First....I hope I am doing this right! My first new post.
I have been checking out different web print sites and have compaired two so far. dotphoto.com and printroom.com. I sent in the same picture and had them print at 5x7 size. The pictures came back on Fuji archival paper, very good weight to it and they looked just like a true photo. No dots showing anywere. The color was adjusted on the dotphoto print, it was better than the original....I don't think I checked the box that said "do not color adjust" so my fault and it worked out fine. On both sites there are choices for not cropping picture to size....for example if you wanted an 8x10 from something you set as a 3x5 it would crop edges to fit.....gives examples of what it would look like so it is all your choice. The return time was 7 days from upload order to delivery for dotphoto and 4 days from upload and delivery from printshop. The price was more for printroom, still a great deal considering what I spend on ink for my H/P printer! I have submitted to two other company's and will report back with the info! OHhhh, I sent many many email question to both sites and got an answer from both the next day. Both very helpful....and both with free prints at the 4x6 size for compairing too. I will check back in with the other results soon. Have a great day! :)

Jill
For your first thread you did great! You got alot of good information out and the comparison to each company was a great idea. By sending the same file to each one you get a much better idea of how they reproduce the colors. You also added your experience with each one and time to completion. These are good points for us to know when dealing with online photo places. Thanks for the tip. Look forward to your next thread on this subject when you get even more prints back to review or any other subject for that matter.
DJ

Hi Jill,

Thanks for letting us know about that. I think there will be quite a few people here who will benefit from what you have to say. Comparisons are always good whether it's for photo printing, hardware, software, or whatever. Thanks again. I'll be looking for your update post.

Ed

Jill, Thanks so much for sharing your findings with us. It is certainly of great interest to me and I'm sure many others. Looking forward to your future reviews. -Jeanie

First, Thank you for the positive feedback and I will get back with the other print info soon.....I need to correct a mistake, I said Printshop.com.....should have said Printroom.com! Sorry, I am going back to fix but for those that have already read it the wrong way, SORRY! ;)

Jill,

As far as your first post, I think you did great on a subject I've been wondering for a bit.

The thought of working with an online printer never even occured to me. I might go ahead and submit a photo to them verses the ones that are here in town and see how they compare both in quality and cost.


Thanks!


Rick

I just recieved a new group of photos from printroom.com. They were printed on the matte paper and with not very good results I am afraid. Printed on a no name paper/little lightweight. They were all just a bit blurry with a yellow cast. I am using the same photos for all comparing. They say they guarantee all photos but, to much of a pain to reorder and wait if you had a customer waiting...so I will stick to glossy with them.
I did recieve back one print from shutterfly.com. It was on fuji crystal archive paper/good weight to it and great color/sharp and in focus! Also on glossy paper.
Almost all these company's have free prints with free sign up so I would love to hear how anyone elses comparisons worked out!
I just read somewere that Walmart and Sams club are going to be offering digital printing from the stores...has anyone else used this service from them.....I think the price from walmart was 20 cents per 4x6....???

(it is amazing we are all from different states with the same interests! I love this forum!)

Are there still more comparisons coming in yet? I am curious to which one you will finally go with as the best for the buck and time. I didn't realize the paper would make so much a difference in the color. Quality yes but color? Very interesting tidbit to keep in mind.

I just got my 16x20 print back from the local 60 Minutes photo and I got very good results from them. They matched the colors surprisingly well from my CD jpeg. For real large prints I will go back to them. The cost was $25 (with tax) which was actually the lowest quote I got.

I am really considering trying some of these online places but I haven't found one that does the big photos (Over 8x10). I am eager to hear all the comparisons you make on this subject. Thanks for sharing it with us Jill.
DJ

Ofoto.com (http://www.ofoto.com) offers both 16x20 ($14.99) and 20x30 ($19.99) size prints. I've only ever used them for 4x6 (personal stuff) and have been pleased with the results, but I haven't compared them with anyone. Sometimes you don't see the faults until you see a higher quality, so I should really test out some of the other sites too. Anyway, thought you'd want to know about that one DJ. -Jeanie

Thanks Jeanie,
I swear I looked on Ofoto and didn't see anything over 8x10. I will have to check again. The prices look pretty good too. Worth checking into.
DJ

The large sizes on Ofoto are fairly new, so perhaps you looked before they added them. (Just in case you thought you were losing it. ;) ) -Jeanie

Hi Gang,

I know things haven't been real good lately, but I was wondering if anyone had anything else to say about print quality. BTW, what output resolution are you giving them for the prints? I'm a little curious since I haven't had any done yet. Do they let you know what they want? And will they do color matching?

