Recently, I was provided with a $50 gift card to try out Walgreens Photo Center. Since I recently just got back from vacation, it was a perfect opportunity for me to make a vacation photobook.
One of the great things I loved about Walgreens Photo Center right off the bat is that the majority of photo products are ready in one hour. In addition, Walgreens is open 24 hours a day, meaning you can get your photo products almost instantly. For example, I actually finished my photobook at 1 am and the photobook was ready at 2 am. I didn’t actually go out at 2 am to get them, but I liked the convenience.
While browsing the website, I realized that they also do “save the date” cards and they were having a sale on all photo cards. Since I was just about to start shopping for “save the date” cards, this worked out perfectly. I printed my cards, and still had some money left over for the photobook.
I was pretty impressed with the quality of the cards. The only one downside was that if you want to do store pick up, the only option available is the glossy cards. If you wanted matte, you need to have them shipped. I would have preferred the matte cards, but I didn’t want to wait or pay for shipping, so I ended up going with the glossy ones. The photo we chose came out really clear even though we used a small photo that we scanned in.
They have photobooks which require shipping and ones which can be picked up at the store in an hour. I did the basic one that can be picked up in an hour. For $19.99, I was able to choose a hard black cover and have 20 pages to play with. You can put one large photo on a page, or a few small ones. They also give you a few different options on how to arrange the photos on the page.
Some of the photos printed out quite pixelated even though I used high quality pictures. I haven’t printed many photo books before so I’m not sure if this is something that usually happens. The photobook quality was pretty basic. I’ve had better quality ones made but they also cost me a lot more.
I received the $50 gift card as part of being a member of Foodbuzz’s Tastemaker program. I was not compensated for my review and my opinions are my own.
i’ve printed photobooks through snapfish and kodak and the system warns if a photo is not high res enough. it shouldn’t be pixelated.. that’s weird, though i’ve never made a walgreens’ photo book
I used super high res photos for my taiwan trip so I don’t think resolution should have been any issue. I know what you mean about the warning. I previously made ones with other companies and they would warn me about low resolution photos. The picture we used for the save date card was actually a little low on resolution and came out fine so I don’t know what went wrong with the photobook.
Glossy paper usually helps photos print better…but if you have a high res, there shouldn’t be pixelation unless they didn’t use the full resolution or their printer isn’t high quality? I haven’t had any trouble with snapfish or cvs.
The photobook paper isn’t glossy
I got one of these for my 1 year anniversary — which makes sense because the traditional gift is “paper”. Some of the photos in mine were pixelated too… not sure why that happened.
Yeah I dont know about the pixelated photos. I was wondering if it is because of the backgrounds on the photo pages interfering with the picture.