cvs photo book review

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Friday, May 31st

2024 Photo Book Company Reviews

• Pricing from $7.99 to $69.99

75 themes available

Free same-day pickup

• Interfaces easily with social media

CVS drugstores are everywhere, which makes them great places to pick up your photo prints that you upload on their website. In fact, you have the great option to build your photo book online at CVS and pick it up the same day at no extra cost. However, the shipping times are a bit long and with fewer total designs than other companies in this review, CVS doesn't stand out as a top service for photo books. But, as a local or last-minute pick up, CVS could be a good place to check out.

The available designs at CVS include 283 backgrounds to choose from. Additionally, CVS has 75 pre-designed photo book themes that already included backgrounds and graphics throughout the book, making it easy to add images and print the book. CVS Photo provides seven book sizes, including popular ones like 8.5 x 11, 11 x 14, and 8 x 8. They offer various cover styles such as hardbound, softbound, lay-flat, and window covers. However, this service does not offer dust covers, fabric covers, or leather covers, so users interested in those options may need to explore other providers of photo books.

Connected with socials

There appears to be a decent amount of creative freedom for designing a photo book with CVS. Customers can adjust the layouts and resize their photos to their liking. The editing process is simple and user-friendly, offering an autofill feature and the option to share albums with others online. On top of that, the CVS platform makes it simple to add images to books or get more pictures from friends and family, as you can import photos from various sources, including Facebook, Instagram, Flickr, and Google Photos.

6 styles to choose from

The pricing at CVS depends on the cover style you choose for your photo book. The options range from hard and soft covers to books that are completely customizable. Further, you can also choose whether you want a traditional binding on a photo book or a "layflat" style, to keep your pages from arching. The pricing range includes:

• Custom Softcover: $7.99
• Hardcover: $16.99
• Custom Hardcover: $19.99
• Custom Cover Layflat: $39.99
• Layflat: $44.99
• Premium Layflat: $69.99

The cost range is reasonable but does get a little pricey as you get into the layflat styles. So, it may be important to keep that in mind as you browse.

In the case of CVS, the processing and shipping of photo books is noted to be pretty slow by customers. To speed up delivery, users can upgrade to express shipping, but this will cost much more than the standard option. However, it's important to note that CVS takes three to five days for processing before shipping. For those in need of a faster delivery, express shipping or in-store pickup are available choices. Plus, same-day pickup is completely free, and you don't have to worry about the shipping costs at all.

Low-rated and "F" score

In terms of reputation, CVS isn't really hitting the mark. The page for CVS on the Better Business Bureau shows that the company has a very disappointing "F" rating. On top of that, the verified customer reviews for CVS aren't stellar. With only 3 stars from Sitjabber and a measly 1-star rating from another third-party review site, it's clear that customers aren't thrilled with the CVS experience. It is important to note, however, that most of the reviews for CVS are related to other services (like shopping or pharmacy) and aren't directly related to their photos and photo books. But, with a low reputation overall, it might be better to check out a different spot to get your photo book.

Average photo service overall

While there are some fun perks like being able to load your photos directly from Instagram or Flickr and free same-day pickup, there are a few red flags for CVS as well. The company has some pretty low ratings both from the BBB and from customers who've left plenty of verified reviews. With lots of companies out there that have more reliable customer service plus more themes and templates for unique photo books, the styles, and themes at CVS start to look a little average. For this reason, CVS doesn't jump out at us as a top service, but it's a fair option for anyone who needs a photo book same-day in a pinch.

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Photo books are a fantastic way to keep our special memories in a tangible, beautiful format instead of just storing pictures on computers or in boxes. They are perfect for different occasions, like giving them as anniversary gifts, thoughtful birthday presents, or even creating yearly projects to decorate coffee tables, making it easy to look back on good times.

For example, weddings and engagements have become extra special with the rise of personalized photo books. Couples use their wedding or engagement photos to create these books, allowing guests to sign and leave heartfelt messages during the wedding reception. This makes photo books an important part of people's lives as they become a way to treasure precious moments, experiences, and important events.

Photo Book Company FAQ

What types of photo books are available, how many photos can i put in my book, how much does it cost, what size options are there, how long does delivery take is it free, how do i create a photo book, how customizable is the photo book, what if i am not happy with my photo book.

Continued from above...

In the past, making a photo book was a lot of work. It involved printing loads of photos, getting binders, stickers, fancy paper, and special tools for adding cool borders. Hours were spent carefully gluing the pages together and writing descriptions for each picture. Although some people enjoyed this scrapbooking process, it took a lot of time and resulted in big, bulky books that took up a lot of space.

Thankfully, in today's digital age, photo books are easier to make than ever. Many people opt to create photo books online due to their convenience and endless creative possibilities. With just a few clicks, you can capture family vacations, document special events, or preserve moments with loved ones. The ability to create photo books online has led to a significant rise in the number of people who now choose to immortalize their cherished moments in these beautifully designed keepsakes.

What's really fantastic about online photo books is how flexible and customizable they are. They can be super simple with just photos laid out neatly, or they can be like fancy scrapbooks with fun borders, stickers, and our own text. For example, if you're making a photo book about your beach vacation, some websites even offer special themes that let you add seashell stickers, "sandy" texture pages, and frames with palm trees to match the beachy pictures.

That's pretty awesome, right? So, no matter what style you like or what you want to remember, creating a photo book gives you the freedom to be as creative and personal as you want.

If you're looking for a fresh new way to collect your photographs, or you just have some memories that need to be shared, don't worry. There are so many places to get photo books these days that it can be overwhelming. Fortunately, we've done the research to help you find the photo service that caters to your unique needs and crafts a photo book made just for you.

To help you get started we've put together some tips to point you in the right direction:

• Cost: Compare the photo book cost with other competitors. Check if you pay per page or for the entire book, regardless of its size. You may also want to see if there are extra costs for delivery, or if that's included in the price of the photo book.
• Customization: Depending on what you need your photo book for, you may want to look for various size options and choose between softcover and hardcover books. Ensure there are ample choices for fonts, colors, borders, stickers, themes, and photo arrangements.
• Features: To make sure that you have the best experience creating your photo book, you may want to prioritize user-friendly websites that offer easy navigation and straightforward tools for creating your photo book. Avoid platforms that may cause confusion and frustration during the creation process.
• Customer feedback: Ultimately, customers like you are some of the best people to check in with when making your decision. They, like you, have a clear idea of their preferences and have made photo books with these companies before. So make sure you check out customer feedback and BBB ratings to ensure that photo service is the one that meets customers' needs.

To help you find the best spot to get a photo book today, Top Consumer Reviews has assessed and ranked different photo services to put together a beautiful collection of your favorite memories. Whether you're seeking a wedding photo book or something to track memories for your little ones, there are options out there for everything (even the DIYers who want to be more hands-on). We hope this takes out the stress of photo book creation and helps you get back to organizing the memories most important to you!

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CVS Photo Printing review: Extensive photo services

I was impressed with the breadth of photo printing services that CVS has to offer, far beyond what many other photo printing services offer, and most of my order came out great. However, I had a significant issue with the photo book I ordered. It was partially my own fault, but I was disappointed that CVS didn't catch the issue before printing and sending it out. Still, CVS is one of the best online photo printing services out there for its one-stop shopping.

