Where can I get good quality prints from?

C

cyclone3d

[H]F Junkie
Joined
Aug 16, 2004
Messages
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Is there anywhere that does good quality prints anymore?

Snapfish crops incorrectly, puts a blue hue, and reduces the exposure waaaayy too much.

Sam's Club has sucky printers that make everything look super grainy and puts a different incorrect hue or color temperature on everything.

I have two different computers and both have the monitors calibrated with a Columunki Display. The photos look exactly the same on both computers.

Photos were adjusted in Lightroom and exported as 100% quality jpg.
 
If you're interested in serious lab quality prints but don't want to kill yourself in terms of cost, I recommend whcc.com . Their site is kind of annoying now as you have to download an application to put in an order and to maintain their margins they have a minimum $15 (I believe) order size.

But they are huge. They use some of the best printers in the industry, their QC especially regarding calibration is insanely high, and they are comparable in cost to any lab not using a wet process (wet process being cheap and lower in quality. Such as the wet process used by Fuji printers in Costcos).

The application (ROES) is easy to use and ensure you're ordering exactly what you intend. It's light-weight and Java based I believe, but I personally feel like they should invest in the programming to have it all done via the website. Even still, I've done huge print orders (over $300 in a single pass) and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend WHCC from a quality, QC, and cost standpoint.


EDIT: If you want the highest end of everything including exhibition grade printing services, then what I know of them, I'd probably recommend West Coast Imaging. http://www.westcoastimaging.com/
 
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I've ordered from Bay Photo before and was very happy with the quality and how they pack their orders. I read about Simply Color Lab being highly praised this year, so was going to price it out and see who is cheaper.

I've ordered the lay flat photo books from Adoramapix before and was super happy with how they turned out. The pages are thick photo paper adhered together, so they aren't board stiff, but they are stiff. Check out some of the reviews of the books on Youtube. They are 500% better than something like Shutterfly, but also more costly. I chose the high gloss paper and liked it, but I think the pearl would be better if the book might be prone to people getting their finger prints on it.

If you decide to use Adoramapix and have friends who have used Adoramapix before ask them for their referral code. You get a $5 credit after your first order of $15+, and they get a $10 credit. Otherwise I have my code.
 
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If you have your shit calibrated to your liking, you can have sams club process the photos and tell them not to do any enhancements.

If you go with a pro lab, they will send you a photo that you use to calibrate your monitor to so that what you see on your screen is what you will get back from the lab.
 
One technique that really helped me was to have Lightroom output a 300dpi file for the size I was planning to print and have it output sharpen for Glossy Paper and High sharpening. I leave it glossy for Matte paper also.

So I'd get a JPG for a 4x6 of 1200x12800. Otherwise my prints came back softer.

Started looking into it when my prints from my 12mp camera looked worse than the ones from the 6mp camera. Having tons of pixels just confuses and muddies the smaller size prints.
 
I second the whcc.com recommendation. I've used them almost exclusively and have always been happy with the results. Follow their profile suggestions and you should be good.

If black and white is your forte, have a look at dalmatianlab.com though, it's a lot more pricey.
 
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