However, the pages had a shiny finish, which looked nice but caused ink and markers to smear when we wrote on it. We also liked the build quality of the calendar it had a simple but sturdy spiral binding and the cover and inside pages were pleasantly thick. Our only criticism is that reds were oversaturated in the calendar, which gave a flushed look to people's faces. The photos above the monthly grids inside the calendar were consistently good, matching the quality of our first and second place calendar finishers, Mixbook and Printique, respectively. The cover photo nailed the color of a street scene we shot in Italy with the yellow of the girl’s dress and the yellow of the building behind her rendered accurately - it was nearly identical to how it looked in the original image. Vistaprint’s calendar was more impressive than we expected, given how affordable it was. When ordering a photo book, be sure to check out Printique's shipping information and deadlines, so you know how long to expect before it arrives. Otherwise, Printique’s calendar was the most visually striking of all we created.
While we’re looking forward to displaying the calendar in 2024, hopefully the pages – which were the thinnest of all the calendars – survive being flipped throughout the year. Given the outstanding print quality of the calendar, we were a taken aback with how thin the pages were, particularly the flimsy front cover. We paid $34.99 for a 12x18-inch, wall hanging calendar, which was less expensive than some of the smaller calendars we ordered from the other companies. Printique’s calendar pricing though was a pleasant surprise. But it wasn’t what we initially wanted, which was disappointing. So, instead, we tried Printique’s Modern style template, and the result was a gorgeous, professional-looking calendar filled with our photos from a recent trip to Italy. In particular, we had a tough time placing photos correctly into the basic “Build your own” design with the images often overlapping with the grid of the calendar. It’s software, however, is a slog to use, which drops Printique to second place for calendars.
Printique is still the top dog when it comes to photo calendar print quality. Best photo qualityĬalendar has flimsiest cover and pages of all we reviewed If you order a photo book from Mixbook, be sure to check out Mixbook's shipping information and deadlines It's the second-priciest offering behind Shutterfly’s, but we felt that the quality and usability of Mixbook’s calendars were worth the cost. Mixbook's calendar is a bit higher priced than some of the competition, however. We also appreciated the variety of ways to customize your calendar including 139 design templates and tools to adjust borders, drop shadows and image opacity. If you get stuck, Mixbook even has a live chat feature. If you’re intimidated about designing a calendar, Mixbook takes out the stress with clear and fun-to-use software that helps make the process a breeze. Similarly, writing on the calendar grid was crisp, with no smudging. Mixbook’s calendars were on the same level as its photo books subjects, from portraits to landscapes, were consistently pleasing and accurate. Our images included a variety of landscapes, cityscapes and candid portraits in the Tuscany region of Italy.