Nations Photo Lab

How to Order Photo Prints

It’s about time you take those memories you’ve saved on your phone and turn them into photos you can hold in your hand. Your memories are worth printing, and it’s much easier than you may think.

Here, we will walk you through a comprehensive, step-by-step guide on how to print your photos, from selecting which pictures to choose, to preparing your files for print and ordering your prints with us at Nations Photo Lab.
1. Select the photos you’d like to print.
Searching through the thousands of photos on your phone or computer to find the perfect ones to print might take some time, so if you need some help, here are a few questions to keep in mind when you’re selecting your photos.
Will these photos be on display?
Will you be displaying your photos on the walls at home? There are so many ways you can display your photos, and a gallery wall is a great idea if you're looking to add interest to a space. Check out some gallery wall inspiration on our blog. If you’re lost when deciding what Prints would work best in which room, we can help you out. Here’s The Best Wall Decor for Each Room In Your House.
Are you looking to put your memories in a photo book or scrapbook?
If so, this is a great opportunity to take all the memories from your family vacations, favorite parties, or holiday gatherings and put them in one place. You have a little more liberty in choosing your photos since they will likely all be the same size and you don’t necessarily have to coordinate.
How many photos are you looking to print?
A few prints for the living room or a box full of photos — the choice is up to you! If you have a budget in mind and know how many photos you’d like to print you can check out the different types of prints we offer and their prices to make sure your project is staying within your budget.
Are you collecting photos from friends or family?
There may be photos from occasions living on someone else’s phone that you’d love to print. In this case, try to have your friends or family send the photos through a service like Google Drive or Google Photos. This will help retain the quality of your photos compared to texting or emailing, which can degrade your photo’s quality.
2. Prepare your files for print.
Now that you’ve selected the photos you’d like, preparing your files for print is a crucial step for a seamless ordering process.
Format your files correctly.
.jpg, .png, or flattened .tiff files (.tiff files must not be layered)
Currently, .tiff files can only be uploaded in ROES (a downloadable software for your computer, which we will discuss below)
iPhone mobile devices save photos you take in a HEIC format. This file type cannot be uploaded, so you will want to convert the file to .jpg before attempting to upload. You can do that easily through websites like https://heic.online/. You can also change the format of how your files are saved for future photos within your Camera app's setting! Click here for instructions.
Please note, if you are having issues uploading your file, try saving your photos as .jpg or convert to.jpg using a free online converter.
125 dpi minimum resolution - 300 dpi maximum resolution
8-bit color depth
sRGB IEC61966-2.1 color profile/space
RGB color mode (CMYK not accepted)
25 character filename limit — *NO special characters, excluding hyphen (-) and underscore (_)*
Things to note: If uploading to a gallery on our website, each file cannot exceed 40 MB. If uploading into our desktop ROES system, there is no file size limit.
Some terminology to know:
.jpg = Joint Photographic Experts Group
.tiff = Joint Photographic Experts Group
.png = Portable Network Graphics
HEIC = High-Efficiency Image File
sRGB = Standard Red Green Blue
RGB = Red Green Blue
CMYK = Cyan Magenta Yellow Black
DPI = Dots per Inch
PPI = Pixels per Inch
8-bit color depth = A bit references the amount of tonal variation in an image. With the RGB color mode, the image would contain 256 tonal variations each for red, green, and blue. You are able to save your image files in different color depths however, we highly recommend submitting your files in the 8-bit color depth as this is the optimal depth for our printers
Color Correction
Have you ever ordered prints that ended up having entirely different colors than what you saw on your screen?  That’s why we offer Color Correction as an add-on for our Photo Prints. Color Correction is a service that aims to achieve the most accurate colors for your photos, and our team of real professionals work behind the scenes to make sure the colors of your photos are represented accurately in the prints. We recommend choosing the option for all photos, even black and white.