Price : Varies Bottom line: CVS does just about everything you'd want a photo printing service to do.

• Extensive photo services
• Same-day pickup for some items
• Print quality is good
• Decent prices and frequent discounts
• Easy to use website
• Some problems with the book design
• Poster arrived rolled

Everything and the kitchen sink

CVS Photo Printing review: Features

CVS has one of the most extensive photo printing services I've seen. Not only do they offer tons of different photo prints and photo products, but you can also get your passport pictures, copy and print documents, develop actual film, and transfer your home movies to DVD or digital. Since there is a CVS on just about every corner in the US, it's quite convenient. I ordered three 4x6 prints, an 8x10 print, a 20x30 print, four wallet prints, 20 cards (the minimum order), and a photo book. All of my daughter's engagement photos you see in my order were taken by JMS Imagery . My own wedding photo, seen in the wallet photos, was taken by Nancy Lambert many years ago.

CVS's prices are reasonable, and there are always many deals and promo codes going on. Shipping isn't cheap or free, but you may be able to pick up your order for free at your local CVS, possibly even the same day, depending on what you order. Certain items are available at certain locations, I assume based on which equipment your local CVS has in store. It's a safe bet that you'll always be able to pick up basic prints in-store within an hour.

There is a ton on the website, but it's easy to navigate. I had no problem putting together a photo book, but I thought it would be fun to select a "Family" theme for my book, which includes cute sayings and flair. As it turned out, that was a terrible theme. The letters often didn't show up on the background I'd selected. But even worse, the theme included gray lines which I think were intended to add emphasis to the quotes. But these gray lines, which were not visible when I put the book together, ruined some of my photos by cutting right across faces. Otherwise, the book would have been fine. It's a cute little softcover book and the quality is good.

CVS Photo goes way above and beyond when it comes to the photo services they offer.

The prints all look great, although the 20x30 did arrive in a tube, which means rolled edges. I'm confident they will flatten over time, or immediately if I pop the poster into a frame, but two hours with books on the corners did nothing. Unfortunately, the tube seems to be the norm. Very few places do the huge flat box because of cost, I'm sure. I was happy with the quality of the prints. The wallets are the mini-wallet size, with four of them fitting onto a 4x6 sheet. I ordered both color and black and white prints and they all look as they should.

Some photo printing services print their cards on cardstock, while others use photo paper. These cards are of the photo paper variety, so trying to do wedding invitations this was was a mistake. I don't blame CVS for this; if I'd ordered holiday cards, they'd be fine on photo paper.

CVS does have an app for your iPhone . It's not just for photos, but you can indeed order your photos and photo items within the app.

Impressive array of services

CVS Photo Printing review: What I like

I was blown away by the sheer number of photo services that CVS offers. They offer a huge selection of print sizes, cards, and photo book options ranging from the little 4x6 pocket cutie I ordered up through leather-bound premium lay-flat albums suitable for a wedding. You want a mug, a mouse pad, a clock emblazoned with your photo? CVS has all that and much more. But beyond that, the breadth of their services impressed me: passport photos, home video transfer to DVD or digital, copy/print services, and developing actual film.

You can only pick up your order in-store (same-day in some cases) for certain items, but it's a convenient option to have. Nearly everyone I know lives within a few miles of a CVS. Of course, if you're picking up your photo order, you can also conveniently pick up your medical prescriptions or whetever other drugstore items you need.

Didn't love my book theme

CVS Photo Printing review: What I don't like

You could say I picked a bad book theme, but why does CVS offer bad book themes? You could say I should have noticed those gray lines over our faces, but why is CVS letting me make a book with gray lines over the photos? Obviously, there's no human being doing quality checks there, or someone would have told me about the issue with my book. Maybe CVS shouldn't offer themes that have lines covering parts of photos at all. Perhaps if you stick with a basic book theme, or at least go over everything with an eagle eye, and you would be fine. I had no problem with the quality of the book itself.

Like most photo services, CVS ships large prints in a tube. This means the edges are curled for several days, which isn't the end of the world but it's slightly annoying.

Vast options and convenience

CVS Photo Printing review: Bottom line

CVS offers way beyond the standard set of photo services. Yes, you can get prints ranging from mini-wallets to 20x30, photo books ranging from cheapie pocket-sized book to a premium leather-bound lay-flat album, cards, and all manner of photo gifts. You can even pick up some of these items at your local CVS the same day. But CVS is unusual in that they also offer passport photos, copy/print services, film developing, and home video transfer to DVD or digital.

One aspect of my order really disappointed me, however. The theme I chose for my photo book, which consisted of decorative quotes and flair, either didn't show up at all over the background or covered up important parts of my photos. I'm generally pretty careful when I create photo books, but these aspects of the theme weren't apparent to me when I made this one.

Karen is a contributor to iMore.com as a writer and co-host of the iMore Show. She’s been writing about Apple since 2010 with a year-long break to work at an Apple Store as a product specialist. She's also a contributor at TechRadar and Tom's Guide. Before joining iMore in 2018, Karen wrote for Macworld, CNET, AppAdvice, and WatchAware. She’s an early adopter who used to wait in long lines on release days before pre-ordering made things much easier. Karen is also a part-time teacher and occasional movie extra. She loves to spend time with her family, travel the world, and is always looking for portable tech and accessories so she can work from anywhere.

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One mom tried 5 digital photo book services: Here's how they compared

Remember photo albums -- books with clear plastic pockets that held your favorite photos to keep track of memories and memorialize a year of your life?

We don’t do that much anymore. When was the last time you even printed a picture?

But the joy of thumbing through a memory book of photos is still a thing, so services have sprung up online to turn your digital photos into bound books. While some have been around for decades, other newcomers have also come along. Prices and formats vary wildly, so how should you choose the right service for your images?

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"Good Morning America" asked mom Sheila Madrigal from Morgan Hill, California, to order photo books from 5 different services: Snapfish, Shutterfly, Mixbook, Amazon and Costco. She used the same 60 photos in all five books and tried to get the size and layouts of the books as similar as possible. The photos were taken with both her iPhone and DSLR camera.

After the books were created, ordered and arrived at Madrigal's house, we took them to Sam Hoffman of San Francisco’s Lightsource, a fine art print lab. While they don’t make print books at Lightsource, Hoffman evaluated the quality of the books.

Best Image Quality: Costco & Shutterfly

The primary factors Sam evaluated were contrast, warm skin tones, shadow detail, and saturation.

One of Madrigal’s photos showed her family in a field of yellow flowers, her husband Israel is tossing their daughter in the air. Both the Shutterfly and Costco books impressed him with how they handled the image.

In the Costco and Shutterfly books, the field had a rich golden color and skin tones were warm.

“I see the darkness of the blues. The separation of darkness and lighter colors,” said Hoffman.

He used that photo to judge two bottom performers in the image quality category, Snapfish and Amazon.

“There is a greyness in the flesh tones [Snapfish] and this one is the least vibrant of them all [Amazon],” he said.

