The Ritz photo chain has been around for more than 100 years, and the company still sells camera equipment, but now only online. Ritz’s web-based photo printing service, RitzPix, delivers decent quality photos at middle-of-the-road prices. The company has improved the site and service since our last review, adding new editing tools and ordering systems, as well as offering a very-low-cost shipping option. It’s a decent service overall, but it doesn’t stand out in any way.
How Much Do RitzPix Prints Cost?
RitzPix’s list price of 24 cents per 4-by-6 photo print is in the middle of the range, which extends from 9 cents (from Snapfish, York Photo Labs, and Walmart) to 33 cents (Mpix) among similar services. (All of RitzPix’s prices are occasionally heavily discounted: For example, at the time of writing, 4-by-6s are just 10 cents each.) For larger sizes, RitzPix costs more than its low-cost competitors, with list prices of $3.25 cents for 5-by-7s and $5.29 for 8-by-10 enlargements. That compares with just 58 cents for a 5-by-7 and $1.79 for an 8-by-10 at Amazon Prints. The higher-end services cost more, as you’d expect. Mpix charges $1.39 for a 5-by-7, and $2.99 for 8-by-10s. RitzPix also requires a minimum order of $5, before tax and shipping—something I haven’t seen from other providers.
Printing Gifts and Cards
Like Shutterfly, RitzPix offers a smorgasbord of products onto which you can emblazon your photos. You can choose the obvious books, cards, and calendars; but there are also gifts such as mugs, tee shirts, keychains, placemats, trivets, iPhone cases, and even neckties. RitzPix offers photo holiday cards starting at 90 cents for a single-sided postcard. Folding cards cost $2.49 for a batch of 1 to 12, and that goes down to $2.10 for over 175 pieces. Those prices are competitive, though you find cheaper ones at Walmart Photo, which charges just 38 cents for flat 5-by-7s and $1.42 for folding cards.
Getting an account is simple: You can sign in using your Facebook credentials or create an account with an email and password. There’s no need to enter credit card info until you’re ready to purchase printed pictures.
Photo Uploading and Ordering Interface
Ritz’s web interface is somewhat behind the leaders in online photo print ordering, though it’s improved over the last couple of years. You can import your Facebook and Instagram photos, which is convenient, but you can’t use drag-and-drop to get pictures from a folder to the site, and some operations are slow. You always upload to an album, and your first is created automatically for you. A clear, orange Upload Photos button gets you started. You can choose between Medium and Original upload options. Only the latter option uploads full-resolution image files.
You can upload only JPGs and PNGs, with a maximum file size of 40MB. That limit matches Nations Photo Lab’s, while Printique lets you upload images of up to 200MB, and Mpix doesn’t put a size limit on uploads. RitzPix doesn’t accept TIFF files, which the more pro-level services like Nations and Printique allow.
You can share your uploaded photo collections via RitzPix, but you have to go into the Settings page and enable public links for that to work. After you do this, a Share icon appears above the collection, letting you enter email addresses for sharing. You can even set a password for an intermediate level of privacy. RitzPix’s sharing is not, on the whole, as clear and functional as Amazon’s or Printique’s online galleries.
When choosing images and sizes for printing on RitzPix, you select all the photos you want to print and then choose a size. The company has made adding different sizes easier, using Plus and Minus buttons next to the options. That said, it still takes too long for the operation to complete, though at least you can see progress with a green line that extends across the top of the browser window.
Editing and Customizations
An Edit button links to online photo editor img.ly with your image loaded (this replaces PicMonkey, the site’s former tool that used the now-deprecated Adobe Flash). Img.ly offers a good selection of lighting and color fixes and effects, even boasting layer effects such as text and stickers.
After you’ve chosen your images and sizes, you see a cropping page, showing how all the photos will be laid out on the paper. If your original has a different aspect ratio from the paper, it gets cropped. RitzPix handles this admirably: You get a choice of Full Bleed or Fit to Page. The former fills the entire print with your image, cropping any overhang. Fit to Page produces a letterbox effect, leaving some white borders along one side but not cropping out any of your image. Only Printique handled this situation as well, among services I tested.
On the next page in the process, you can increase the number of prints. After that, you get a choice of borders and glossy or matte finish. Personally, I’m a fan of the white borders, especially because they don’t reduce the image size, though they may not fit into standard photo frames.
RitzPix used to charge more than other services for shipping, but now it offers a very affordable ground shipping option. For my order of 25 pictures, the Ground option cost just $2.99, with an approximation of 10-12 business days for delivery. That’s the slowest processing of any service. The expedited option brings the delivery time down to 5-to-7 business days but increases the shipping fee to $23.49. The service lets you pay with PayPal, saving you from digging out plastic and entering all those digits.
Mobile Photo-Uploading Apps
Ritz offers an iPhone app that lets you upload photos from your phone and order prints. Android users must use the website, which works acceptably, if not optimally, in a mobile browser. I successfully uploaded photos from my Gallery on an Android phone and created a print order. The iOS experience is more tailored to the smaller mobile screen but doesn’t offer any additional functionality.
The Photo Results
Most photo printers give you a shipment tracking number so that you know approximately when your pictures will arrive. Not so with RitzPix. The best you get is an estimate of how many days each shipping option takes (see above). My RitzPix order of 20-odd prints arrived in 10 days—longer than any other service took. The company packs photos in a thick overnight envelope with two cardboard inserts—better packaging than Amazon and York Photo Labs’ thin envelopes. Inside, the photos were in a paper sleeve, which is not as protective as the thick cardboard that Mpix and Printique use, but it’s acceptable.
RitzPix printed my test photos on Fuji Crystal Archive paper. I prefer the services that use Kodak Endura paper (Nations and Printique), which is a heavier stock. On the back RitzPix prints an inscrutable string of letters and numbers. It’s more helpful when services print useful information on the back. Shutterfly and Printique excel here, letting you choose between adding a title or having the filename appear on the back of the photo.
The image quality of my 4-by-6 prints is more than acceptable, with good sharpness and accurate colors. Despite a few quibbles, I am quite pleased with the overall quality of RitzPix’s photo printing. There are no major discolorations, sharpness issues, or oversaturation.
In the mountain scene below, you can see that the RitzPix print shows good detail in the dark green areas and doesn’t oversaturate the sky the way Walgreens did, nor does it oversharpen the mountains the way York Photo Labs did. Mpix and Walmart Photo do, however, show more detail in the lighter tan mountain area in the background.
In the portrait with the red hat, RitzPix delivers one of the best results. It preserves the felt details in the hat, and the colors are accurate. The Walmart Photo shot here is a little sharper, and the Mpix gets more felt-texture detail in the hat. The Amazon result is completely washed out.
Puttin’ on the Ritz?
For average prices, RitzPix delivers decent prints in good packaging. But its web interface is slow, and the processing and shipping take longer than the other services we tested. For the best print quality, look to our Editors’ Choice winners for high-quality photo printing services, Mpix and Printique. For cheaper prices, head to our value Editors’ Choice services, Snapfish and Walmart Photo, which have spiffier web interfaces than RitzPix along with good print quality.
