Good online place to get prints of digital pics

breadmonkey

Can someone recommend a good site to get prints done? What's a reasonable price per 6x4 photo?

Ruu_Old

Try Photobox.

DaireQuinlan

Yeah I'd second photobox for a couple of reasons. I did a bit of a comparison of the few big places a couple of months back. Essentially, I wanted my pictures printed out exactly as I sent them, having already adjusted them contrast/sharpness/tone wise in photoshop. I tried pixmania, FOTO.com, photobox, and one other which I can't remember.Photobox was the only one which printed to my satisfaction.

FOTO increased the contrast by some huge amount and aggresively oversharpened the shots, to the degree that all the shadow detail was lost in them and speckles appeared due to the oversharpening. I don't know what pixmania did but it resulted in extreme banding all across the image. Photobox came out tops. Make sure you calibrate your monitor correctly, and if you're sufficiently obbsessive, grab the photobox printer profiles from the net and you're away. They're a little more expensive than the others but I think its worth it.

D.

rymus

photobox thirded. Just make sure your monitor is calibrated properly.

TJM

Photobox fourthed. Has anybody used http://www.pixdiscount.ie ?

DaireQuinlan

ahHa, that was the fourth place I tried ! Again, quality wasn't up to par. I think they ended up looking like the ones from pixmania, mottled banding all across the image instead of smooth gradations. Basically what I did was send the same 20 or so pictures (first 20 on my flickr stream IIRC) off to all four to check them. Photobox trumped all the others. I'd read stories about Photobox prints being too dark, wasn't a problem once I'd calibrated my monitor correctly. Not just for photobox mind, apparently most people have their monitors far too bright.

Plus I've done a bunch of A3 enlargements, they're sorta pricey, but they had a 2 for one deal before christmas that I took advantage of. Absolutely stunning. Nothing like seeing your stuff blown up like that

Daire.
Flickr

peckerhead

TJM wrote:

Has anybody used http://www.pixdiscount.ie ?

I have, and found them grand. A bit fiddly having to order 6"x4"s in batches of <15 to keep the price to 1c each, but hey, 15 prints delivered (in 4-5 days) for €1.14 ain't bad...

I also ordered some 18"x12" posters — an absolute steal @ €3.90 each, and the quality was very good too. Delivery was slower, though — nearly a fortnight — but that was in the lead-up to Christmas, so maybe they'd be quicker normally.

breadmonkey

rymus wrote:

photobox thirded. Just make sure your monitor is calibrated properly.

Thanks for the replies. How exactly do I calibrate the monitor?

blastman

I would categorically NOT recommend Foto. I've been charged for an order I never received, and they didn't respond to my query about it either. It was a small, simple order too, nothing fancy, as I was just trying them out.

rymus

breadmonkey wrote:

Thanks for the replies. How exactly do I calibrate the monitor?

Well the way I did it was very touch & go... Got a calibration print from photobox some time ago and matched the same image onscreen to the print I had. Very rough way of doing it but it's been perfect since. They have printer profiles and you can get all kinds of wonderful hardware to calibrate your monitor but the old fashioned way worked for me.

DaireQuinlan

Same here, although I could -never- get that lurid green color on the calibration print to match up

Color wise can be a little complicated sometimes, the blues are a smidgeon lighter on my prints than on my monitor, although not so much that you'd really notice unless you were nitpicky about these things (which I am I guess). Its far more important though to get the brightness and contrast correct on your screen. There's a whole rake of sources available as to the best way to do this, ranging from simple calibration patterns (ie, adjust until you can see all the grey bars) to downloadable programs that run through it step by step. Similar to adobe gamma if you have photoshop. Do a search, I've forgotten at this stage the places I was reading up on it.

OTOH, get enough people together and something like the Spyder (sp?) would be fairly cheap to buy. I presume you'd only need to use it once in a while.

D.

Calina

I use Photobox too and I really like their quality.