Best Binding: Shutterfly

According to Hoffman, all the books used semi-matte paper, but the production from each company varied. In some books there was no cover page while others had sophisticated stamped paper in the cover and back page positions. Another difference was the binding. Some had a simple stitched binding that was visible between the pages, while others had stitched and glued binding that looked more sophisticated. Shutterfly’s book had a luxe cover page made of stamped paper, stitched and glued binding, as well as a back cover that was in a different color and design.

Ease of Creation: Snapfish

We let Sheila, who created the books, weigh in on this category. She said the Snapfish tool took her 20 minutes from start to finish to create the book. Uploads were fast, layout was simple and the user interface was intuitive. She ranked Mixbook, Shutterfly and Amazon slightly below Snapfish, but still easy to use.

She gave the Costco the lowest ranking in this category, complaining that the upload of her images took twice as long as some other sites. She said that when she used the Costco tool, it arbitrarily populated her book with the pictures she uploaded, but she had a specific order in mind and had to go back through the tool removing all the pictures then adding them back into the layout where she wanted them.

There was one more problem from the Costco book: it cut her baby's picture in half!

The online tool showed a picture of her three kids fitting on the page but when the printed book was inspected, the baby was only half visible. Sam explained that the image was placed too far into the center of the page, an area printers call the “gutter,” and the baby’s face was obscured. Sheila said it did not look like that in the online tool. Costco declined ABC News' request for comment.

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Least expensive: Amazon

The most expensive book was from Mixbook at $47.63. Shutterfly came in at $40.72 , Costco and Snapfish were a penny apart at $32.68 and $32.67, and Amazon had the least expensive book at $27.24.

One thing to consider with pricing is that many of these services offer outrageous deals on photobooks with special seasonal codes, sometimes 50 to 60% off.

Here’s a pro tip: keep a file of your favorite photos on your desktop, copy them in there as you take them each month, and when you see a killer deal come up, you’ll be able to create the book and nab a great keepsake at a fraction of the price.

Overall top pick: Shutterfly

Ranking ease of creation, image quality, price and the overall feel of the book’s production, Hoffman liked Shutterfly the best.

Our mom Sheila also liked Shutterfly the best, and resolved to make a memory book every year from now on.

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9 Best Photo Book Websites

Don't let your favorite photos go to waste — use these top-tested online services and turn them into keepsake albums.

We've been independently researching and testing products for over 120 years. If you buy through our links, we may earn a commission. Learn more about our review process.

Best Overall

Shutterfly photo books.

Walmart Photo Custom Photo Books

Most Aesthetic

Artifact uprising photo books.

Best for Themes

Mixbook photo books.

Best for Beginners

Printique photo books.

Best for Amazon Prime Members

Amazon prints.

Best for Young Kids

Pinhole press photo books.

Best for Google Photo Users

Google photo books.

Best for Families

Chatbooks custom photo books & albums.

Photo albums create a tangible and lasting archive of memories — ultimately proving to be more durable and accessible than the mess of digital files on your phone and computer. Plus, a custom photo book can be a thoughtful and unique gift for birthdays, holidays, anniversaries, or other special events.

Online photo book services make it easy and quick to choose a theme or layout, upload photos and ship the book straight to the recipient. Best of all, some photo book makers even have apps so you can upload photos directly from your smartphone.

Shutterfly offers basic photo books at an affordable price. You can choose from a wide selection of themes, like birthday, travel or wedding, or neutral styles , such as modern or rustic. You can also create your own book and choose the book size, cover style and page style, then embellish it with Shutterfly's extensive library of stickers and ribbons to make your book extra special. We appreciate how easily users can edit within their chosen template and the brand's high-quality photo book paper, making Shutterfly a top pick.

You can also opt for one of its 6" x 6" Instant Books , which let you add photos from your phone, tablet or computer in minutes. These mini photo books have only 20 pages, but they're a great place to store goofy candids or Instagram posts you never want to forget. The possibilities are essentially limitless, though the vast array of options could be overwhelming for those getting started.

If you don't want the pressure of deciding on a layout, the brand offers a convenient Make My Book option, in which Shutterfly's professional designers curate your photos and design the book for free. Plus, you'll still have the opportunity to put finishing touches on it before it gets printed. Whether you opt for 50 or 800 photos (the maximum), you'll receive an email notification within 24 hours that your book is complete.

Crunched for time? Design your photo book online and pick up select styles at a Walmart store near you in as little as one hour. Photo books picked up in one hour can have 15 single-sided pages and a linen cover, while same-day pickups (ready in a few hours) can have up to 20 double-sided pages and the option of a hardcover.

On top of the speedy turnaround, Walmart has a great selection of styles : You can choose everything from the photo size and layout to the type of cover, including hardcover glossy or matte, linen, leather and lay-flat glossy or matte. If you need help narrowing down the choices, there's also the option to shop by occasion, whether you're looking for a one-year anniversary or 15th-year anniversary gift .

Despite the fast shipping and variety, our tester noted that the quality was not as high as the options offered by other photo book makers on this list — but that may be expected considering the bargain price tag. Regardless, these photo books still make a superb present that can cost under $10 without compromising on sentimentality.

No matter the occasion, you can't go wrong with one of Artifact Uprising's high-quality photo books. There are numerous design options, including preset books to celebrate the birth of a new baby or commemorating a marriage.

You can choose from lay-flat albums, books with photo strips and even softcover Instagram Friendly Books for the influencer in your life. The company even has an iPhone app that lets you create a photo book right from your smartphone. However, Rothman found the app to be glitchy at times and noted there's room for improvement with the software. Still, the books come out on top for elegance and simplicity .

One online reviewer wrote, "The fabric cover is beautiful. The photos are amazing quality and look amazing even though the photos were taken on film and therefore are a bit grainy." The overall 4.6-star rating (out of 5) backs up that review. Quality and elevated designs come with a higher price tag, but there are options for $20 or less if you're shopping on a budget.

If you have a special project and a little more money to spend, Artifact Uprising offers Design Services , which allow you to work one-on-one with an expert to bring your special moments to life. Just note that the design fee is rather steep at $119 and requires an additional $100 album deposit.

When Mixbook says it has "custom photo books for every occasion," it really means it. There are 374 different themed templates to choose from, including everything f rom travel and sports to weddings and recipes.

But that doesn't mean you have to give up creative control. You can still customize the look to your liking, from fun backgrounds to stickers to text using the Editor tool. Plus, there are plenty of paper varieties, from semigloss to ultra-thick matte.

Our testers appreciated the nice balance between good photo editing and price, but one did experience issues with the lay-flat option, in which the photos bled into the crease. You can also use the iPhone app to organize your photos with a tool that the brand calls "Automagic": Simply choose the images you want and select a theme. The goal of Automagic is to help arrange your camera roll so your photos are in order when it comes time to add them to your photo book.

If you're not sure where to start, our pros love Printique because it's super easy to use. You can select one of the many predesigned layouts or create an entire photo book from scratch.

Choose among portrait, landscape and square orientations, as well as hardcover and softcover options. You can even store your memories in a genuine leather or vegan leather book or pick from five different fabric colors. Although you can't choose the color for a hard- or softcover photo book, you can still customize the shape, size and paper type.

