About Boots Photo

Boots Photo is the photo printing arm of the high street chemist, run in partnership with CEWE, which is why the photobooks carry the CEWE name while the shop carries the Boots one.

What can be made

Photobooks are the centrepiece, offered in a long list of sizes from a small square up to an extra-large landscape, with a board book aimed at very young children. Prints run from ordinary sizes up to speciality and eco papers, and there is a scanning service for old negatives and a developing service for film sent by post. Wall art covers posters, canvas, acrylic, aluminium, wood and foam board, plus collages and street maps. Gifts take in mugs, cushions, blankets, phone cases and personalised toys, and there are calendars, planners and greetings cards for every occasion.

Getting a print that looks right

Two habits save disappointment. Resolution decides how large a photograph can go, and a picture that looks sharp on a phone can turn soft as a large canvas, so watch for the warning the editor gives when a file is being stretched too far. And a photograph is cropped to fit the shape you have chosen, which means a tall picture in a wide frame loses the top and bottom, so check the preview rather than assuming. On books, the software will lay pages out automatically, but moving the key photographs by hand is worth the extra half hour.

Where the code is entered

Finish the design first, since the project has to exist before it can be priced. The code goes in at the basket, before the payment step, and the total should move before you continue. One code applies per order, and codes are frequently written against one product type, so one for photobooks will not touch a canvas. Multi-buy pricing on prints applies itself and generally beats a code on the same order.

Timing, collection and the Christmas rule

Some products can be collected from a Boots store rather than posted, which saves the carriage and is quicker for prints. Advantage Card points are the other thing worth checking, since they accrue here as on the rest of the chain. Discounting is heaviest well before Christmas rather than during December, and the production time on a photobook is longer than on prints, so ordering one as a present in the last week of the month is how people end up disappointed.