best digital photo printing service?

I've gotten excellent results from ColoRich in San Diego, especially for larger prints. They're printing on a Chromira printer, Fuji paper and RA4 chemistry.
www.colorich.com
For 11x14s and smaller, Paul Woo the owner of PhotoExpress uses Fuji Frontier systems and more. He's saying he's going large format next year (2002). Does great work and really quick turnaround.
www.photoexpress-sd.com
I've heard good things about WalMart's production but it could vary store to store. The QC is still very important.
BTW: For the person who said they calibrate their monitor to look like the lab's output is approaching this the wrong way. You calibrate your monitor to ICC standards. Apply a profile that your lab should supply you to preview the image and make adjustments to it and then send it to them. If they aren't producing profiles, I'd suggest they do and in the meantime find another lab. If you had to output your file to another service bureau, you're out of luck. They have no idea what you've done.
Good luck

The photo services all look very interesting. It appears that in order to use them, you have to put all your photos on their site so that they control the viewing, selection of photos and ordering of prints. Basically you have to be willing to give up control of how you present your photos. Is that correct?

I would like to maintain the viewing and presentation of photos on my site and somehow let the photo service handle the printing. The only problem is how to get the image to the service when it is ordered. Has anyone solved this problem? Is there a workflow solution here?

OK, now that I have these beautiful photos returned from dotphoto, anyone have a recommendation on where to buy frames and matting? tons of companies online, but thought I'd see if anyone has recommendations or warnings about any of them.

Has anyone got any suggestions re the best print labs for UK delivery. The postage is a little too high from the US!
How do the prices compare?

Hi,

One digital lab to try is www.colormailer.com They work all over Europe and the cost is realy ok. I´ve used them severel times with sharp and brilliant copies.

Karin

Hi there

I realise this is not particularly relevant - however I thought that some UK people might read the thread. I use www.colourmailer.com which seems to be a Swiss company which operates throughout Europe. They have a 2 - 3 day turnaround and the quality is superb.

Aitch

Phillippe, I just signed up for dotphoto today, do you ever send them raw or gif files?

Chad Hunt

hi...

dotphoto can ONLY take jpegs...

no tifs, gifs or crw files...

affordable and MOSTLY good (although very satisfied with the quality...since they've become very busy i've had to send back two orders that were completely screwed up...one entire order that had a martian green hue to all of the prints; and another that had a magenta hue...don't worry...their customer service (while difficult to reach as they must be a small company) is very helpful...they immediately reprinted my order and sent it out at no charge)

they're still the best deal on the 'net...at .19 for a 4x6 print how can you go wrong?

bob

Just got my photos back from Colormailer (I am in the UK) and the photos are very good. There is a current special offer of only 19 pence per photo.
I had tried it in the past and was not impressed - the photos came back very soft and with a color cast. However, this time, I put the photos through Breeze Browser to improve the sharpness and stauration before uploading to Colormailer. The results were excellent.

I got my photo's back from dotphoto.com, they were terrible, very yellowish and very washed out. I also sent the same ones to kodak through the iphoto program on the macintosh. So far I would have to say that Kodak is the best. We are also trying some local developers. Dotphoto has by far the best prices, but as always, I believe that you get what you pay for.

Chad Hunt

chad...

i'm starting to agree with you

when i first started using dotphoto...the results were perfect...but they have become extremely busy and with that i believe the quality control isn't what it used to be...

although their customer service (when you can reach them) was VERY pleasant and re-printed my order pronto...the next set was too red, the next set too green, etc...

i KNOW it was NOT my problem because EVERY picture had the same problem...

oh well...

back to the drawing board in this one

bob

Digital Prints - Review/Issues

I have sent the same images to dotphoto, ofoto, printroom and corddigitalhighway.com (a division of Cord camera in Ohio and Indiana)...

The results were strange.

Dotphoto had horozontal and vertical lines on all the prints that were apparently made by the printer they use. The lines often changed color where there was no color change on the image. Although I like the paper they print on, I was not happy with any of the prints they did.

Ofoto had no evidence of horozontal or vertical lines, however, the images were so high contrast the color tones were completly different from the original images. Why do I process my shots in photoshop if they are going to destroy them when they print. Again I love the paper but hate the prints.

Printroom uses generic paper, but the images are far superior to dotphoto and ofoto. There are some horizontal and vertical lines evident with a keen eye and clearly noticable with the use of an 8x loup. However the color and clarity of the prints was the closest yet to what I have on screen.

Corddigitalhighway.com has not gotten my latest batch of test prints to me, but the initial shots seem to combine printroom's image/color quality with Fuji paper. (like dotphoto uses) I hate Cord's fickle upload utility, but if the final batch of images comes back like the first set... they will be my lab of choice.

Anyone care to explain the horozontal and vertical lines on the Dotphoto and Printroom shots? (And why is this never discussed?)

By the way all shots were taken with my now dearly departed D30 (sold after 45 days of ownership to make room for the D60 which better come out in the next few weeks!)

Craig

I don't know what happened to dotphoto... First time I ordered from them ordered nearly 800 pictures. All came in in about 2 weeks and looked perfect. My brother now ordered a batch and they look very crappy. Horizontal and vertical lines, pixelation, colors are off, etc... I still have a 140 pictures credit, but I'm not sure I want to use it ...

i agree...

don't know what happened to dotphoto...but i'm beginning to feel like i can get better results with my photo 820 (a solution i hate)

skin tones are looking WAY strange on dotphoto...this is NOT the way i want to archive my daughter's pictures as she grows up (too yellow...too red...jeez...bad enough that i'm never IN the pictures : )

and strangely enough...

my tests from ofoto were IDENTICAL...WAY too contrasty/oversaturate​d...

i haven't had the horizontal lines problem yet...but i'm so annoyed at the odd hue (and how many times i've had them do it over) that i can hardly look at the shots...

ultimately, i think we're going to have to wait for the dust to clear and see which company stays standing when this is over...problem is (and they KNOW this...it's what kept me using printroom although they haven't been TOO bad) it's a NUISANCE to locate and then re-upload 3 or 4 hundred shots to another site...

bob

From 8 years back when I was in the photographic industry, I think it's pretty safe to say that the first thing that goes as pricing drops is quality control... and once the quantity climbs the care of the equipment drops too... we worked in a relatively expensive semi pro to pro photolab in a busy tourist area - and really proved that you got what you paid for... as it was such a good area, there were lots of places setting up & changing hands, and we were pretty much the most expensive for processing within a five kilometre radius (beachfront, Surfers Paradise in Queensland, Australia) - but the cheap labs had staff that didn't care what they put out, if chemicals were measured, etc... we pushed quality and were busy pretty much 14 hours a day...

Cheers,
Stuart