Ed

Hi to all,
I recieved ofoto's pictures back and they were processed in less than a day! Very good quality Kodak paper and the color match was excellent. Nice and sharp picture. I had them printed on glossy and didn't have them crop to fit...I keep my pics at 200-300dpi. Now that I have compared these three companies, so far my favorite is 1-dotphoto...reasons: cost and quality 2-ofoto....quality and speed 3-shutterfly...quality and speed 4-printroom....now that I have compared I am not really happy with the color shift and the pictures are a bit fuzzy (could be the matte paper).
I still have lots of free prints to compare with so I will be checking back in!
I also have a slow computer but these companies have a fairly quick upload time (don't know how that works but it does!)
If you sign up with ofoto.com thru amazon.com you get a bunch of free prints plus half off etc....I hope some more of you give them a try to so we can figure out the best one! It is a lot of fun getting free prints in the mail! I am going to do a xmas card/picture and have them printed up to send out for xmas :)
Take care,

Wow! You sure answer quickly! :) Thanks very much for the update Jill. I'll take a look to see if I can find something to send to a couple of places. That was a *great* idea. Thanks again.

Ed

Ditto what Ed said Jill. You sure did a good job with this little research. We can all benifit from this one.
DJ

Thanks to all of you for the positive feedback! DJ told me you were a great bunch and she was right :)
I was wondering what dpi/resolution you (Jeanie and Debbie) send in to get the large size prints coming back great?
Ed, I am looking forward to hearing about your results! I sure have learned a lot from all of you...I may not post a lot but I do jump all around the forum and soak up all you info! Thanks :)

Glad to have you posting Jill. I'm not sure just when I'll get the prints made, but when I do I'll let everyone know what I think.

Ed

Hi Jill,
It depends on what the place I take it too can handle and also what formats they want. One place could only handle up to 22mb and their largest output was 11x14. For places that do larger prints, I have sent 600 dpi and the last one I sent out was a 16x20 at 400 dpi. Whether this was overkill or not I don't know. I asked the printer first what size they wanted and was told the bigger the better. I really can't help too much on this end of things as I haven't had that much experience with outside printers.
DJ

Jill, I haven't actually used Ofoto to order any large prints yet. However, my local lab requests that I give them 300dpi at whatever size I'm requesting. That can be a pretty big file so I have to write it to a CD. I just looked on the Ofoto website and they recommend:

For a 4 x 6" print, the image resolution should be 640 x 480 pixels minimum
For a 5 x 7" print, the image resolution should be 1024 x 768 pixels minimum
For an 8 x 10" print, the image resolution should be 1536 x 1024 pixels minimum
For a 16 x 20" print, the image resolution should be 1600 x 1200 pixels minimum
For a 20 x 30" print, the image resolution should be 1600 x 1200 pixels minimum

Those are pretty darn low resolutions if you ask me, i.e. I would never print out a photo on my printer at that low a resolution. However, they do say that "Although Ofoto will print any of your photos to the size you choose, some photos - depending on the number of pixels in the image - just look better when printed at a specific size." I guess I should test a large print - sending the same photo at the "minimum resolution" and one at 300dpi (which is what I've been told by my local lab to give the best quality on their equipment) and see if I can tell the difference. (I bet I will.)

I'll report back when I've done this, but it might take me a few days to get to it...

Jeanie

Hi all!

Most of the lab people I talk to are using GF so they can get by with less dpi but I would still send the largest file you can. The largest I go is 8x10 so I usually give them a 300-400 tiff on a cd. No problems so far.