We guarantee your 100% satisfaction for orders submitted with Color Corrections, so if you are not amazed, please let us know and we will readjust your images with any additional desired edits and reprint at no cost to you!  
If you’re editing your own photos or are a professional, here are a couple things to know.
Monitoring Calibration/ICC Profiles
ICC Profiles (ICC = International Color Consortium) help ensure the output (Photo Prints) matches the input (a computer monitor). They help professional photographers achieve the correct color reproduction when images are transferred from a camera to a monitor, and from a monitor to a printer.

At Nations Photo Lab, we generate all of our color profiles in-house and provide them to clients with top-of-the-line calibration equipment. These profiles are customized to each paper and printer they are profiled for and because of this exacting attention to detail, these color profiles are much more accurate than those generated by a third party.

If you are a professional with a calibrated monitor and have a calibration software like x-rite or Spyder, you have the option to soft proof your images using our ICC profiles! If you do soft proof using our ICC profiles, Color Correction does not need to be applied to your order.  
Color Space
A "color space" is a useful conceptual tool for understanding the color capabilities of a particular device or digital file. When trying to reproduce color on another device, color spaces can show whether you will be able to retain shadow/highlight detail, color saturation, and by how much either will be compromised.

The most popular color spaces used for editing are sRGB IEC61966-2.1, ProPhoto RGB and Adobe RGB 1998. We support sRGB IEC61966-2.1.

What happens if you upload in a color space other than sRGB IEC61966-2.1, you may be wondering?

If the file is converted to ProPhoto or Adobe 1998 and it hits our server, it will get converted to sRGB IEC61966-2.1 without issue or a warning. When a file had been assigned the wrong color space and it has not been converted to sRGB IEC61966-2.1, you will start to see discoloration. When an image is in the wrong color space they often appear muted, dark, and sometimes with a green hue.

Read more about Color Space in our help article.  
3. Select the right size for your prints.
Based on the project you have in mind, take a look at our Perfect Print Size Guide — this will help you determine which sizes would be best for you depending on how you’d like to use your Photo Prints. For example, if you’re looking to fill up a box or scrapbook with photos, 4x6”s or 5x7”s are probably the way to go, whereas 11x14”s or 16x20”s are going to make a bigger impact for a gallery wall.

If you’re unsure if your photo is going to be high enough quality for the size you’d like to print it, no need to worry — we can do the work for you! Our Pixel Chart is the ultimate guide to your photo’s image resolution and desired print size.

On the left side, you can choose your desired print size and our handy calculator will tell you the pixels needed for the best quality and the minimum quality required.

You can also input your photo’s pixel size on the right and we will let you know what sizes are going to be the largest recommended for that photo.

Don’t know your photo’s image resolution? That’s also no problem.

Right below the previous chart, you can upload your file and we’ll tell you your photo’s dimensions and our recommendation for the best quality print and largest size print for that photo.

I want to print :


Pixels needed for best quality
Pixels are the minimum requirement

My Image file is (Pixels) :


inches is the largest print size recommended for best quality
inches is the largest print size recommended for this image size

Not sure what your file’s pixel dimensions are?

Do you like charts and want to see all recommended pixel dimensions? Check it out below

View More Sizes
4. Order your prints.
Now that you are ready to order your prints, let’s walk through the next steps and different ways you can order them with Nations Photo Lab.
Option #1: Through our website.
On our website, we have made it simple to order your Photo Prints. This option is easy for anyone to use, especially if you have never ordered prints before. You just need to make sure the photos you want to upload are on your computer and easily accessible.
1.
To begin ordering Photo Prints, click the "Order Prints" button in the upper right corner of the website.
Order Prints
2.
Click CHOOSE PHOTOS to upload photos from your computer or click into the gallery of photos you've already uploaded and choose your photos.
Upload phtos
“You can upload photos to your Nations Photo Lab account before you order your prints, as well, and keep your photos in galleries!”
3.
At this point, you can also select your print size and paper type. Don’t worry, you can update this later or change print sizes individually in the next step.
Select size and paper type
4.
Next, you can edit your photos, either individually or in bulk.

