High quality photo printing service

[veruca]

Was curious which printing services are good for high quality photo printing. I have an Epson R200 for home use (pics on the ‘fridge and such) and have used Snapfish for ages. Now a couple of friends from back home have requested prints and I’d like them to stand the test of time.

Any suggestions?

[admin]

Was curious which printing services are good for high quality photo printing. I have an Epson R200 for home use (pics on the ‘fridge and such) and have used Snapfish for ages. Now a couple of friends from back home have requested prints and I’d like them to stand the test of time.

Any suggestions?

While I don’t know much about the R200 series, which coincidentally, somebody was asking about a few weeks ago — I do know that the Epson R800 and the newer R1800 use archival quality pigment inks as opposed to dye inks in a special 8 color process. These inks are apparently rated to 104 years under normal lighting conditions and 200 years under the absence of light, assuming you use acid free archival papers that won’t sabotage your expensive inks. Nobody ever found out if the inks and/or cartridges for the R1800 were backwards compatible to the rest of the series

I’ve been pleased with the few scans I’ve sent to AdoramaPix. AdoramaPix uses Noritsu QSS-31 laser transfer printers (which expose standard papers via a laser scanning system) on Ilford papers.

[Klahanie]

Was curious which printing services are good for high quality photo printing. I have an Epson R200 for home use (pics on the ‘fridge and such) and have used Snapfish for ages. Now a couple of friends from back home have requested prints and I’d like them to stand the test of time.

Any suggestions?

I use Shutterfly and have never had a problem with them. I’ve mostly used them for greeting cards and calendars though, so ymmv.

[veruca]

Was curious which printing services are good for high quality photo printing. I have an Epson R200 for home use (pics on the ‘fridge and such) and have used Snapfish for ages. Now a couple of friends from back home have requested prints and I’d like them to stand the test of time.

Any suggestions?

While I don’t know much about the R200 series, which coincidentally, somebody was asking about a few weeks ago — I do know that the Epson R800 and the newer R1800 use archival quality pigment inks as opposed to dye inks in a special 8 color process. These inks are apparently rated to 104 years under normal lighting conditions and 200 years under the absence of light, assuming you use acid free archival papers that won’t sabotage your expensive inks. Nobody ever found out if the inks and/or cartridges for the R1800 were backwards compatible to the rest of the series

I’ve been pleased with the few scans I’ve sent to AdoramaPix. AdoramaPix uses Noritsu QSS-31 laser transfer printers (which expose standard papers via a laser scanning system) on Ilford papers.

Off to do some research to see if I can use those ink tanks. What I really like about my Epson is the 6 individual tanks. However, I’ve noticed fading on a couple of ‘fridge photos already.

Thanks a lot for the overview 🙂

[idle_hands]

if you do a lot of printing i can 100% recommend a continuous inking system and pigment inks. a little colour management tweaking but it’s worth it. i use epson printers but there are systems for other printers too

will look for the urls for the system & inks

[idle_hands]

following up:

for CIS:

http://www.inkalike.com/cis/

i buy colour inks here:

http://www.inkalike.com/cis/

quad blacks here:

http://www.inksupply.com/bwpage.cfm

(this may be old news but i’m quite thrilled to get neutral bw from my epson printer with the quadblacks!)

[veruca]

following up:

for CIS:

http://www.inkalike.com/cis/

i buy colour inks here:

http://www.inkalike.com/cis/

quad blacks here:

http://www.inksupply.com/bwpage.cfm

(this may be old news but i’m quite thrilled to get neutral bw from my epson printer with the quadblacks!)

Awesome. Thanks for the linkage!

[chakalakasp]

Yeah, inkjet prints don’t last for crap. Typical fade life of less than ten years, unless you buy archival inks and paper, something most people haven’t even heard of.

For online prints, I use MPIX.com. Their metallic paper is incredible — it’s like the old Fujichrome. I’ve used it to make prints for hangings and they’ve always come out great. I work for a newspaper, and the editor here thought the paper looked so good, he switched to them for all customer reprints. Hell, I’ve even had someone try to steal one of the photos that was hung in a bar — they do a great job with printing.

Only drawback with metallic paper is that, IMO, they don’t look great with skin tones. The metallic paper makes EVERYTHING look incredibly vibrant, and you usually want skin tones to be subtle.

Bonus is that shipping is flatrate and they’ll overnight Fedex you any sized order for $6.

Another good place to print is Adorama.com. I’ve had good luck with them, too; I’ve run wedding photos through them, and all the customers were really pleased.

I’d avoid Sam’s Club online photoprinting — pretty bad color on cheap paper. Others have said that they’re pretty good, but I definately disagree.

