Photomax.com offers reliable photo printing and easy online sharing – and so do many other online photo services. But I rarely use photo services, preferring instead to print photos at home. The instant gratification feeds my creativity, to be sure, but the main reason is that no online service I've tried has ever offered enough incentive for me to abandon my photo printer and wait up to five days to receive my prints in the mail.

Until Photomax. The service is truly better, more flexible, and more affordable than any other service I've tried. The standard price of 12 cents per 4x6 print is an amazing deal – cheaper than its Internet competitors and printing at home, which costs 25 to 40 cents per print. The prints look great, and Photomax uses thick, high-quality photo paper, available in glossy and matte finishes. I uploaded some casual snapshots and was pleased with the crisp lines and true-to-life colors – even on prints larger than 4x6. Delivery time was average, but we chose the lease expensive shipping option, so we didn't expect them to arrive in less than a week.

By far, the most unique service Photomax offers in the Photo Saver program, which aims to help you get your boxes of photos and slides out of your attic and into your computer. When you sign up, you receive a prepaid box in which to send your photos, negatives, and slides to the Photomax lab in Utah . The technicians there clean and scan your images, then place the digital files into your account. The company returns your originals, of course along with a CD containing the scanned image files.

“After I pulled all my childhood photos out of my old-school magnetic albums, the prints sat in boxes for years because I put off scanning them myself, Now Photomax does all the work, and I can share the digitized images with friends and family again!”

Photomax's selection of photo gifts is quite impressive too. You can get almost anything made with a picture on it; photo books, posters, sports equipment, jewelry, and even edible photo sheets to decorate cakes.

The site's interface is easy to navigate, making it a breeze to quickly order prints, share photos, or check your account details. Photomax is the only online print service I would use again and again. Coming from a strict at-home photo printer like me, that's high praise.