To edit individually: Click the ‘pencil’ button on the image, and you will see the different edit options, including zoom, rotate, and change print orientation. Then to the right, you will see all your add-on options. You can change the print size, change paper type, add Color Correction, add linen texture, add a filter, add a border or frame to your image, and even add mounting, all in one place!
To edit in bulk: Simply click all the images you would like to edit, and use the bar on the right to make changes or add add-ons
5.
Once you have your prints exactly how you’d like them, click ‘Add to Cart’ in the top right corner.
Add to cart
Review your cart to make sure everything looks right. If you need to return to edit, simply click on the print image, and it will take you back to the prints editor.
Review Cart
6.
Once you’re satisfied, head to our fast and easy checkout, where you have multiple payment options, including Shop Pay, which enables you to pay over time, and PayPal.
Easy Checkout
Option #2: Using ROES to print your photos
ROES stands for REMOTE ORDER ENTRY SYSTEM and is a Java-based downloadable software that runs on your computer and is completely separate from the web-based ordering system. You download it once and it stays put on your desktop for whenever you need to use it! You simply choose a folder of images and start selecting from our product options. ROES is best used for professional photographers who have all of their photos on their desktop and would prefer to upload that way rather than having to upload to the website first. It’s just as simple to use as our website, but looks a little different, so let’s walk through how to order prints with ROES.
1.
First, you will need to download ROES, making sure you have already downloaded JAVA first.
2.
Sign in with your account number/customer ID and password. Your account number/customer ID can be found in your account on the website under MY ACCOUNT.
3.
Click ORDER PRODUCTS in the upper right corner of the ROES window.
Order Products in ROES
4.
Click the ADD IMAGES button on the lower left-hand corner to open the folder that contains your images. Please advise, ROES does open by folder. Or, you can add your files by simply dragging and dropping your image from your computer into the bottom section of ROES.
Add Images
5.
Next, select your catalog by clicking the SELECT A PRODUCT tab in the upper left corner of the ROES window.
Select a product
6.
Choose a template on the left.
Choose a template
7.
Drag and drop your image into the template and click on the image to adjust the crop, orientation or zoom if you wish. Keep in mind the crop shown on the template is how your final product will be produced.
Drag and drop your image
8.
For additional options such as mounting, click OPTIONS, found to the right of your template.
9.
Click the ADD TO CART button and your photos will be sent to us to print!
A few more reasons why ROES is a great option:
Easy for ordering large volumes as you have the ability to mass upload
No uploading of galleries. You work off folders organized on your desktop. The uploading occurs after you are done editing your order!
No file size limit
Easy to use crop tools
Option to schedule orders to send at a certain time
Option to keep old orders within the system for different amounts of time
Option #3: Using the Nations Photo Lab App to print your photos
Using the NPL app is incredibly easy for everyone to use and lets you upload photos right from your phone, your NPL photo library, Instagram, Facebook and Google Photos. This would be a great option for someone looking to get those photos off their phone and into print! The process is simple and takes very little time.
1.
Log into your NPL account and click Photo Prints on the home page.
2.
Here you can select photos to print from your gallery, upload from your phone, or add from social media.
Order Products in App 1 and 2
3.
After selecting your photos, click Next. In the upper right corner, you can select the menu (the three dots) in order to either select all your photos or choose the photo’s paper type.
Order Products in App 3
4.
After choosing your options and clicking Next, you will come to your shopping cart. Here you can click the image of your print to edit individually, or choose the three dot menu to review your prints.
5.
After reviewing, go ahead and checkout! And don’t forget, your first 10 5x7s are free when you download the app!
Order Products in App 4 and 5
Enjoy your Prints.
Congrats! You’ve taken the time to choose the memories that are going to be saved in print and it won’t be long before you can enjoy them with friends and family. We hope you found our guide to ordering your photos helpful and comprehensive, and if you run into any issue or need some additional help, check out our help desk or reach out to one of our amazing customer support team members.