Photographs deserve to exist in print – and creating a photo book is the best way to print large collections of images. But, I find designing photo books to be incredibly frustrating. The design process often takes several hours, and, like printing out individual photos, the quality may vary widely from one lab to the next. That’s why I spent weeks designing 16 different albums in order to find the best photo book.
As a photographer, I’ve ordered a number of photo books in the past, from budget albums to high-end leather wedding photo albums. Like with ordering individual prints, factors like color accuracy and clarity matter, but photo books add in cover quality, bindings, and design software to contend with as well.
To find the best photo book, I tried out ten of the top-ranked US photo labs, from professional labs to popular budget options. Many photo labs have both budget books and high-end professional albums, so in some cases, I ordered two, ending up with 16 different photo books from 10 different labs.
After looking at everything from the app for designing the book to the quality of the final product, these are the best photo books I found from online photo book makers.
Hillary K Grigonis is a photographer, writer, editor – and a total color nerd. Her critical eye for color means she's picky about print quality, which naturally extends to photo books. As a wedding and portrait photographer, she orders photo books regularly, but spent weeks designing and analyzing books from more than 10 labs to find the best options, from those for picky professional photographers (like herself) to affordable but simple albums for busy parents.
The best photo books
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Best photo book overall
Printique is the online service of Adorama, a well-known New York photo store. The fantastic design software, excellent colors, and lovely materials made the books that I ordered from Printique stand out.
Online ordering can be done from Printique's web software, as well as iOS and Android apps. The software delivers an excellent mix of lovely pre-made themes and customization options. While I loved the pre-made designs, it's still possible to create your own custom layouts. Full-resolution photos aren't fully uploaded until you are ready to order, which also means you don't have to wait long to start designing.
But the real reason that Printique stood out is what I pulled out of the box. First, even the most affordable page format is thicker and more luxurious than your average photo book. The Linen pages feel more like a thick, glossy cardstock, which prints lovely photos and also feels more durable. Most companies charge extra for layflat pages, but Printique's most affordable page still lies flat and looks fantastic.
The photo cover that I ordered turned out with excellent colors. The photo cover is glossy, but not overly so, and didn't collect fingerprints. I also ordered a linen cutout cover, which has a classic look, and the materials felt nicer than other linen covers that I tried.
Printique isn't the cheapest option, but I thought the prices were fairly well-balanced considering the fantastic quality. There's no upcharge for a flatlay and if you want to remove the Printique logo, it's only an additional US$2.
See our full Printique review
Best photo book app
The Mixbook app is so easy to use, I designed my photo book one-handed while walking on the treadmill. Mixbook has plenty of photobook templates to choose from, and those layouts autopopulate with your photos. A handy layout tool will suggest layouts based on the photos already on the page. While that offers a quick start, the app still has plenty of customization options.
The quality of Mixbook's photo books are impressive considering the prices are more budget-friendly. Printed photos had excellent sharpness and resolution. I found my flat-lay cover photo was too oversaturated with orange skin tones. On the interior page, the blacks in my black-and-white spread weren't as dark as in other photo books.
While the colors on some pages weren't quite perfect, I was willing to overlook it, considering Mixbook's prices also make it an excellent lab to consider for budget photo books. Customer service was also fantastic – when I flagged a page that had a white line on a photo (a common print error), Mixbook sent me a free replacement.
Best professional photo book
The photo book that made the best first impression out of the box was hands-down Saal. The Saal Professional Line Photo Book is bloody epic. I tried the acrylic photo cover, which puts a super-thick clear layer over the cover photo and leaves room for a lovely textured surface around the binding and the back. Talk about a stunning first impression!
The interior pages are just as good, and even Saal's budget books are flatlay with no extra charge. While most photo books require a blank white page to start with, that's not the case here – the book opens right into the first spread. Pages have a lovely thickness, and photos were sharp with colors accurate to the digital file.
While the Saal's professional line gobsmacked me with the first impression, the lab also has some more affordable options. On the more affordable book that I ordered, the interior pages still have great colors and are thick, lay-flat style. While not as cheap as budget labs, the fact that all the books are layflat makes for some lovely books without spending as much.
