Persnickety Prints Paper Comparison

Last Sunday I decided to order some Instagram Polaroids from Persnickety Prints, since they look really cute and they were having a free shipping promotion for them. I uploaded my photos both via their website and via their iPhone app. My photos arrived on Thursday. I couldn’t wait to open the package up and take a look at my cute 3x4 Instagram Polaroids! And since these are 3x4, they would be perfect for Project Life too!

They are printed on several different types of heavy cardstock: gloss, linen, matte, pearl, and soft texture art. I love the thickness of the paper. They are definitely more like cards than just photos.

For these three photos, I journaled on them using the Phonto app on my iPhone. Then I used the Persnickety app to upload them directly from my iPhone to my account at Persnickety Prints.


Now let’s take a look at the five different paper finishes available for the Instagram Polaroids. As you can see, each type of paper actually affects how the colors look when printed.


And a closer look at each type of paper…

Gloss: the finish is a little bit shiny and very smooth.




Linen: definitely very textured. You can see the cross-hatches of the texture.




Matte: still smooth, but doesn’t have the sheen of the gloss paper.




Pearl: this one definitely stands out from the rest. It is just what the name implies. There’s an almost silvery sheen to the paper.




Soft Texture Art: this paper was matte (not shiny) and not as white as the matte or gloss papers.




And another look at the other photo I had printed on linen cardstock. Very textured!

The prices for the different paper finishes are available here. It’s much cheaper to print more than 12 of these in each order, because they go from being 85 cents each when you only print 1-12 of these, to 45 cents each when you print between 13-99 of these. Also important to note that the gloss and matte photos are the standard pricing. The linen and soft texture art papers will cost 5 cents more per print (making them 50 cents each if you order 13-99). The pearl cost the most. They are 15 cents per print additional!

Given that I think I like the look of the gloss and matte cardstock prints the most, and they are the cheapest out of the five types of paper, I would probably order those the most going forward. If you look at the 3rd photo in this blog post, the gloss and matte papers actually yielded the best colors in my opinion. My next favorite is probably the linen, since the texture is so unique for an artsy look. The pearl looks really shiny and gives a lot of reflection in light. I like the look pretty well, but since it costs the most, I will probably only pick the pearl paper for some select special photos. The soft texture art paper really didn’t stand out for me, so I probably wouldn’t order those going forward.

I hope this gives you some ideas of the types of papers available for Instagram Polaroids at Persnickety Prints. I should note that I paid for my prints myself and my opinions of the papers are strictly my own observations. You may like certain textures and looks different than me. The great thing is, all of these are available at Persnickety Prints. And these Instagram Polaroids are absolutely ADORABLE! ♥

ETA: I had some questions in the comments here and on Facebook, so I thought I would add them to the post. 

Question:  What's the finish size and do they fit into Project Life page protectors?
Answer:  I measured the exact dimensions and they are 2.94" (2 and 15/16") x 4" and fit perfectly into my Becky Higgins Project Life 3x4 page protector slots.  They also fit into the 3x4 slot in my Simple Stories Sn@p album, but with some wiggle room since those are wider slots.

Question:  Which one would be the best if you wanted to journal on them?
Answer:  I have not journaled on them yet. But based on the feel of the papers, the matte finish would definitely be best for journaling on them. The gloss would probably be ok too, if you write with a pen like the AC Slick Writer. The Soft Texture Art would be fine to journal on as well, it is not slippery at all. The pearl has a really silvery and slippery finish so that would be hard to journal on. The linen is too textured in my opinion to write well.