Photobox Print Quality

hayesphotography

hayesphotography

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Name
Steve
Edit My Images
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Hi All

We opened out studio about 5 months ago and have been doing really well, despite the current economic climate.

We've manage to keep our prices down and part of the reason that we've been able to is because we use Photobox for our prints

When we first started out, the print quality was good, though we did have to send a few things back.

As time has gone on however, the print quality seems to have gotten worse.

In the studio we shoot 99% of our stuff in High Key and on the laptop, the images look punchy, colourful and nicely contrasty. The prints that come back however are anything but. I don't know what to do.

We've thought about Loxley, but they are just too expensive at our price point.

Could it be the way that we are managing the images in post production?
All the images are shot in Raw, tweeked and then uploaded as full res JPEGS

We don't have a monitor calibrater, but we have calibrated by eye using a method that Loxley told us about. When we load the RAW files, we use the colour profile that was set up for Loxley printing. Could this be the issues (pardon my ignorance)

Anyone else had any similar issues or any ideas?

Cheers

Steve
 
I had a similar problem using photobox (quality was good at first then slowly deteriorated) so i tried One vision Imaging no problems so far, a bit more expensive though.
 
Photobox quality does seem to vary - I recently ordered 2 sets of prints (at different times) and they were both fairly off compared to my calibrated-to-their-calibration-print screen. However the calendars I ordered that had the same images looked perfect.
My email to their customer services got some strange reply about their auto-enhancing being off at the time of one lot of prints being done. Hmm..
However, in the past Photobox customer service has been quick to do a reprint so it might be worth emailing them about the problem.

One Vision have done some great prints for me but as Pip says they cost more and the postage was costly for a small order.
 
I find photobox print slightly dark so I know if I use them I add 10% mid tones and they print good then.
I never never ever use them for b&w they cannot print true black tones I always use ilford who are excellent
 
you shouldnt leave calibration to by eye - it will always be out and therefore you can guarantee the print will come out the way you intend - you can pick one up for £85

Really worth saving £85 and knowing things arent quite right?
 
Interestingly I've had much back and forth with Photobox in the past 4 weeks over the calendars I've had printed recently. Every year I order 6 calendars for family and friends, I've had a few minor issues but all easy to sort.

This year they turned up about 4 weeks ago and it was immediately apparent that something was a bit 'off'. They felt nowhere near the quality of previous years (thickness of card, standard of print), I just put this down to cost cutting.

Upon looking through them all in detail I began to notice some fairly severe faults, such as this...

i-wwfqXzF-M.jpg


A couple of calendars had similar marks, and every single one of them had very obvious 'banding' on any photos with lots of consistent colour (i.e. blue sky). They ignored my query on the banding, but sent new calendars to replace those with the blotches. Impressively, the replacement calendars also had similar blotches (presumably there are no quality checks at all, even on reprint due to quality issues).

I wrote to them again, they reprinted all 6 calendars which arrived a few days ago. The difference in quality is staggering, there are no banding issues, colour reproduction is far better, and most oddly the pages feel significantly thicker and of better quality.

I'm guessing they out-source some of their work during peak times? I feel a bit annoyed that had I not had the blotching issue that I would probably have put up with the original delivery.
 
Ooh - that's a little worrying - I only checked one of my calendars so better go unpack the rest quickly.....
 
I find photobox to be pretty good but I'm convinced that they use a speedy printing process, and not a proper exposure process which seems to yield better results
but you get what you pay for.
I do find that photobox come back a little bit dark but I don't calibrate and I really should

also what printing profile do you guys use?
If I was serious about printing quality (more so than I am now) I'd shoot with an Adobe colour profile rather than RGB and calibrate before sending them off.
(might be talking crap...I often do...happy to learn if someone contradicts me. cheers :))
 
always used Photobox for general stuff, but found them a bit hit and miss lately requiring reprints

tried DSCL, superb quality (matched profile & lustre) and the same order was £11 cheaper than P'box, crazy!

using them now...
 
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stevewestern said:
Ooh - that's a little worrying - I only checked one of my calendars so better go unpack the rest quickly.....
Click to expand...

I've only ever checked one in the past and assumed the rest are ok. No idea why I decided to check every page this year, but it was lucky that I did.
 
ukaskew said:
I've only ever checked one in the past and assumed the rest are ok. No idea why I decided to check every page this year, but it was lucky that I did.
Click to expand...

Man I owe you...!
I have just checked all my calendars to find that none really pass close inspection - the one I looked at was the best of them all so I have just emailed to ask for a reprint.

Thank you so much as I wouldn't have checked them until just before posting them out which would have been too late to get anything done in time...
 
I've had prints done by dscl and they were fine, they colours were nice and paper quality is high, they use Fuji papers and they give a nice finish, I get their lustre prints. My first batch of prints came out a bit dark but that was my fault as I hadn't calibrated my monitor, I've just ordered a second set, £30 quids worth of 8x12 prints which are on their way to me now. I'd recommend them. Not used photobox so can't offer a comparison
 
I used to use Photobox about 5 years ago, then changed to DSCL through a recommendation from somewhere (probably a forum) but have never looked back since.
 
I got an email from them asking for me to return by freepost my faulty calendars and they were going to do a reprint.
I have to say that I cannot fault their customer service - shame their QC isn't better in the first place.
This episode also backs up my decision not to use them for any prints I am selling - yet again !
 
I've often had to send stuff back to Photobox, and to be fair they've nearly always rectified the issue with little intervention from myself, apart from when I ordered a photobook for a client (unbranded) going for all their upgrade options. It arrived, and all the B&W images were repeated three times on the opposite pages, colour images had terrible banding. Contacted them, then sent photos of the offending pages (via iphone camera) on the morning I'd received the book, they then asked me to post the book back, and I'd have to wait for them to receive and verify the issue (which was very apparent from the photos I'd already sent) before they'd consider a reprint - not impressed, introduced an extra week delay.

Then again I used Blurb's LR plugin to create a book, and although impressed with the quality of the premium paper, the images all looked low res, when I complained I was sent credit to create another one, and told that I should resize all the images manually to fit the boxes at 300dpi (all the images were from a 5D mkII and printed images were 6x4 size in the book).
Spent ages going the manual route to recreate the book. Not terribly impressed, as the whole point of their plugin is that it should be quick and easy - the PDF which it created didn't look low-res...
 
A little update - I have received my reprinted calendars AND checked them all...!
All looking good, so I have to praise Photobox for their customer service, but it is a shame that I have had a few too many dealings with them over the years. Mistakes can happen in any business but lessons need to be learned.

I have just sent off an order to DSCL to see how they compare so this may have been my last encounter with the Photobox guys - maybe I have learned mine !
 
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+1 for DSCL. Once I'd calibrated my monitor I was flying with these guys, quick delivery, good quality.
 
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