From a novice
I had never before ordered anything from a service that handles photographs, like making Christmas cards or vacation memory books. I took the New York Times Wirecutter advice and chose Mixbook to make a memory book for our 50th wedding anniversary celebration. Looked easy at first, but there is a learning curve. The main thing to learn is that you must organize all of your photos yourself ahead of time, and then figure out what if any text you want to add as you upload your photos. Organizing the photos is 95% of the job. My finished book is outstanding. The cover and paper are excellent quality, the print is clear and crisp and just as large as one would expect from various size fonts in, say, a Word document. The picture reproduction quality is outstanding. There was a glitch in delivery, but that was not the fault of Mixbook. UPS left my book at the wrong house, and it took a while to figure out from the delivery photo where in our neighborhood the book had been left. The people at Mixbook were very helpful while I was trying (unsuccessfully) to get useful information from UPS. I’m already working on organizing the photos for my next Mixbook. This is a great way to clear out decades of photos from my bookshelves and laptop.