Looking for something more advanced? There'sa tool for professional photographers to design and create their own photo books. But if you want to keep things simple, consider starting with one of Printique's 4" x 4" Mini Softcover photo books , which have a maximum of 40 pages and come in three sizes.

Is Amazon Photos already your preferred destination for uploading photos? Then creating a photo book through its interface is an easy solution.

Similar to other photo book makers, you can create by occasion and size, or choose its 8" x 8" Premium Photo Book for a versatile option that has a laminated cover and lay-flat binding. There's also an option with standard binding at a lower cost, and all Amazon Prime members get free shipping . (Everyone else is eligible for free shipping with a minimum order of $15.)

In addition to photo books, you can shop large prints, calendars, cards and metal tabletops. There are fewer size and style options than most services when it comes to photo books, but the other photo product choices make up for the lack of available styles. After all, sometimes it's easier and quicker to have fewer options to choose from if you need to pull something together last-minute.

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With Pinhole Press, you can choose from various photo book styles ranging from board pages to softcovers to accordion-style setups. Upload your photos and let the system do the work, or manually place the photos into the layout yourself.

One of our testers says her kids love the Custom Board Books , which have themes such as " Count With Me ," " Healthy Habits " and " I Can Be Anything ." These photo books aren't just visually stimulating, but they can also educate and entertain kids for years to come .

"I got my daughter the ' My First Photo Book ' as a toddler and made it all about her — like pictures with family, doing things she likes, her favorite toys, at the playground and beach, etc. — and she still is obsessed with it," says GH Institute Executive Director Lexie Sachs .

We think he custom Photo Puzzle is a fun option for kids, and the Itty Bitty Books are easy to tote around in a work bag for on-hand entertainment. There's less variety in some categories, including Itty Bitty and hardcover books, but with so many additional photo categories other companies lack, there are still plenty of great options for kids.

RELATED: 12 Best Personalized Books for Kids

If you store your snaps in Google Photos, then Google's very own photo book maker might be the most convenient option for you. Even though there are no fancy designs, the process is seamless.

Choose from two options: a 7" x 7" softcover photo book or a 9" x 9" hardcover photo book. You can include between 20 and 140 pages, and you have the option to add a spine title if you hit more than 48 pages for a softcover or any number of pages for a hardcover.

Another hallmark of Google Photos is that you can make one photo book and order multiple copies to give to family members and friends who are also pictured in the photos. Since they come at an affordable price point, you could give everyone on your gift list a copy, whether you decide to create a collection of candid photos for your closest friends or a tangible memento of a fun family trip. Though there may not be as many designs and styles to choose from, that can make the customization process less daunting.

Chatbooks Custom Photo Books & Albums

"Set and forget it," one of our testers said about the ease of using Chatbooks, which markets itself as "ridiculously easy." You can upload images from Instagram, Flickr, Dropbox, Facebook or your computer and edit them on your desktop or via the app .

The service's Custom Photo Books & Albums option is great for families looking to personalize a family vacation , as you can choose colors, layouts, cover styles, collages, captions and more. Peruse its vast collection of more than 300 unique book covers, or shop the premium lay-flat and special occasion photo books.

You can also have fun with the Instagram and Facebook series — a 6" x 6" or 8" x 8" book with 60 pages — that lets you store your favorite social media posts in a tangible place to look back on for years to come.

Unique to Chatbooks is its subscription service, which allows you to receive a softcover, hardcover or mini photo book each month. If you and your family love taking photographs of walks in the park, weekend road trips or vacations, this service is ideal for getting your photos in your hands ASAP. One thing to note about the subscription option is that there are only two sizes available (5" x 7" and the monthly mini).

How we chose the best photo book makers

At the Good Housekeeping Institute , our pros in the Media & Tech Lab have been testing photo book makers for more than a decade . For this article, we referenced a robust test of photo book makers we completed in 2009 and ordered a round of new products to test in 2023. We also researched the latest updates and offerings to a variety of apps and services.

When choosing the best photo book makers, our Lab experts consider ease of use, performance and appearance . That means our pros take an in-depth look at a wide range of features, such as how easy it is to navigate the interface and add photos and text to the book; upload and delivery time; the number of styles, covers and templates offered; and the photo, paper and binding quality.

What to look for when shopping for the best custom photo book maker

Keep the following features in mind when choosing the right photo book maker website for your needs:

✔️ Size: Whether you're looking for a small photo book for kids or a much larger album to house snapshots from a long family vacation, there are regular, large and miniature photo book sizes available. It's best to think about how many photos you want to include and where you plan to store the album (i.e., will the book be too tall for your bookshelf or just right on top of your coffee table?).

✔️ Shape: Most photo books are rectangular or square in shape, but some companies also offer photo puzzles, calendars and tabletops to choose from too. The shape is really about aesthetic preference and the orientation you prefer for your photos.

✔️ Page count: Are you compiling 20 photos from your daughter's first-birthday party? Or are you putting together an anniversary album of pictures of you and your partner throughout the years? The number of pages determines the number of photos you can include in an album, so you have enough space to include everything.

✔️ Paper quality: This is probably a no-brainer, as the quality of material your photos are printed on is as important as the quality of the photos themselves. Although companies with higher-quality paper, like Artifact Uprising , may have a higher price tag, the extra money goes toward paper that won't lead to photos bleeding into the crease. But there are still services that are affordable and offer good-quality products, like our best value pick, Walmart Photo .

✔️ Binding quality: Some companies, like Google Photo , will add a binding to your photo album. This feature is especially important when considering the durability and longevity of your photo album. Whether it's a softcover, hardcover or lay-flat book, make sure the binding can withstand accidental drops and the wear and tear of passing the family album around at holiday parties.

✔️ Templates: If your photo album will have a certain theme or be centered around a specific occasion — or it's your first time using a photo book maker — choosing a service that has a variety of templates to choose from will let your creativity flow and also help you warm up to the design process.

✔️ Editing capabilities: When looking at beginner-level or more advanced designer tools, consider how robust or simple they are to use. Having lots of control over the interface is fun, but if you're looking for a more straightforward experience, opt for a service that does the majority of the decision-making for you or offers designer help, like Shutterfly .

What is the easiest way to make a custom photo book?

It really depends upon the service and your preference .

Although some online custom photo book makers also have an app, it can have limited functionality, be buggy or not as easy to use as the desktop equivalent. Often, an app makes it super simple to upload pictures from your phone (a major plus!) but doesn't allow as much flexibility for product assortment or editing once you've selected. That said, designing a photo book on your smartphone or tablet versus a desktop may come down to how many edits you intend to make .

If you plan to do a lot of editing, the non-app version on a larger screen would likely be your best choice. If you want to quickly make a book with limited changes, an app on your mobile device may be the way to go.

Why trust Good Housekeeping?

Elizabeth Berry is an updates editor at the Good Housekeeping Institute , where she ensures product reviews reflect accurate information. To update this guide, Elizabeth gathered notes from previous tests and researched the latest updates to our favorite services.

A previous version of this guide was written by Amina Lake Abdelrahman , a product review writer and editor who worked as an editorial assistant at the Good Housekeeping Institute from 2018 to 2020.

