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Most of the photo-card printing services we review are consumer-focused, with an emphasis on sharing and gifting picture products. GotPrint is an exception to that rule; it's more of a business-oriented print service. As such, its software isn't as user-friendly, and it works with higher-volume print orders. Nonetheless, it delivers a very-good-quality postcard at a great price.
Specs
Import photos from: Facebook, Google Drive, Google Photos, Dropbox, Flickr, or a QR code
Templates & layouts: Fully editable templates. No layouts necessary
Backgrounds: A good sized and varied library
Clip art: Comparatively small collection, but a step above in quality
Text: Fully customizable but ungainly controls
Creating Your Card
GotPrint's online design interface looks more like a professional layout program than consumer-oriented graphics software. The profusion of icons and controls may be confusing for novices, but pop-up tips help users become more familiar with the way the software works.
MORE: The Best Photo Card Services
With a focus on business rather than consumer products, GotPrint's template categories tend to be related to marketing. For example, they include Automotive, Beauty & Wellness, and Music & the Arts. All of the elements in the templates are fully editable. You can also upload your own completed design, which is what many GotPrint clients do. (For uploaded designs, GotPrint does an excellent job of maintaining proper color management for accurate color reproduction.)
To add a photo, clip art or background to your postcard, simply drag and drop it. You can delete, replace, resize, move and rotate everything, including text. However, text editing is nonintuitive and clumsy.
While GotPrint has no search engine for clip art, backgrounds or templates as Mixbook does, the libraries are nicely varied; they have a much wider selection of categories than most programs. For instance, Holidays extend beyond the usual common celebrations (such as Halloween or Christmas) to include Rosh Hashana, Ramadan, Mardi Gras and others.
Backgrounds include both photographic and illustrated styles. The quantity of clip art may be limited, but it is a step above typical illustrations, with more of a sense of humor or personality. However, they tend to be small files, and GotPrint warns against enlarging them because the original files don't have a high enough resolution to be printed larger.
The Printed Card
Our GotPrint party-invitation postcard had very nice color, great clarity and rich contrast.
The photo quality was very appealing and had a good dynamic range, though there was some loss of detail in the shadows.
The type was clear, with clean, crisp edges and well-formed letters. The card stock was of substantial weight and glossy on both sides.
Price and Options
GotPrint does large print runs, but the prices are so reasonable that it's worth ordering more than you expect to need. For instance, our double-sided 4 x 6-inch postcards cost only 26.4 cents each for 100 cards. By comparison, Mixbook charges $1.15 per card for an order of 100 cards.If you get 500 cards from GotPrint, they cost 9.4 cents each.
GotPrint offers a wide selection of postcard sizes, from the standard 4 x 6 inches and 5 x 7 inches up to 3.5 x 8 inches and even as large as 9 x 12 inches. It also offers a long list of other photo products, such as business cards, brochures, booklets, collector cards, event tickets, flyers, mini menus, stickers and banners.
Bottom Line
GotPrint is targeted more to business and marketing customers than to consumers looking to create photo projects. In other words, if you're not familiar with photo-printing services, or you want to have fun designing your postcard, use Mixbook. However, GotPrint delivers a high-quality postcard at a great price.
Credit: Tom's Guide
