Ease of Use - Ordering Process:  

We love how easy it is to upload digital photos to York Photo; the step-by-step print ordering process is a cinch to follow. We feel that anyone, regardless of computer experience, can order prints from this site without problems.

You can upload your photos to York three different ways. You can use the basic one-by-one method, download the small Java application that allows you to upload multiple photos and videos at once, or you can download York’s free desktop manager and organizer that enables you to manage your photos directly from your desktop without getting online to York’s website.

We also liked that at the end of the ordering process, York suggested we change our print size to 4x5.3, a size better suited for pictures taken with a digital camera and requires less cropping.

Quality of Prints:  

We sent the following three digital photos to every online photo developer we reviewed. We did not feel that one company in our review merited a perfect score. These prints are well done and the average user would have minimal criticisms.

• Sunset: On its own, and not being compared to some of the other services, our sunset photo from York would look great. The reds and yellows in the background are vibrant and well lit. However, next to some of the other photos evaluated in this review, our models seem just a bit darker and shadowed. Take a look at our comparative shots from York Photo.

• Black and White: Our black and white image was printed with a little more yellow undertone than we would have liked, but to the untrained eye, this is not a distracting problem. Take a look at our comparative shots from York Photo.

• Aerial: York Photo cleaned up our foggy aerial shot well. The buildings are crisp and clean with only a slight amount of yellowing on the buildings in the foreground. Take a look at our comparative shots from York Photo.

Note: To compare quality, we took each set of prints received from the online photo developer and laid them down side-by-side to compare quality.

Service and Site Features:  

York Photo supports album sharing and group rooms for free. Sharing allows you to send your photos and albums to friends and family. A group room is a place where you and your loved ones can upload photos from other accounts and here, York hosts the space. This way, you can all order prints from each other’s albums.

York has a small editing application online that allows for minor alterations like red eye removal, cropping and tinting. York Photo also has a decent selection of photo-based gifts including aprons, baby bibs, calendars, ceramic mugs, pillow cases, golf towels, mouse pads, neckties, puzzles, t-shirts and more. Slideshows are also available from York, adding a nice bonus feature that you can share with your friends and family.

York Photo’s free photo software, PhotoShow Express, is an easy to use application that installs directly to your desktop. You can use PhotoShow to organize and manage your photos and albums without going online. PhotoShow can import photos directly from your camera, perform minor editing and touch-ups, create slideshows and more.

York doesn’t charge for hi-resolution downloads. You can download up to 50 pictures at a time from your account directly to your hard drive. This is great if you want to put a picture on your blog or set an image as wallpaper or a screen saver.

YorkPhoto considers accounts without any purchases on them for more than 365 days as “inactive” and will delete your albums.

Our photos from York were one of the first to arrive. There were only 3 days between the date we ordered and the date the photos were delivered.

YorkPhoto.com ships your finished prints to you in a paper sleeve reinforced with a lightweight cardboard insert, which is then placed in a paper envelope. Although this is cheaper packaging compared to other printing services, our photos arrived without incident.

Technical Support:  

York Photo has a complete list of FAQs along with the top ten most frequently asked questions. A phone support line is not available, though they do offer the standard email route. The help page on York’s website does mention that they can be reached by fax, though we could find no fax number

York Photo is a great digital photo printing service if you are looking for something simple and inexpensive. We would like to see them start providing customers with the option to send their orders to local photo printers. On the whole, York Photo proved to be a quality service that was easy to use.