Online photo printing

Anyone have any favorites or "bad experiences" with any online photo printing operations (Like Shutterfly, Ophoto, Snapfish, etc?)

From a quick look, it seems like they are all about the same price, but I wonder if any of them have any significantly better service or quality. Of course if I can save money AND get good service, that would be great. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

Got some incredible photos up in Colorado and want to get some big prints... Local WalMart only does up to 8X10, and their machine is cropping the edges too much.

Any input anyone can provide will be much appreciated.

[ QUOTE ]
Silviron said:
Got some incredible photos up in Colorado and want to get some big prints... Local WalMart only does up to 8X10, and their machine is cropping the edges too much.


[/ QUOTE ]

Is this from 35mm negatives? Or digital?

If its 35mm then I can answer your question. The cropping is not Wal-Mart's fault at all. 8x10 is an old standard before 35mm came around (or at least into wide usage). When you blow up a 35mm to that size you are losing 1" on each side of the frame (2" total). To get the full picture you should be getting an 8x12. Think about it... a 4x6 doubles to what? 8x12! People just go by the old 8x10 standard since thats what most frames and stuff use.

As far as digital prints. I dont know.. Dont have any experience with those. I have yet to get any of my digital shots printed, as I have yet to get a shot worth printing.

I hope that helps a bit.

Not online, but Costco has 12x18 prints for $2.99, and with excellent quality- it's fairly indistinguishable from a regular photo print, as it's not an inkjet print.
4x6 prints are 19 cents each- I just wonder how long it'll be before they raise the prices..

I've seen Ophoto print that looked great. Would definately use them myself.

Sorry for not being specific- DIGITAL only.... I don't do film.

I WISH there was a Costco closer than 200 miles from here.

adorama (one of the largest and most reputed photo supplier worldwide, based in NYC) launched their digital pro lab service. 29cents per 4*6. read here:

http://www.photo.net/adorama-pro-lab/

I love shutterfly...been using it since my daughter was born last sept.
If you pay in advance, we got 300 prints, you can get them pretty cheap.
The nicest part is that they have a browser plug-in for IE that lets you just drag your folder of pictures to the browser to upload them all.
They have specials ever so often.
You can put text on the backs of the pix.
You can fix redeye if you don't do it on your computer.
You can add borders/frames if you want as well.
The prints look great, and you can share picture albums for relatives to buy the pictures that they want.
Delivery is fast....never had a problem!

I recommend them without reservation.

T.

Different strokes for different folks. Here's what I like and why.

Costco - price, turn-around time.
Shutterfly - Lots of options, good service
Ofoto - hands-down the best printed (digital) product I've seen.

I use them all LOTS, and have had good experience with all of them. Ofoto is my default.

What Darell said only other warehouses as well. I just got 70 prints made at Sam's club for 20 cents a piece. The quality was decent and the whole operation took 45 minutes. What I do first is to digitally trim them to a 4x6 ratio so I can pick what gets cropped rather then the machine default which I assume just splits it in the middle.

So do any of these places do continuous tone printing? If so, which ones?

Thanks,

-john

Thanks for "bumping" this John... I forgot about it.. Hope someone has an answer for your question.

Thanks for your input all... I think I'll go ahead and try both Shutterfly and Ofoto first.

Maybe try Costco when I get up to the "big city" again... although I think my membership card has expired by now...

Since you bumped it back to the top and I see it now too I'll add my 2 cents. I've placed several orders with ofoto and had wonderful results. I would also recommend them without reservation.

For quality, Ofoto all the way.

I've used SnapFish for developing one-time-use film. They are "OK". Not really impressed, but it's also the relatively low quality of the source. The nice thing is they are cheap, you get the photos online very quickly, and they'll also send you prints and a CDROM after a week or so too.

I've used Ofoto for developing print from digital sources. They are by far the best prints I've ever seen. They are a bit pricey, but the quality is spectacular. I'm always impressed.

Ok, I got my order back from Adorama ( http://www.photo.net/adorama-pro-lab/ ) and am pleased with the results.

To order, you use a Windows application you download from their web site. It allows you to specify qty, size and cropping. You can manipulate where the cropping takes place. It then handles the upload to their site.

They print on normal (these were on Kodak) photographic paper. From what I can tell, this is continous tone printing.

I tried a variety of sizes, trying to get a feel for the limitations in the printing and the originals. My originals were 4 mega pixel from a Canon G2. At this resolution, they offer prints up to 12"x18". Their tool won't allow you to select prints that they feel are too large for the image resolution.

I specified USPS (least expensive), and everything came packaged well (flat). All the different sizes came in different envelopes w/their own thick cardboard and the whole lot was in a large envelope. No spam sent along, no paper packing slip. I did get the order details via email.

Basically, at 8x10 they are as good as analog prints. I'm not an expert, but I can't tell they are digital prints no matter how close I look.

The 11x14s look very good. Only by looking VERY closely at high contrast areas can you even spot any flaws at all (John takes off his glasses and sticks his nose 2" away from the print). I would say it would be rather unlikely that anyone would notice - and overall, they look stunning. Nothing says digital.

I now wish I had tried an 12"x18" print, but the cost goes up a fair amount ($9.99). Here is what pricing looked like for my order:

+--------------------------------------------+
| Qty | Description | Unit | Price |
|-----+-----------------+-------+------------|
| 17 | 4" x 6" print | $0.29 | $4.93 |
|-----+-----------------+-------+------------|
| 10 | 8" x 10" print | $2.99 | $29.90 |
|-----+-----------------+-------+------------|
| 5 | 5" x 7" print | $0.69 | $3.45 |
|-----+-----------------+-------+------------|
| 2 | 11" x 14" print | $4.99 | $9.98 |
|-------------------------------+------------|
| Promotion Discount | - $2.99 |
|-------------------------------+------------|
| Shipping | $2.49 |
|-------------------------------+------------|
| Total | USD $47.76 |
|--------------------------------------------|

Here is the complete price list: http://www.pb0.com/adorama/photonet/adoramaprices.php

You get 8x10 print for free on the first order. Just put in promo word (listed on the web page) in the correct field in the order.

All in all, very cool. I'll go back.

-john