I have been using Millers for any enlargements I needed. Recently though I was curious about what some of the other labs looked like. Were they any different? So I sent the same file to 2 other labs that I sent to Millers. The results were interesting.
Original file
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Some notes:
1. Notice how both proDPI and WHCC are similar in color, but the Millers print has kind of a blue/green hue near the middle. The first two were almost identical, but the Millers print was very noticeably different.
2. The sharpest of the 3 was proDPI, very crisp. Millers was in the middle. WHCC was almost what I would call soft. I was very disappointed in the WHCC print to be honest. I know you can't tell any of this from the image I posted, but trust me there was quite a bit of difference.
3. The WHCC and proDPI prints were curled on the ends. The proDPI print curled down, the WHCC print curled up. The Millers print was perfectly flat. Not a huge deal at all, just something else I noticed as different.
My conclusions - I will never use WHCC. Putting them side by side with the other two companies it's easy to see they have a weaker print. The softness really astounded me. The Millers print looked the best overall with smooth gradient and a nice crisp print. They were closest to my monitor as well, although the blue/green area was a bit too green. I'm not sure why the other two labs rendered that area purplish. That kinda boggles me.
Anyway, not scientific, and probably of no concern to many, but I was bored and kinda shocked by the differences so I thought I'd post. I really figured all labs at that level were pretty much the same. Not the case.
Btw, I know that image sucks. It's enough that you can kinda see what I'm talking about though. I tried to do the best I could, but I found that taking a picture of a print is harder than it seems. The glare kills ya.
Take care
Chris
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