uploaded holiday photo calendar printing

I create a photo calendar using Microsoft Publisher, where I complete everything of the calendar including the monthly grid (and adding my own custom items to it). It is a wall flip style calendar but is 11x17 with multiple photos on the back of the calendar grids. I've been printing them at home but want to find a lab to do it instead because it's time consuming to print and last year it cost far more than I planned.

Thing is I've looked at many online print labs and they all are design online calendars. I want to supply finished image files to be used: one of the grid and one of the photo collage for each month. Cost is a consideration, would prefer no more than $30 including spiral binding and shipping per calendar for about 10 total.

I've tried Kinkos in the past, but photos were slightly dark and seemed like they might be color laser printer prints.

Any suggestions?

No suggestions at all? I can't be the only one doing something like this.

I've never had a calendar made so can't give any advice, but I can point you to a thread where you might make a meaningful contact.

There is a competition here called "Show Me What You've Got" (SMWYG) that has been running for several years. Among other things, the monthly winners are "published" in an annual calendar.

So, this thread is the "Admin" thread for the current competition. If you look down through the first post you will see a "Things to Note" paragraph in bold that states this.

I don't have the details, but if you were to either ask in that thread or PM the "host", Permagrin, you could get some details. People seem to have been happy with the calendars they've received, although I don't know if they are of the spiral binder type.

Here is the thread:

https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=951966

i finally got here searching for the same thing: a place to upload calendar images with custom layout. I just need quality prints on heavy paper that I can bind somehow without breaking the bank.

Did you get any answers? I'll go search that thread also.

I have used this company for several years:

http://www.digi-labs.net/

Cost is about $25 each. They had a 15% off coupon a while back (when I ordered)

Turn-around time is quick. They ship from somewhere in WI

kimmortal wrote in post #11454375
i finally got here searching for the same thing: a place to upload calendar images with custom layout. I just need quality prints on heavy paper that I can bind somehow without breaking the bank.

Did you get any answers? I'll go search that thread also.

Are yours letter sized? My issue was really it being 11x17 because that often doubles a lab's price to their customer. If yours are letter sized you can probably get just about any print/photo lab to use your pages.

I did go with a print lab, but from their communication and the difficulty they said they had I am gauging they are a small, new, and/or inexperienced company. Their words were "we had everyone in the company including the president and our vendor technician working on it". Their main issue was my RGB PDFs became very over saturated when converted to CMYK (which is the color space most print labs use). Though I had a RGB publication printed without any color correction on a CMYK print process at Kinkos (FedEx Office) and the images look exactly as they did in my RGB originals.

I'm to receive my calendars tomorrow and I am keeping my fingers crosses. I won't recommend anything until I see the results.

I got the calendars and they are on nice heavy 80 lb gloss. The photos are a little darker than they should be. They said they had to do color correcting to desaturate the colors after converting to CMYK, but they did not charge me. They could have charge me an extra $60 easily because they charge $60/hour for color correcting with a half hour minimum. I used http://clickorderprint​.com/ out of Tennessee, but it may be easier for you to deal with a local print lab that may print in RGB so you won't have to deal with color conversion or find a lab like Kinkos/FedEx Office that seem to have no trouble printing RGB images on a CMYK system without it affecting color output. Like I said that place seems like they are inexperienced and a small shop.