Editor's Note: This review has been removed from our side-by-side comparison because it no longer ranks as a top 10 product. The original review is below, but check out our current top 10 about Digital Photo Printing here.
ImageStation is a decent online photo developing service that offers quick turnaround times and is fairly easy to use. But we were unhappy with the quality of prints we received back from ImageStation and felt the service did not offer enough extras.
We found the process of uploading files to ImageStation was really pretty easy, but hit a snag when we went to place our order. We entered our personal information as required and submitted it, but then were asked to provide the name of the country we lived in later on. We found this annoying and felt that if this was necessary information, it should have been asked the first time we entered our information.
We sent each photo development service we reviewed the same digital pictures so that we might judge them as fairly and consistently as possible. The prints we received back from ImageStation were okay overall, but were somewhat darker than the original digital pictures we submitted, see comments below:
Below are the original photos. Click to Enlarge
Below are the prints developed by ImageStation. Click to Enlarge
- People Inside: This print is slightly darker and softer than the original picture, causing it to offer less detail and alter the colors (i.e. the vibrancy of the blouses).
- Building Outside: We felt this print is slightly darker in color and has a large amount of the detail that's present in the original picture.
- People Outside: Although this print was slightly darker overall and there was some loss of detail as compared to the original, we felt some of the colors did stay fairly consistent.
Note: To check quality, we took each set of prints received from the online photo developer and laid them down, side-by-side for comparison.
ImageStation charged us $1.99 to ship us five 4 x 6 inch prints—the actual postage for USPS First Class is $.83, which left $1.16 for packaging and handling costs. Although this is a fairly high price as compared to our top picks, this charge was actually quite comparable to the majority of the services we reviewed.
ImageStation shipped us our prints in a lightweight, cardboard sleeve that was wrapped in a similarly lightweight, cardboard envelope.
ImageStation does have fast order fulfillment and shipping times, decent pricing and is easy to use, but it will need to increase the quality of its prints to score any better with us.
