Whether you want excellent quality traditional prints or your favourite photos on something more unusual, such as canvas, mugs, calendars or even a baby's bib, glance through this page and you will find someone who will do it for you. It is easy, not expensive, and quicker than you might think. Just click on the company name below or on the company logo in their box on the right to go straight to their web site.

Photobloc specialise in creating canvas prints from your photos. They supply several High Street department stores so you get top High Street quality at a direct-from-the-printer price. Each print comes with a lifetime guarantee and free delivery. They also make floating photos that stand out in a frame for a stylish, contemporary look.

Spreadshirt print on a massive range of T-shirts, polo shirts, jackets and other clothing, including underwear. They also print on belts, aprons and other gifts and accessories. You can design your item online to see what it looks like before you commit to the order. Most orders are despatched within 48 hours, but they are posted from Germany so it will take a few more days for them to arrive. Postage costs begin at £2.20 and go up to £4 depending on order value although postage is free if you place a big order that costs £350 or more.

For more traditional printing on photo paper, posters and gift items, there is an excellent choice. In most cases you can send plenty of photos, over the internet, to the printer's web site. Once you have sent them you can allow other people to see them too. You, and the other people you allow, can order any combination of prints and gift items from the photos you have uploaded.

As well as photos in a huge range of sizes, you can get photos printed on mugs, calendars, mousemats, coasters and place mats, jigsaw puzzles, toys such as teddy bears and various items of clothing. Photobooks are becoming increasingly popular, too. These can be hard-backed or soft-backed. You choose a selection of photos and lay them out, on your computer, into pages of pictures of various sizes. You can add captions if you want. This is ideal for weddings, holidays and other special occasions.

There are lots of similarities between the products offered by the photo printing companies and the pricing of the main ones is fairly similar too, but there are also some important differences. Be sure to read the paragraphs below about print sizes and printing 6"x4" photos.

Most companies have special deals from time to time. Deals often include 'buy one get one free' and 'buy two get a third free' on photobooks and gift items as well as straightforward percentage discounts. Outside the deals, the table shows the typical print prices for small quantities (last checked 5th December 2007).

Pay in advance and save. Most of the companies have heavily discounted prices if you pay for lots of prints. Even if you do not want hundreds in one go, you can buy 'print credits' which give you big discounts for paying in advance and then you can use up the credits over a period of time as you need prints. You will still have to pay postage each time you draw from your credit. Only Snapfish, Jessops, myPix and Truprint offer print credits on 7" x 5" prints. Snapfish, myPix, Jessops Truprint and Photobox all sell credits on the smaller size. Foto and Pixum do not sell print credits, but most of their prices (before postage and processing charge) are lower than the print credit price anyway. Photobox prices come down to 4p per print if you pay for 600 6" x 4" prints in advance.

Print sizes. If you want 6" x 4" (15cm x 10cm), 7" x 5" (12.5cm x 17.5cm), 8" x 10" (20.3cm x 25.4 cm) or passport size photos, all of the companies in the list will be able to help. However, these plus the small 5.3" x 4" are the only sizes that Truprint, Jessops and Snapfish print. Foto, Photobox, myPix and Pixum all print standard uncropped 7.5" x 5" from a 3:2 format source, such as an SLR camera but Snapfish, Jessops and Truprint do not. Foto, myPix and Kodak print a slightly larger range, but only standard shapes. So if you want less common sizes, including square prints and panoramas, you have only Photobox and Pixum to choose from.

6" x 4" prints from digital cameras. Most compact digital cameras take photos that are not the right shape to fit on a 6" x 4" (15cm x 10cm) photo. The shape of these digital prints is known as the 3:4 format. Foto, Photobox, myPix and Pixum can print the photo 6" x 4.5" (15cm x 13.3cm) to cope with this. Snapfish, Jessops and Truprint will print it slightly smaller, 5.3" x 4" (13.5cm x 10cm). These smaller prints will not fit very well into a 6" x 4" (15cm x 10cm) frame. Kodak will crop or trim a 3:4 format photo to fit their 6" x 4" paper. You might be happier with the full-size uncropped 6" x 4.5" prints from Foto, Photobox, myPix and Pixum if your camera takes 3:4 format pictures.

Postage on prints. You need to be careful to take into account the postage cost when comparing prices. The second table compares postage prices on photo prints. Be aware that the Foto cost is for photos up to 6"x4" only. If you are buying 7"x5" or bigger photos, they will post only a third or a fifth of the number for the cost quoted (see footnote to the table). The Photobox postage charge is more difficult to assess because they charge by weight. The figures in the table are an approximation for 6" x 4" and 7" x 5" prints based on the typical weight of photo paper.

Postage on gifts. The charge made by Kodak, Snapfish, Jessops and Truprint for postage on most gifts (other than canvas prints and photobooks, which are more) is £1.99 for the first item but extra for each additional item. Foto's post on gifts starts at £2.79. Pixum's cheapest post and processing charge on gifts, including canvas prints, is £3.22 for up to 2 items. Photobox charge by weight, as they do for photo prints. It starts getting expensive if the parcel is over 2Kg, when the cost is £6.99.