Mixbook review
Our Verdict
You won't go incorrect with Mixbook. It has great software, reasonable prices, and produced a lovely volume, agenda and carte du jour. Still, Printique edged Mixbook out for the top prize as the all-time overall online impress service. We recommend checking both company's prices and styles earlier choosing the one yous'll utilise.
For
- Versatile, flexible, creative software
- Easy to apply
- Bonny fully editable templates
- Generous searchable libraries of great backgrounds, templates, layouts and clip art
Against
- No drib shadow for text
- Weak upshot management for calendars
Tom's Guide Verdict
You won't go wrong with Mixbook. It has great software, reasonable prices, and produced a lovely book, calendar and menu. Still, Printique edged Mixbook out for the peak prize as the best overall online print service. We recommend checking both visitor'due south prices and styles before choosing the one you'll use.
Pros
- +
Versatile, flexible, creative software
- +
Piece of cake to use
- +
Attractive fully editable templates
- +
Generous searchable libraries of dandy backgrounds, templates, layouts and clip fine art
Cons
- -
No drop shadow for text
- -
Weak outcome management for calendars
In past years, Mixbook has often won the top ratings in our almanac tests of online services. Even so, Mixbook was edged out by Printique this twelvemonth, though it was by a very close margin. Both produce lovely products, and have software that's powerful and versatile, providing only almost all the tools necessary to enable users' inventiveness, while also being easy for novices to master.
Yet, while our Mixbook book, calendar and cards accept vivid, lively photos, and expert impress quality, Printique's colors were more authentic with richer blacks. Another important differentiator are their prices, with the toll advantage seesawing between the two, depending on the product and volume that y'all plan to buy. Whatsoever photograph product you lot're planning to create and buy, you won't go incorrect with Mixbook, but check out Printique, too.
- Best photo books
- Best photograph calendars
- Best photograph cards
Mixbook review: Prices
Mixbook photo books
Mixbook charges $29.99 for an 8.five x 8.5-inch hardcover book with a glossy cover. A matte cover costs $v.00 more, and a matte grit jacket costs $five.00. Other size hardcovers include 8.5 x 11 (from $39.99) 12 x 12 (from $69.99) and fourteen x 11 inches (from $79.99). Softcover books start at eight x 6 for $15.99, while layflat books starting time at $79 for an eight.5 x 8.five-inch volume. Leather covered books with a matte dust jacket run from viii ten 8 inches for $44.99 to 14 x eleven for $114.99.
Mixbook calendars
A Mixbook agenda costs $24.99 for an xi x eight.5-inch calendar. A 12 x 12-inch calendar costs $29.99, and a xiv 10 11-inch calendar costs $34.99.
Mixbook photo cards
Mixbooks's cards are priced on a sliding scale by volume, and vary depending on what cardstock y'all choose. A v ten 7-inch menu on its Signature Matte cardstock costs $2.39 each for up to ix cards. 25 cards are $ii.11 each, 50 cards $1.76 each, 100 cards $one.62 each, and so forth. Paper choices include Satin Finish (for 60 cents less per card for the everyman volume), Premium Matte (for 50 cents more per bill of fare) and Luxe Lath (for $1.50 more per card). All cards include blank envelopes. Y'all'll pay 25 cents each to accept your return address printed on the envelopes.
Mixbook review: Software
Mixbook'south software is powerful, versatile, and a delight to apply, offering both a wide breadth and a depth of features. The easy-to-apply interfaces for creating books, cards and calendars are essentially identical, with only a few project-specific differences, such as managing events for calendars.
Mixbook's attractive templates are fully editable, and so I could manipulate all elements, every bit well as delete them and add together others. As with Printique, you lot just click on a moving picture to access a whole slew of photo edit tools. Mixbook's extensive libraries of content are well-organized and searchable past keyword as they are in Printique, simply Mixbooks's clip art is more attractive and versatile. Also similar to Printique: whatsoever prune art and backgrounds that I tried in my volume were saved in Project areas of the relevant sidebars. In fact, if I really liked a graphic in Mixbook, I could favorite it so I could use it in other projects. To unleash my creativity, I could have uploaded my own photos or other graphics to my background and prune fine art libraries – a feature unique to Mixbook. While the easy drop shadows for pictures and clip art may be whatsoever color, with icons for choosing the amount, Mixbook has no drop shadow for text.