I found Saal's photo book design software fairly straightforward and quick to use, though not quite as streamlined as Printique's or Mixbook's. An important feature for pros, however, is that you can also create your book with your own design software and upload a PDF instead of using Saal's software.
Best budget photo book
Chatbooks is perhaps best known for its photo book subscriptions, but I found the brand offered the best mix between quality and price, even if you order a single book instead of a subscription. In fact, after I finished testing all the different photo books, I ordered another Chatbook as a gift.
I ordered both a hardcover and softcover photo book for testing, and the print quality nearly rivals some pricier labs. Out of all the budget photo books that I tested, Chatbooks had the best colors with bright, punchy tones without skewing the skin tones.
The Chatbook app is also incredibly simple to use – I actually designed my softcover book in about five minutes (excluding the wait for photos to upload). Chatbooks caters to busy parents, and the app feels perfect for anyone with a busy lifestyle. Photos auto-fill, it's easy to apply the same design to all the pages, and if you want just one photo per page, you'll be done in just a few minutes.
Chatbooks offers an ideal blend between price, quality, and simplicty. But there's a tradeoff: Chatbooks doesn't have the wide range of different cover styles, paper options, and sizes. There are just two cover options, two page options, and three sizes, all of them square. Layouts are similarly limited to only a few one-page designs. While that's great for busy people, if you're looking for more customizations, look elsewhere.
Best coffee table photo book
Whitewall is a professional photo lab, and the company's coffee table book certainly looks the part. Whitewall's books are a classic style coffee table book, with large, glossy covers and an interior designed to mix photographs and text.
Whitewall's reputation for print quality extends to the coffee table book's interior pages, which can be printed on a selection of six different pro-grade photo papers. Despite choosing one of the more affordable page materials, photographs were sharp and colors were highly accurate to the digital file. (Note, however, 50MP images aren't supported and need to be downsized).
The cover is equally crisp and color accurate. The glossy cover looks like a showpiece. The only thing I didn't like is that the cover tends to retain fingerprint smudges, so expect to wipe it clean when you dust your coffee table.
Whitewall has online, desktop and mobile software, and the coffee table books also supports PDF uploads, so you can also choose to use your own design software instead.
What else we tested
How we test photo books
To find the best photo books, I focused on two key elements – design software and final book quality – and how those elements compared to other photo labs at a similar price point.
I ordered 16 photo books from 10 different labs. Six of those labs are companies with availability across multiple continents, and four labs focused on serving either US / Canada or the UK. I also considered how many different options each lab offered and, in labs with a wide range of options, I ordered two, which is how I ended up with 16 books from 10 different labs.
While a number of photo labs offer samples so photographers can get a sense of the final quality and materials, the materials and final quality is only one piece of what makes a photo book good (or not good). To get a true sense of each lab, I designed the photo books myself using each lab’s software. I largely used the online version of the software, but tried out the mobile apps from labs that are well-known for their apps and desktop apps where necessary. I did try out free design services and automation tools where applicable – but in those cases, I also designed a second photo book myself.
In order to get the best comparison between different labs, I used the same set of images. While testing out the design software meant each photo book did not have identical designs nor identical covers, a majority of the images used were also printed in the other books. I also used photos from a range of different cameras, including a 12MP consumer drone, an iPhone 15 Pro, a 26.1MP mirrorless camera, and a 60MP mirrorless camera, in order to see how each lab does with both small and large files. I also used photos from a variety of genres, including portraits, weddings, landscapes and wildlife, and included both color and black and white images in each book.
Once all the photo books arrived, I compared the quality of each book. On the inside pages, I looked at aspects like color accuracy, clarity, and dynamic range on each photo. I also looked at the page’s thickness and finish.
On the cover, I looked at the color, clarity, and photo quality of the cover image. I also looked at the cover materials and looked for aspects like whether or not the cover scratched or fingerprinted easily. I also looked at the book’s binding.
Finally, I put the data I had gathered on the design process and the overall book quality with the lab’s price range as well as its variety of sizes and materials to try.
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