Elizabeth Berry is the editorial assistant for WomansDay.com, where she writes and edits lifestyle content. When she isn’t assisting with day-to-day editorial needs, Elizabeth is baking dairy-free cakes, reading books, or strolling through nature.

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Money $aving Michele

October 15, 2011

CVS Photo Book Review

                       Upload photos from family vacation – 5 minutes

Choose  album cover – 1 minute  

Click and drag – 10 minutes

FINALLY finishing a scrapbook, PRICELESS!

The CVS Photo Book took less then thirty minutes to create, upload and pay!

I was a little skeptical about creating this digital scrapbook without spending time cutting, taping and gluing photos and trinkets down to pages, but this was also the first scrapbook that was completely finished (still working on one from three years ago) and looked great. This Photo Book is great for my busy family; I hardly have time to upload photos from my camera, let alone have my digital photos printed and this book allowed me to print my photos and put captions with the photos.

The process was very user friendly! I was truly impressed with the quality and how easy it was to create. I choose a Photo book that was leather bound and included 22 pages of photos and captions for only 24.99!  I did it all in my kitchen, without having to leave the house. The best part included free shipping to my local CVS store.

I think that this book would be a great Christmas present for my family that does not get to see our kids that much due to distance and or for those family members that seem to have “everything.” What a special surprise it would be for a family member to pick up their package at their CVS and have a part of your lasting memories!

Simply upload photos to  cvsphotocenter.com  and select the “photo book” options. The photo books created online are shipped free of charge to your local CVS/pharmacy or can be sent to your home for a small shipping fee.

Disclosure ~ The products in this review were provided to me free of cost for the purpose of conducting this review. All opinions are my own and are not influenced by monetary compensation.

About Michele

Michele is a Preschool teacher by day and blogger by night. She is passionate about saving money and sharing with others who like to save, too. Her motto is "Saving today so you can spend on what you need tomorrow."

Reader Interactions

June 25, 2018 at 4:41 PM

Does the book have any cvs watermark or markings on it? I would like to order but i really dont want any cvs markings on it

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Money $aving Michele is a PR Friendly Blog, please contact me, I would love to share your products with my readers. [Read More …]

• Here are the best custom photo book services
• Most user-friendly
• Best for professionals
• Fastest turnaround
• Highest quality

The 5 best custom photo book services to help you preserve your memories

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We've grown accustomed to having nearly every photo we've ever taken at our fingertips and while smartphone and cloud storage is great, there's something wonderful and cozy about reliving memories over a beautiful photo album. 

But nostalgia isn't the only benefit of photo books— you can compile photos taken from multiple sources, tell a story, or create a memorable gift. Custom photo books let us layout our favorite pictures to our exact liking. With themed styles, countless cover choices, and customizable designs, we can capture our memories in a beautiful, bound book. 

We've chosen five of our favorite custom photo book services you can use to make your own album. They offer a range of products with different levels of customization and quality so you can choose the right service for you whether your priority is printing speed, user-friendliness, quality, design options, or price.

Our picks for the 5 best custom photo book services

Best value: Shutterfly Shutterfly is a major photo service platform where you can get prints, design holiday cards, create home decor, and make photo books. It offers dozens of pre-made themed styles as well as the option to completely customize your book. 

Most user-friendly: Mixbook You can start with one of Mixbook's trendy themes or a blank book, choose a landscape, square, or portrait layout, and start adding pictures to its many layout options. 

Best for professionals: Blurb Blurb is designed for amateur and professional photographers, so it works with Adobe InDesign, Lightroom, and Photoshop for the highest quality prints and highest design control. 

Fastest turnaround: Walgreens Walgreens offers a basic, beginner-friendly, and quick custom photo book service. The editor is simple and very easy to use with an overall "fun" feel.

Highest quality: Printique Printique is a great high-quality photo book option for non-professionals, offering leather and fabric covers and only using professional photo and inkjet paper to ensure your photos are printed at their best.

Best value: Shutterfly

Shutterfly is a major photo service platform where you can get prints, design holiday cards, create home decor, and make photo books. It offers dozens of pre-made themed styles as well as the option to completely customize your book. 

Once you choose a size, type of cover, and page type, Shutterfly offers you to "Make it Fast" or "Make it Manually"— either using its shortcuts or a fully customizable layout. 

Shutterfly also offers a "Make My Book" free designer service that's still customizable but removes most of the leg work. You can choose your style and photos, include any special requests, and edit or accept the final product that's guaranteed in three business days or less. 

Browse Shutterfly's photo books here .

Most user-friendly: Mixbook

Mixbook has been rated as many people's favorite custom photo book service because its design system is extremely intuitive and user-friendly. 

You can start with one of their trendy themes or a blank book, choose a landscape, square, or portrait layout, and start adding pictures to its many layout options. 

Mixbook has a huge collection of stickers, designs, and fonts but it also lets you upload your own stickers or backgrounds to make it even more personal. Plus, you can invite others to collaborate on your photo book so they can upload and add their own photos or pages.

Browse Mixbook's photo books here .

Best for professionals: Blurb

Blurb is designed for amateur and professional photographers, so it works with Adobe InDesign, Lightroom, and Photoshop for the highest quality prints and highest design control. 

It also offers its own downloadable design tool which allows for full creative control but isn't very beginner-friendly if you're looking for a "drag and drop" template.

Blurb is great for professional-looking photo books or high-quality gifts. And if you're looking to self-publish your photography: it'll even help you list your book on Amazon and bulk order your product.

Browse Blurb's photo books here .

Fastest turnaround: Walgreens

Walgreens offers a basic, beginner-friendly, and quick custom photo book service. The editor is simple and very easy to use with an overall "fun" feel.

Walgreen's photo books are almost fully customizable and the tools in its editor are neatly organized, which is great for not overwhelming the designer but can arguably make it a little hard to find exactly what you're looking for. 

Though the same-day pick-up is extremely convenient, it does mean quality can be lacking (though it may not be obvious). For example, the fast "flat lay" books aren't bound as a true flatlay but are constructed to give a flat appearance. The photos themselves may also print imperfectly and the quality of your book can heavily depend on your Walgreens location and the experience of the photo team.

Browse Walgreens' photo books here .

Highest quality: Printique

Printique is a great high-quality photo book option for non-professionals, offering leather and fabric covers and only using professional photo and inkjet paper to ensure your photos are printed at their best.

You can choose linen, metallic, or pebble-textured pages in addition to its glossy, matte, and best-selling Luster options. The only things less customizable are the photo layouts themselves: Printique requires the photographs to take center stage rather than stickers, words, or themed designs. 

Though all of Printique's options are already high quality, you can upgrade to a Premium album which is built, bound, and printed a little differently so it has a luxurious feel through every page. Premium albums are customized similarly but have different design options available such as a metal album cover and are created with longevity in mind.

Browse all of Printique's photo books here .

You can purchase logo and accolade licensing to this story here . Disclosure: Written and researched by the Insider Reviews team. We highlight products and services you might find interesting. If you buy them, we may get a small share of the revenue from the sale from our partners. We may receive products free of charge from manufacturers to test. This does not drive our decision as to whether or not a product is featured or recommended. We operate independently from our advertising team. We welcome your feedback. Email us at [email protected] .