Unlike Costco'southward impuissant borders, Mixbook's compact but robust border tool has a 14-step slider for width. The two-windows of the 24-flake color picker included a hex value, a recently used department and an eyedropper to sample color from anywhere on my screen. This gave me full control over my color selection for borders, drop shadows, text and solid backgrounds.
For my calendar, I could use all of Mixbook'southward features and tools non only on the pinnacle folio, but also for the bottom date grid page. Therefore, similar Printique and Shutterfly, in addition to changing backgrounds backside my calendar grid, I could add clip art and photos, behind or in front of the grid.
Equally with the cards and book interface, I could also overstate my clip art and photos with one click then they became the background of a agenda folio.
Any picture I dropped onto the agenda grid automatically resized to fit the appointment box, and I had access to all of Mixbook'due south photo editing tools for the picture in that engagement box. Merely the convenience concluded in that location. To add text to a date box, I had to go into the Events Director window, where all I could practise was create or edit an upshot proper name for a specific date, and I had no control over the text font, color or size, nor could I handle the date photos in that window.
The one advantage of the Events Manager is that it holds onto my important events for apply in time to come calendars.
Mixbook review: Impress Quality
Mixbook photo books
Mixbook produced a lovely book with a velvety matte cover that has a pleasant feel. The good quality semi-gloss paper has a squeamish weight (though not equally thick every bit Shutterfly). The bonny end papers have a good weight and the feel of velum. The binding is solid and well-done.
Overall the photos were very highly-seasoned with good midtone density and balance between the various skintones, but the pictures weren't equally lively as in the Printique book. The interior photos had a rich, lush color due to the stiff midtones. They display a warm color shift that's pleasant.
The embrace photos were also attractive merely with a slight blue shift. The cover's matte end caused a suppression of midtones, though the shadows and highlights had plenty of detail and balance. The interior photos were very nicely exposed with first-class details through the dynamic range, though they didn't have Printique's bright midtones. Focus was sharp and articulate, and the type was clean, crisp and well-formed.
Mixbook calendar
The lovely photos on the Mixbook agenda were well-balanced between the dark and lite skintones. Nonetheless, the colors were slightly warmer than Printique, and though they are attractive, Printique'south agenda photos had more than accurate color. The exposure was very good, with a nice density throughout the highlights, midtones and shadows. But, it didn't have the rich blacks of Printique, which reduces the contrast.
Images were sharp, but not quite as sharp as Printiique. Type was just okay, with no full crispness. The lovely paper was shine, and had a proficient weight.
Mixbook photo cards
The Mixbook menu was bonny, with a nice quality feel. The highly-seasoned colors were very shut to Printique's. However, the front end of the card had an exposure residue trouble betwixt the nighttime and light complexions, with good details in the shadows and highlights, just overexposed midtones.
The type had clean edges and was well formed. The card stock is a proficient weight with a nice tactile feel, like to Printique's.
Mixbook review: Verdict
While Printique got our nod for the all-time print service (beating out Mixbook by a narrow margin), you lot can't go wrong with Mixbook. Y'all'll be proud of the quality of your printed Mixbook volume, calendar or card, and you'll enjoy making it because the software gives you all the tools you'll want without bogging y'all down. The difference between the two came down to print quality. By and large speaking, in books and calendars, Printique'southward print quality is excellent; Mixbook'southward is merely quite beautiful. In photo cards, they were in a dead heat, with very skillful but non elevation-notch impress quality.
The other significant difference is pricing, depending on the product and volume you society. Printique'south least expensive hardcover books are considerably pricier than Mixbook'southward. That's because the only hardcovers that Prinque offers are layflats which toll more than to produce than Mixbook'southward traditional stitched hardcover books. On the other hand, Mixbook's layflat and softcover books are more expensive than Printique'due south.
Their calendars are priced quite similarly, when you have into business relationship the variation in sizes between the two. Comparing prices is more than complicated. For a pocket-size number of cards, Printique has the better cost and information technology's the aforementioned regardless of what paper stock you lot cull, but there'due south no discount for volume. Mixbook'due south cards are more than expensive for a small volume purchase, with different prices depending on the paper stock. But when yous get above 50 to 100 cards (depending on the stock), Mixbook'southward prices tend to exist lower.
So, when choosing between the two, if absolute photo excellence is your merely criteria, go with Printique for your volume or calendar. If you'll exist happy with beautiful rather than fantabulous photos in your book or agenda, get with the company that has the best prices for the book or calendar and volume you want.
Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/reviews/mixbook
Posted by: jacksonthaintrack.blogspot.com
0 Response to "Mixbook review"
Post a Comment