JMcL

I'll be contrary and recommend Foto over Photobox just to confuse things. Due to needing it in a hurry, I got an A3 enlargement just before Christmas from Photobox, and wasn't happy at all. Exposure had been reduced by about a stop, and a yellow cast had appeared. The same thing printed shortly before at A4 size from Foto had come back perfect, as has everything else I've sent them.

I do have my monitor calibrated at a basic level, using Quickgamma, which although not perfect is better than nothing. It certainly shouldn't have been out by that much. Nothing had been done to the image processing wise between the 2 printings, other that resizing in PS and some USM - no colour/exposure etc

I've intentions in investing in hardware calibration in the near future, and will try a comparision between the two again at that point, but I'm sticking to Foto for now!

PaulieC

coming from someone who has worked in a computer environment for the past 12 years, this is a dopey question, but how do you set the contrast on a laptop? I have a Dell Inspiron 6000 and I tried using the Adobe Gamma to calbrate my monitor last night. (I was seeing some photobox prints coming out dark). I was able to adjust brightness no problem, but could I find contrast? Not a chance

Wez

Does nobody print their own? I buy my own paper (8x10) and print them in college.. I've printed off my home printer before tho, and they've turned out pretty well, I'd be happy enough.

311

Wez wrote:

Does nobody print their own? I buy my own paper (8x10) and print them in college.. I've printed off my home printer before tho, and they've turned out pretty well, I'd be happy enough.

I got a canon printer ,the ink is almost 70 euro for it and it can't be refilled.
I find it too expensive and tempremental to print at home.

TJM

Wez wrote:

Does nobody print their own? I buy my own paper (8x10) and print them in college.. I've printed off my home printer before tho, and they've turned out pretty well, I'd be happy enough.

For low volume printing inkjets tend to dry up and clog - for high volume the online services are cheaper. Maybe it's just my experience but I've given up after one head clean too many.

mtracey

photobox.ie for sure

PTL

Sorry for dragging up an old thread but here goes..

Printing your own photos, i think the quality is great if you have a photo printer but i think the colour in the prints fade very fast. Is this just in my head or is there a massive difference between getting them done professionally and an inkjet with photo paper?

JMcL

Newer inks have improved enormously. HP Vivera inks claim an independently validated lifespan of 200 years, used on certain papers, Epson Ultrachrome, and the whatever Canons new inkset is called is up in the 100+ year range as far as I know. The results are from the Wilhelm Institute, who aren't affiliated to the manufacturers, and who probably deserve the credit for forcing the manufacturers to up their game.

However, you do need to use these expensive inks on good quality paper to benefit. Third party inks, older printers, and probably lower end printers most probably won't get anywhere near that lifespan, and if you're producing prints using €1.99 no-name ink cartridges, then most probably they will fade really quickly

JMcL

Actually, while this thread is dug up, Foto.com are now providing an ICC profile to apply to pics to be uploaded. They've also upped their max size to 7Mb. I ordered some prints last week, but am still waiting despite their being posted last Tuesday. Good old An Post, they really deserve their price hike

PTL

Yep your dead right im using compatible ink ... i used to buy new printers instead of new ink (worked out cheaper) but have a good cannon but use cheap ink ... it does the trick but photos last months not years with them ... and if i was using original ink then it definitly would work out cheaper and better to go online.

just seen that photobox software to help you upload, i need to print about 500+ photos so it seems like it will do the job

Muineach

PTL wrote:

.. i used to buy new printers instead of new ink (worked out cheaper) but have a good cannon but use cheap ink

I work at another printer brand (not saying who, they ay be watching ... ) and I would not reccomend buying a new printer as it was cheaper than buying cartridges.

We have what we call "lite" versions of all the cartridges, basically when you buy a printer the "lite" versions are filled with 18ml while the "full" versions come with 38ml. So when you get a printer you may only be getting 50% of the ink.

From what I remember it was standard practise across all brands, might be wrong though.