Sorry to take so long to respond!
Jeanie...I would love to hear how your compairson works out, and thank you for the resolution recommendations. I think I better pay more attention to the websites and look for that!
Bob....what is GF?
Thanks! :)

Sorry, my spelling is soooooooo bad I do a lot of abbreviating. The program is called "Genuine Fractals". It uses algorithms to enlarge an image.

Sometimes it works great other times just ok. Its made by Altamira Group. Hope this helps.

Bob

Hi, this is my first post on this page, so I hope I'm doing this right. Anyhow, what a great web site this is. I'm new to photo restoration but I've quickly become an addict. I've gained a lot of information and ideas from all of you guys.
I found this subject very interesting since I've been looking for ways to get my digital prints done over the web. Have any of you tried ezprints.com? I uploaded some files to them the other day and am (anxiously) waiting to see how they come out.
They sent a couple of 8x10 prints to help me match my moniter to their colors and the paper seemed very good. Supposedly they only output on Kodak paper. Their prices also seemed quite reasonable, 4.95 for an 11x14, 2.95 for an 8x10. I ordered color, b/w, on both glossy and matte.
I'll let you know how they look when I get them.
Nancy

Oh.....I guess I have heard of genuine fractals but have little knowledge about it! (obviously) Thanks for the responce!
Nancy...I will look forward to hearing about your results :) This is the best group, I have also learned so much from everyone....and people are actually nice to you!

Welcome Nancy
Look forward to your results also. Remember this site is composed of people like yourself who don't have to be an authority on the subject, just eager to share their experiences and learn from others experiences.
DJ

Last Friday my Ofoto 15% off coupon was expiring, so I spent the day uploading photos to finally do my "resolution test." I had a photo of Canyonlands in Utah that I had stitched together from two photos and wanted to see what it would look like in a large size. So, I ordered two 16x20" prints. (The actual photo dimensions are 7x20".)

My first file was 300dpi. I wanted to save it as quality 10 JPEG, but the file was too big and after a half dozen attempts to upload the file to Ofoto. I called customer support to ask if there was a limit on file size, had to leave a message and got a call back within 4 hours. I was told that there isn't any limit on file size, but if the site is really busy, sometimes larger files time out. I've got a cable modem, so I don't think the problem was at my end. And since I didn't want to wait until the wee hours of the morning (and risk not being able to use my coupon), I played around with various file sizes by changing the JPEG quality. (The whole purpose of the test was to send a 300dpi and lowest-possible resolution, so I didn't want to play around with resolution.) I found that anything above a quality 7 was larger than 3MB and got an error during loading. The quality 7 file was 2.5MB and loaded without any difficulty. Since I couldn't get any of the larger files to load, I had to use this one as my "high-end" test.

My second file was the lo-res version. Ofoto recommends "at least" 1200x1600 pixels for 16x20" prints. That equates to 80 dpi! And that's what I used. That file was only 500KB and loaded without difficulty.

I ordered the prints Friday evening and got an e-mail Saturday afternoon that the order was complete. (I ordered some other smaller photos as well. The smaller photos (8x10, 5x7, and 4x6) all arrived yesterday.) The larger prints arrived today in a triangular "tube." I'm not sure how else to desribe it, but the photos were loosely rolled with protective paper and put in the triangular mailing tube to ship.

Now the test came - would I be able to tell the difference? At first glance, no. However, on closer inspection, I noticed that the sky looked a bit more mottled on one of them. (Luckily, there's not much sky in the photo.) And on even closer inspection, I noticed that the details in the photo with the mottled sky were a little blurry, i.e., not much detail.

Conclusion: Resolution does make a difference! If you were to look at the two photos side-by-side from across the room, I doubt that you'd be able to tell a difference. However, if you're lke me and like to move in close to see the details of a photo, I'm afraid the lo-res version will be disappointing to you. I did not test an intermediate resolution, so don't know what would be a "minimum acceptable resolution" for me personally. I think I'll just stick with my 300dpi for now.

And if by chance you're interested, I've attached a much smaller version of the photo I used for my test.