Go with MPIX metallic paper. Heck, if you don’t believe me, run five 8X10s through them. It’ll be like $14 after shipping. You’ll never print anywhere else. 🙂

[Slowpoke]

I wouldn’t use your home computer to print pictures. It’s expensive and the picture quality isn’t all that great. What I did was set up an account with Walgreens (target, Walmart, whatever). Yuo can upload your pictures to the store and they will have them printed within an hour. Plus at a cost of 19 cents a print, it can’t be beat. It’s simple and the quality is great.

[monkeybort]

I wouldn’t use your home computer to print pictures. It’s expensive and the picture quality isn’t all that great. What I did was set up an account with Walgreens (target, Walmart, whatever). Yuo can upload your pictures to the store and they will have them printed within an hour. Plus at a cost of 19 cents a print, it can’t be beat. It’s simple and the quality is great.

i don’t know what you’re printing with, but i disagree. i get beautiful prints from my printer, and i would never trust walmart/target/sam’s club with anything other than snapshots.

but that is just me, and what the heck do i know about anyone else’s printing needs. 🙂

[schnee]

Was curious which printing services are good for high quality photo printing.
Any suggestions?

Certain Costco’s do a fine job. Seriously. My local Costco actually has their Noritsu minilab profiled by Dry Creek Photo and they provide ICC profiles that I use in my color-managed workflow. They print on Fuji Crystal Archive and can in-house upto 11×14’s. I’ve not had a complaint and neither have my buyers.

Bigger than 11×14 is outsource to somewhere else – I’ve never printed bigger than that so I can’t speak to the quality.

Dry Creek Photo Profile Directory

[veruca]

For online prints, I use MPIX.com. Their metallic paper is incredible — it’s like the old Fujichrome.

Heck, if you don’t believe me, run five 8X10s through them. It’ll be like $14 after shipping. You’ll never print anywhere else. 🙂

I’m sending off the order when i get home tonight and upload a couple more prints. Thanks for the tip.

I may not know what I like but I do know I don’t like Mystic. I ordered an 11×14 from them and it came back with white streaks running throughout the print. Sent the same original through Snapfish and it came out great.

I am really interested in the metallic paper though, hmmm.

Thanks for all the responses. 😉

[Anonymous]

i don’t know what you’re printing with, but i disagree. i get beautiful prints from my printer, and i would never trust walmart/target/sam’s club with anything other than snapshots.

but that is just me, and what the heck do i know about anyone else’s printing needs. 🙂

Well, part of that may be because you’re not looking at the prints very closely. Maybe I’ve just become jaded because of all the crap I have to scan because of my job, but I can spot an inket print just by glancing at it. (The really high-end $50,000 inkjet printers do a pretty good job, but I doubt that’s what you’re talking about.) Also — try scanning an inkjet print sometime. (It’s even better if you can get the same photo printed on silver for comparison). Notice the compressed histogram? It’s that way because the tonal range is nowhere near as wide as that of silver. And look at all those little dots! Also, again, unless you’re using archival inks and paper, your inkjet prints won’t last more than a few years without fading. Not a big deal if you’re sticking it on the fridge, but a really big deal if you’re selling it to someone for $50.

[monkeybort]

i don’t know what you’re printing with, but i disagree. i get beautiful prints from my printer, and i would never trust walmart/target/sam’s club with anything other than snapshots.

but that is just me, and what the heck do i know about anyone else’s printing needs. 🙂

Well, part of that may be because you’re not looking at the prints very closely. Maybe I’ve just become jaded because of all the crap I have to scan because of my job, but I can spot an inket print just by glancing at it. (The really high-end $50,000 inkjet printers do a pretty good job, but I doubt that’s what you’re talking about.) Also — try scanning an inkjet print sometime. (It’s even better if you can get the same photo printed on silver for comparison). Notice the compressed histogram? It’s that way because the tonal range is nowhere near as wide as that of silver. And look at all those little dots! Also, again, unless you’re using archival inks and paper, your inkjet prints won’t last more than a few years without fading. Not a big deal if you’re sticking it on the fridge, but a really big deal if you’re selling it to someone for $50.

if the prints from my printer looked significantly different or worse to me than silver prints, i wouldn’t have said that i get beautiful prints from it.

i dunno, maybe i just don’t look at them closely enough, but i think they look fine.

[Born Slippy]

I’ve been very content with the Wal Mart. Sometimes you get lucky and get someone who understands whats up. At the worst, the manager is a photographer and understands if there’s a problem. I’d go up to 8×10 with them, and I think they do a great Black & White with some tweaking on your own.

For big jobs, I bring a bottle of Merlot over to my Dad’s and fire up the Epson 4800.

[Author]

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