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CVS Photo Review

Cvs photo is a subsidiary of the cvs pharmacy. this connection enables same-day printing options and free shipping to the store. this digital photo printing site is well-designed and has an easy-to-navigate user interface..

Top Ten Reviews Verdict

CVS Photo has many features in common with the best digital photo printing services, but the quality of the prints we received was less than top notch and a few editing features are missing.

The photo editor is very easy to use, and ordering prints is a simple process.

CVS Photo does not offer live chat on its website.

Why you can trust Top Ten Reviews Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about how we test .

CVS Photo is a subsidiary of the CVS Pharmacy. This connection enables same-day printing options and free shipping to the store. This digital photo printing site is well-designed and has an easy-to-navigate user interface. We are impressed with some of its offerings, including holiday gifts and prints, as well as the ability to print photos directly from your Facebook account.

This digital photo printing site has one of the best uploading services. The site lets you upload photos from your computer, Facebook or Instagram. You can arrange your photos from oldest to newest, newest to oldest and how recently the images were modified.

Once you have the images uploaded into your cart, you can do several things. First, you can perform edits, including rotating the image, adding an effect like black and white or sepia. If you have previously edited your images in a photo editor, such as Photoshop, then you can skip this step and move on to putting together a slideshow, ordering prints or creating photo gifts.

CVS photo gives you the option of viewing a slideshow of your images. This slideshow is very minimal in that the only thing you can control is whether or not the photo's title and upload date are showing. You cannot add music, choose the amount of time a photo displays or even put the slideshow on repeat.

The gift shop has a variety of gifts perfect for all occasions, including the everyday or the special. Some of our favorite print options and photo gifts include photo books , poster-sized prints, a wall clock and a wall tapestry option.

While we would all love to be prepared in advance for holidays and special occasions, it just doesn't happen sometimes. But that's OK because this digital photo printing service has an Express Pick Up option. Simply order select prints, collages, cards, calendars and photo books online and pick them up at your local CVS pharmacy the same day.

CVS Photo lets you easily order photos directly from your Facebook account. You then choose the size and quantity of your photos, which will update your shopping cart. Once you have all of your images in the shopping cart, simply enter in your CVS Photo store information for pickup. You can also download the CVS/Pharmacy app and order prints whenever you want.

Keep in mind that many of the photos on Facebook are low resolution. In order to post high-resolution photos on Facebook, you need to mark the High Quality button when making a new album. From then on any high resolution photos placed in that album will not be as heavily reduced.

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The entire process – from uploading images for creating gifts, prints and slideshows to the ordering and checkout – is easy to figure out. The CVS Photo website is well designed, which makes navigation a breeze.

The CVS Photo Center help page offers all the standard support features, but it lacks a live chat option. A FAQs section is available and has well-written answers, but compared to the massive database of other online photo printing services, this page is easy to navigate and full of answers.

We are quite pleased with CVS Photo. The entire process from upload to order is simple. Although we found this online photo printing service to have a great list of features, we were not as thrilled with the quality of our prints.

Rebecca is a writer who has covered everything from photo books to graphic design and small kitchen appliances for Top Ten Reviews. Now a gaming writer for Future Labs, she's also contributed to big publications like TechRadar, Windows Central, Android Central, Reuters Legal Solutions Blog, iMore, and more. She no longer works for TTR.

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Photo Printing

Fast, pricey prints of varying quality.

Bottom Line

• One-hour local pickup
• No prepayment required; pay on pickup
• Good ordering interface
• Oversaturated colors and streaking in some test prints

Like Walgreens, CVS drugstores are ubiquitous, making them ideal pickup locations for photo prints. Just upload your pictures to CVS Photo's website, select the size and number of photos you want, and then pick them up the same day at a local store. Another similarity between CVS and Walgreens is that both charge more per print than most online photo printing services that deliver your pictures by mail. In fact, CVS Photo's minimum prices are the highest we've seen. Despite this premium, the quality of our CVS test prints is less consistent than what we got from Walgreens , which is our Editors' Choice winner for local-pickup one-hour photo printing. If you don't need same-day printing, our top pick for photo printing quality is Nations Photo Lab . And for good results at the lowest price, look to Walmart Photo .

How Much Do Photos Cost at CVS?

Prints from CVS Photo cost more than prints from its competitors, at 42 cents per 4-by-6-inch photo. Snapfish charges just 9 cents, and Amazon Prints cost 17 cents for that size. Other in-store pickup options also cost less. Walgreens Photo charges 39 cents, and Walmart Photo charges only 14 cents whether you have your photos mailed or pick them up in the store in an hour. As with most of these services, prices are frequently discounted, there are volume discounts, and you can often get online coupons. Like Walgreens, CVS no longer mails standard-size photo prints—it's in-store pickup only.

Larger sizes are also quite a bit pricier than competitors, with CVS's 5-by-7s ringing up at $2.99 each. That's more than Nations Photo Lab ($1.75) and Shutterfly (69 cents). At the 8-by-10 size, even the pro photo finisher Printique charges less ($2.65) than CVS ($4.49). That's quite a premium to pay for local pickup, but do keep in mind that you don't have to pay for shipping as you do with most services that mail your pictures. CVS Photo can make prints for you up to 24-by-36 inches in size.

What Else Can You Print On With CVS Photo?

As is the case with most online photo printing services, you can order more than just paper prints at CVS Photo. It offers standard options such as greeting cards , calendars, photo books, mugs, T-shirts, and wall canvases. You can also get images printed on blankets, potholders, mouse pads, and other items. For $40, you can get an apron festooned with multiple copies of your photo. CVS doesn't offer quite as massive a selection as Shutterfly does (personalized flowerpots, anyone?), though it's more than most people will ever need or want.

Ordering Prints at CVS Photo

It's easy to start ordering prints on CVS’s website. All you need is a name, email address, and password. The password requirements are stringent, with special characters required.

CVS's photo-ordering site sports a modern and clear interface that bears a strong resemblance to Snapfish. You can upload image files from your computer, but CVS doesn’t let you import photos from Facebook or Instagram. You can, however, connect your Google account to transfer photos from Google Photos .

Before you upload photos, you must create an album for them. By default, CVS Photo uses the current date as the album name. When uploading from your computer, you can select multiple files at once, and you can drag and drop files onto an album. JPGs and PNG files are allowed, but not TIFF, GIF, or HEIC/HEIF files. Because of its 100-megapixel limit, CVS rejected a 108-megapixel shot from my Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra, as did several other services, though Mpix , Snapfish, and Walgreens accepted it. Pharmacy competitor Walgreens also accepts HEIC/HEIF files, which I appreciate, as the newer format takes up half the storage on my phone without reducing image quality.

Once you've uploaded your pictures, CVS Photo has basic editing options similar to what you get in Walgreens Photo and identical to what you get in Snapfish. You can turn on auto color correction, contrast, and fill flash, and you can use sliders to adjust brightness and contrast. You can also apply a limited number of effect filters, including black and white, sepia, and color tints. Finally, you can crop and rotate the images.