Jeanie

Just wondering--does this business allow you to send TIFF format and do you do RGB or CMYK mode? Can you send your work in on CD?The photo is Awesome!! Gotta love the West--beauty everywhere. Tom

Tom,

They only allow JPG format. (I can't even imagine trying to send a decent-sized TIFF given the trouble I was having uploading a file over 3MB.)

I send RGB and have been very happy with the color. I don't know if they do any "color correction," but just did quick search for RGB on the site and came up with the following:Question: Do you use RGB Print Format?

Answer: We print in RGB, our imaging engineer recommends BruceRGB for editing:

Whitepoint=6500k
Gamma=2.2
red xy =0.6400 0.3300
green xy= 0.2800 0.6500
blue xy=0.1500 0.0600

You may change these settings by going to the File menu, down to Color Settings, and choosing RGB Setup. Once you've set the Whitepoint and Gamma, go to the Primaries pull-down and select Custom. This will bring up a pop-up that will allow you to change the red xy, green xy, and blue xy.I never knew this info before, so thanks for asking the question! :D

As far as whether you can send your files on a CD, I did another search. (Thanks for helping me find this info. I've discovered a search on Ofoto searches through an archive of past questions that people have sent in via e-mail. A veritable treasure trove of information!)Sending any type of storage medias (i.e. floppy, CD, Memory Cards, etc.) for uploading photos to your account is a service we don't currently offer. As we develop and provide new services, you will be notified once they become available. Your patience is greatly appreciated.

Instead, please upload with OfotoNow or through your browser at Ofoto.Jeanie

Great info! Thanks much--I owe you one! Tom

Jeanie
Beautiful picture! What a breath taking view.
Thanks for the great summary of your experiences with the online photo place. It was very complete and an excellent experiment.
We will all benifit by your efforts and Jill's.
DJ

Great review!
I loved the Canyonland picture!
I agree that Ofoto's pictures seem a bit blurry...even at 300dpi mine were softer rather than sharp.
I did photo's for a wedding a little while ago and uploaded all to dotphoto (took forever and ever!) and the family all ordered from there. All were very happy and I have decided they are my favorite. (best prices so far) Not one problem with about 300 pics so far...they do take the longest to get back though. From order to delivery took a week.

Jill,

Thanks for mentioning the comparitive sharpness of prints from Ofoto and dotPhoto. Since I haven't gotten a print from dotPhoto, I'm not able to do that comparison myself. Unfortunately, it looks like the largest print size that dotPhoto will print is 12x18". I'm not sure a 16x20" from Ofoto and 12x18" from dotPhoto would be an apples to apples comparison. :( Any thoughts from anyone else on that point?

Jeanie

For a *true* comparison, IMHO you would need the same size print. But I also think that would depend on just how critical you are when viewing the print. At the sizes you mention, normal viewing distance would be approximately the same, so I think a reasonable comparison would be expected. Just remember that the width to height ratio is not the same with those sizes, and cropping might also enter the picture (no pun intended). :) Simply one man's opinion.

Ed

I could be(and probably am) wrong, but I wonder if the blurriness is related to JPEG artifacts and the "blow-up" of the image to the large size. I am assuming by the info so far that this isnt really noticable unless you get up close and really examine the prints. How are the smaller prints? Do they exibit the same type of problem? Just wondering....Tom

I think I'll try an 18" from dotPhoto to compare to my Ofoto prints. Here's my reasoning. The high-resolution file that I uploaded to Ofoto was 300dpi at the exact size I wanted it printed (i.e., 7"x20"). Thus, I don't think the fuzziness has to do with JPEG artifacts, Tom. (Though I could be wrong too. ;) ) I think that if I size my photo to be exactly 18" at 300dpi and upload to dotPhoto, that will be a pretty good comparison. Not exact, but "good enough." I'll report back when I get the print. (I promise it won't take me 6 weeks this time. ;) )
Jeanie

I came across this review the other day. Maybe it adds a couple more processors to the list.
http://www.smartbusinessmag.com/article/0,3658,s%253D104%2526a%253D17357,00.asp?kc=SBNKT0110KTX1K0000441

