offer and then review the photos to make sure they aren’t cut off by any formats and are ordered to your liking.
If you’re looking to customize each page, adjust layouts and photos to make your photo book unique and reflective of the memories you want to capture.
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Mixbook's minimalist layout makes it very easy to use. The site has dozens of fun photo book themes -- family, seasonal, wedding, travel, baby -- and more specific designs in each category, perfect for photo gifts. There's also the option to put a book together from scratch. Mixbook lets you upload print-quality photos from your computer or phone as well as from Facebook and Instagram, and ones you've already uploaded to the site. Mixbook offers a lot of customization options. You can choose from multiple page finishes and different cover option styles. If you want to get fancy, you can even add matte finishes, a hard cover or leather with a dust jacket.
I used Mixbook to organize my wedding photos and to make a photo book for my dad's birthday. It was easy to add and edit photos, text, extra pages and embellishments to the template I chose. You can swap themes at any time and the photos will transfer over, but from what I can tell, you have to change the pages manually. Both photo books I made turned out great and arrived in a timely fashion.
You can be as creative as you want and veer away from the template as you like -- or stick with the presets. As you build your book, you can click Preview to see how the final product will look. When you're satisfied with your book, click Order to finalize the photo book size, page and cover finish.
How much it costs: Photo books can be ordered in landscape, portrait or square shape in 6-by-6-, 8.5-by-8.5-, 10-by-10- and 12-by-12-inch sizes. An 8.5-by-8.5-inch, 20-page softcover book with the regular semi-gloss page finish -- all the cheapest options -- will cost you around $21. Designing a larger book with more bells and whistles will raise the final price. However, like its competitors, Mixbook frequently runs promotions that can save you some serious cash.