You can share the albums you create via email or with a web link, and the resulting presentation is reasonably attractive. If you share it via email, the recipients have to have CVS online accounts to view your pictures, but sharing via a link doesn't come with that requirement.

I approve of CVS Photo's ordering page, which lets you enter a quantity for each size print you want all at once. Some services make you choose the prints and then choose the size for each separately. You can choose a matte finish, but not for in-store pickup, which is restricted to glossy. Before checking out, the site offers to get you to add a collage print of your photos to your order. You can pay either at online checkout or when you pick the prints up at the store.

CVS's estimated ready-for-pickup time was one hour after I placed my order. I received an email a little more than two hours later saying the photos were ready. When I got to the store, the staff hadn't actually printed my order yet, but they did it while I waited, which took only a few minutes.

Using the CVS Pharmacy Mobile App

The CVS Pharmacy Android and iOS apps let you order prints from photos stored on your phone or from images you've already uploaded to your CVS account. You don't get any cropping, editing, or special options with the mobile apps, but you can order printed gift objects like mugs and magnets. The app has a simple interface that makes it easy to get prints quickly in various sizes. You can't take screenshots because the app's security policy blocks it, likely because the CVS app contains personal health information, such as medications prescribed to you.

Testing CVS Photo's Print Quality

When I picked up my photos, they were loose in a manila envelope. I hand-carried them home, so this isn't such a big deal. Still, High-end photo processors usually ship photos in cardboard boxes or thick cardboard sleeves and give further protection to the photos with additional envelopes inside. I'm more disappointed that there is no text on the back of my test photos to indicate the filename or a title, something many other services add. That's not a deal-breaker, but it is an organization helper that I miss when it's not there.

CVS Photo produces impressive large prints on Kodak Moments paper, which is optimized for the printer used. My test photos are sharp and pleasing in general, but the smaller 4-by-6 prints have mechanical streaking and are a tad oversaturated. The 5-by-7 and 8-by-10 prints, however, are among the sharpest test prints of any service I tested, though the colors are inaccurate. Walgreens Photo yields less saturated colors but without any streaking.

In the portrait detail above, you can see the streaking in the CVS print. I placed the same order a second time to see if the problems would repeat; the new print doesn't have this much streaking, and the larger prints don't have it either.

In the larger 8-by-10 print from CVS, the detail is sharp, but the image is oversaturated.

Here's a crop of the original image file for comparison:

The second time I ordered a 4-by-6 (below), CVS returned a respectable image, one without the streaking I saw on the first try. However, the colors are still not as naturalistic as they are in the photos from other photo printing services, and there's less detail than the Walgreens print.

Here's the original image file:

Acceptable One-Hour Photos

Our test order at CVS cost more than competing photo printing services charge and significantly more than Amazon Prints, Snapfish, and Walmart Photo. Despite the high prices, the final results from CVS are acceptable, though inconsistent, and they fall short of what you get from the one-hour competition from Walgreens and Walmart. Our Editors' Choice winner for photo printing services offering one-hour local pickup is Walgreens Photo . If you don't need your photos in a hurry, Nations Photo Lab is our top choice, while Walmart Photo is our budget pick.

More Inside PCMag.com

• Walmart Photo
• Nations Photo Lab

About Michael Muchmore

PC hardware is nice, but it’s not much use without innovative software. I’ve been reviewing software for PCMag since 2008, and I still get a kick out of seeing what's new in video and photo editing software, and how operating systems change over time. I was privileged to byline the cover story of the last print issue of PC Magazine , the Windows 7 review, and I’ve witnessed every Microsoft win and misstep up to the latest Windows 11.

More From Michael Muchmore

• Adobe Lightroom
• Adobe Lightroom Classic
• Google Drive
• DaVinci Resolve
• How to Connect Your Android Phone to Your Windows 11 PC

Walmart Photos review

Walmart's software is severely limited, and its printed photo projects are lackluster.

Tom's Guide Verdict

Don't be tempted by Walmart's comparatively low prices. The software is severely limited, and the printed products are unimpressive.

Comparatively inexpensive

Easy photo editing

Severely limited software

Restrictive templates

Unimpressive printed products

Why you can trust Tom's Guide Our writers and editors spend hours analyzing and reviewing products, services, and apps to help find what's best for you. Find out more about how we test, analyze, and rate.

Walmart Photo’s software is based on Snapfish's (as is CVS Photo), but Walmart’s has none of Snapfish's creative flexibility, only a handful of its tools and options, and a bunch of its frustrations. What's more, Walmart’s photo book, card and calendar are unimpressive. Even though the prices are comparatively low, you get what you pay for. Spend a bit more with Mixbook or Printique , for great flexible software and far better print quality. Or, if you’re on a budget, wait for the periodic discounts at Mixbook.

• Best photo cards
• Best photo books
• Best photo calendars

Walmart review: Prices

Walmart photo book Our test 8 x 8-inch hardcover book cost $17.57. Other sizes of hardcover glossy books include 5 x 7 ($13.57) and 12 x 12 ($34.37). Hardcovers with matte covers start at $18.96 for a 5 x 7-inch book. Soft cover books run from 5 x 7 inches for $10.96 to 8 x 11 inches for $18.96. Additional style books include an 8 x 11-inch leather cover for $21.96, an 8 x 11-inch linen cover for $18.96, an 11 x 14-inch lay flat glossy for $54.96, and a 4 x 4-inch mini premium layflat for $11.96.

Walmart calendar Our test 8 x 11-inch 12-month centerfold wall calendar cost $17.47. Other sizes available are 11 x 14-inch ($25.86) and 12 x 12-inch ($22.42), plus a 10 x 5-inch desktop flip calendar ($13.84).

Walmart photo card A 5 x 7-inch card on premium card stock costs 87 cents regardless of how many you order. Envelopes printed with your return address are included. Special edge trims cost 10 cents each for round corners, and 20 cents each for “elegant” or scalloped trims.

Walmart review: Software

Walmart’s software is missing more than it offers. The software has no borders, drop shadows, shapes, cutouts, or a library of optional clip art.

Clip art and decorative text that are part of any book, calendar or card template are permanently fixed in place. While we couldn’t delete or move or add photos to any page, we could use the optional layouts to change the number of photos allowed. Unfortunately, the layouts are boring, with the fixed photo placeholders set firmly in a horizontal/vertical grid that can’t be altered. Nor can you add pictures by simply dragging and dropping. What’s more, you have to delete any photos that you have placed on a page before you can apply a new layout.

The book interface has only a few layouts, which meant if we wanted a three-photo book page, we were limited to a single layout. On the other hand, the calendar interface has a few hundred, ranging from text-only up to ten photos per page. Our card had only two layouts for the front (a choice between horizontal or landscape orientation) and 19 for the back, spread out over a wide range from text-only up to 12 photos per page.

One recent improvement is that you can now change the background color, but only if your template has solid color backgrounds rather than gradients or patterns. For my book template, that meant I could change the background color of my book spine, and nothing else.