Great find Sanda. I think this is a good addition to this thread.
DJ

I just used bignose.com to order a 16x20 and was quite pleases. I had heard MANY good things about them, so I decided to try out their service. I uploaded a 1600x1200 TIFF saved at 72dpi (that was the res taken with my camera and I had heard that they have great methods of enlarging images). They accept TIFF or JPG and have file size specifications for each size of print. I will say that this is a PRINT....from a PRINTER....it's not processed like smaller 4x6-8x10s at most places. But it is still a really nice quality print. They did an excellent job at enlarging the image for print and it only cost 14.99. The thing that COMPLETELY amazed me was that I ordered the print on Thanksgiving day and it was being shipped from WA to KY. I thought I MAY get it the following Friday of the next week......I was wrong.....I get it MONDAY after Thanksgiving!!!!! I was blown away at their turnaround time and WILL use them again.

I have a local SAMs club that prints 8x10s for about $2 each on a Fuji printer.....VERY nice quality. The problem is, knowing the schedules of the people that work there so you get someone who knows how to print them. :depressed When I first went there, the guy had no clue what I was talking about, and then after 5 minutes of saying "uhhh......uh........uuuuhhhh" he said it would cost about $12 for an 8x10....I just laughed. One of my local Meijer stores prints really nice 4x6-8x10s for under $3 each.....but not quite the quality of SAMs Club.

Hope that helps someone out there!!

OH!! ONE MORE GREAT THING!!!! Here is a FREE action similar to Genuine Fractals. It does an EXCELLENT job and enlarging images!!! Check it out!!!

http://www.fredmiranda.com/SI/index.html

Wow, Mediaase
That's an excellent supplement to this thread. Yet another good online printer with good results. I had a 16 x 20 done with the local 60 Minute Photo and although they did a great job the cost was $25 and the time was just over one week. I will have to try this bignose.com and see how they compare. Sounds great though. Also thanks for the link. Have to check that out further.
DJ

oh....one caveat about that plugin.....it doesn't do anything to increase ppi like GF does. It only enlarges the photo it "steps"...hence the word "Stair". It can increase the size of a photo 4x. So if you have a 300ppi image that is 8x10....you could make it a 32x40 at 300ppi with really nice results.

just tried that action, it works beatifully, thank you. :)

Just tried Walmart.com for printing. I am extremely pleased!!
I also like their online printing options. You can do all sorts of things, including adding a frame. I ordered a black wooden frame with pewter accents for only $12.96 (5x7 photo) and it's beautiful.
Because I added the frame to a photo online, the photo was in the frame already. How easy is that?!
I must say, these are the best black & whites I've seen so far.
I haven't tried their color, but I will now.
The 4x6 is $.26, and 5x7 is $.96 (can't remember the others).
Also, another very important feature - they matched my screen image.
You have the option of having your prints mailed to you, or you can have them sent to a store near you. If you have them sent to the store, there is no shipping charge.

Another cool thing. A press release on their site says they are selling disposable digital cameras for about $7.00. You buy the camera, take your photos, and drop it back at the store. They upload them to an online album for you to print and or, email.
I will be watching them, as the article also listed some digital camera statistics. I think they are very aware of where digital is going, and will likely offer some very good services in the future.

I just got some color 8x10s back from Meijer.........EXCELLENT! WOW!!! I am REALLY surprised at the quality. Colors matched my screen perfectly. I am VERY pleased. The 8x10s were $3.99 each and making WONDERFUL Christmas presents. haha The turnaround time is usually about 3 hours, but the were booked full, so I had to wait until the next day....NO BIG DEAL THOUGH! I am so pleased....I recommend them a ton. They use a Fuji printer on Kodak Royal Paper.

Wow, Mediaase,
That sure is an endorsment. Sounds great. Thanks for giving us the low down. Sure helps in making choices.
DJ

Thanks Vicki for the Wall Mart info, I am so excited! My husband delivers product to the store close to our house and I can have him be my pickup/delivery service! Thank you so much for that great news :)

hey, i was looking around online at different printing services and found this...it has a list of a bunch of different online printing services with prices and print quality ratings...hope it's useful

david

http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-6451_7-6245134-1.html?tag=txt