With all these limits, I was pleasantly surprised that I could add text anywhere on my projects. And the text tool has most of the options you’d expect. In addition, Walmart uses a full 24-bit picker, as well as HEX or RGB designation. The same recently used colors are displayed in both the solid background and text windows, for greater consistency.

Walmart’s calendar software now allows you to change the calendar grid background from white to a solid color. However, since our selected calendar template uses pattern backgrounds for the upper page (which can’t be sampled or changed), and the top and bottom of a month spread are displayed separately, we couldn’t determine what background color I should pick for the date grid to match or blend with the upper page. It was safer to leave the grid page white.

Walmart review: Print Quality

Walmart photo book The Walmart photo book looks and feels cheap. The end papers are black textured paper, with no flyleaf. Even after we opened it a couple of times, the binding started to separate. 

The semi-gloss paper is a bit thin with a smooth feel. The photos have a red-orange color shift that was unappealing in some pictures. The dynamic range was suppressed, with some loss of detail in shadows and reduced contrast overall. And a number of photos are a bit soft. Type has some bleed at margins and the edges are slightly jagged.

Walmart calendar The photos in our Walmart calendar were uneven. In some, color was appealing, though warmer than the originals. In others, skin tones had an ugly orange hue shift. While sharpness is generally okay, a number of pictures exhibit loss of detail in the shadows. The dot pattern is noticeable magnifying what is already some jagged type. The paper is thick and smooth, but feels cheap.

Walmart photo cards While not great, our Walmart card has print quality that was above average. The photos were crisp with good contrast, though colors had a shift to yellow. The type had messy edges and ink dropouts. The smooth paper was weighty, with a pleasant feel.

Please note: The above print quality analyses don’t apply to Walmart’s cards or calendars that are printed in-store, for pick up within a day. Those are simply one-sided photo prints (for the cards) and bound one-sided photographic enlargements (for the calendars.)

Walmart review: Verdict

Walmart’s photo products are priced for the budget-conscious, though not as low as Costco Photo Center . The software has little to be desired. And given the photo quality of our book and calendar were below average, we can’t recommend buying yours from Walmart. However, our Walmart card has slightly better photo quality than Costco.

So, if you are on a strict budget, and don’t care about creating a customized card, a Walmart photo card might be the right fit for you. But for anyone who wants to enjoy creating a fully customized book, calendar or card, check out Mixbook or Printique for flexible, versatile software and top-quality printing. If you want to save money, wait for Mixbook’s frequent discounts and coupons.

Sally Wiener Grotta is the president and lead analyst of DigitalBenchmarks test lab (www.DigitalBenchmarks.com). The scripts she created for various tech publications for testing and evaluating digital cameras, image quality, software and related technologies have become industry standards. Among her numerous books is the first major volume on image processing “Digital Imaging for Visual Artists” (McGraw-Hill), co-authored with Daniel Grotta. Her hundreds of reviews, stories and columns have appeared in scores of magazines, journals and online publications.

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Stanley Goldstein, Who Helped Make CVS a Pharmacy Giant, Dies at 89

The small chain that he, a brother and a third partner opened in 1963 had become the nation’s largest by the time he retired as its chief executive three decades later.

By Trip Gabriel

Stanley P. Goldstein, who in the early 1960s helped start a retail chain named Consumer Value Stores, which, after shortening its name to CVS — because, he said, fewer letters meant cheaper signs — grew into the largest drugstore chain in the United States, died on Tuesday at his home in Providence, R.I. He was 89.

The company, which is headquartered in Rhode Island, announced his death. Family members told The Providence Journal that the cause was cancer, diagnosed about a month ago.

Mr. Goldstein was frequently described as informal and no-nonsense — much like the airy, brightly lit outlets that he, a brother and a third founder opened in 1963 to sell cut-price toothpaste, aftershave, Band-Aids and other personal care products.

When he retired as chief executive in 1998, the company had more than 4,000 stores. Today, it has more than 9,000 outlets in the United States and its territories, and its revenues are larger than those of Exxon Mobil, Microsoft and Ford.

Mr. Goldstein, who graduated from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 1955, at first had little enthusiasm for retail sales, a business that he knew, from the experience of his father, Israel Goldstein, was cutthroat. Instead, he became a stockbroker.

But when Mr. Goldstein’s father died, his brother Sidney persuaded him to help take over the father’s struggling enterprise, which had begun by selling bags and other paper products to grocery stores and had branched out to offer sundry health and beauty aids, displayed near the cash registers.

The business barely broke even because big wholesalers had begun selling the same merchandise to grocery stores, undercutting the Goldsteins.

The brothers, along with Ralph Hoagland, a product of Harvard Business School who had worked for Procter & Gamble, came up with a new approach: a stand-alone store specializing in discount personal care items.

The first Consumer Value Store opened in a low-income neighborhood of Lowell, Mass., a former manufacturing hub that the Goldsteins and Mr. Hoagland figured would welcome reduced-price merchandise. A sign told customers that they could save even more money by bagging their own purchases. A second store followed, in Haverhill, Mass.

For the sake of trimming costs on signage, the name was soon abbreviated. “All those letters cost a lot of money, so we shortened it to CVS,” Stanley Goldstein recalled in The Providence Journal in 2017.

The chain rapidly expanded to 42 stores, including the first with pharmacies. In 1969, the company was sold to the Melville Corporation, a retailing giant whose chains included Thom McAn shoes, K-B Toys and Marshalls discount clothing.

That year, Mr. Hoagland, whose politics were shaped by the 1960s counterculture, left the company after an article in The Boston Globe angered some Melville directors by reporting that he had given money to a faction of the antiwar Students for a Democratic Society. Mr. Goldstein became CVS’s president, the title Mr. Hoagland had held in the early years.

“Ralph was the wild man who’d push the envelope,” Mr. Goldstein later recalled of CVS’s early days. “Sid was quite conservative. And I was in the middle.”

Stanley Goldstein was born on June 5, 1934, in Woonsocket, R.I., one of four sons of Israel and Etta (Halpern) Goldstein. The family home was the ground floor of a three-family building known in working-class New England at the turn of the last century as a triple-decker , a structure that largely housed immigrants, who had been arriving in waves.

He married Merle Katz in 1960. She survives him, as do two sons, Larry and Gene, and four grandchildren. His brother Sidney, who retired from CVS in 1987, died in 1995.

CVS grew rapidly by buying regional drugstore chains and opening new locations. It became Melville’s largest division, and Mr. Goldstein’s role with the corporate parent expanded. In 1986, he became president and chief executive of Melville, which was based in Rye, N.Y. A year later, at age 52, he was named chairman.

But in 1995, Mr. Goldstein determined that Melville had grown unwieldy and needed to be broken up. Marshalls was sold to the corporate parent of T.J. Maxx. The shoe and toy stores were spun off. As chairman, he retained CVS, changing the name Melville to CVS Corporation, and moved its offices to Woonsocket, R.I.

After stepping away from active leadership, Mr. Goldstein remained on the CVS board through 2006.

Trip Gabriel is a national correspondent. He covered the past two presidential campaigns and has served as the Mid-Atlantic bureau chief and a national education reporter. He formerly edited the Styles sections. He joined The Times in 1994. More about Trip Gabriel