Ultra-cheap printing services

J

John Dalton

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I've been asked to obtain about a dozen large prints for a birthday party. They're for that old chestnut of posting up photos of the birthday boy or girl as they looked in their wrinkle-free youth. I'm after something around 10"x8".

As they'll only be used once and as no one will be judging them then, as long as the quality is not appalling, cost is the important thing. The standard online price for a 10x8 seems to be £1.20, which is rather too much.

I've been browsing and 2 companies that seem possibilities are foto.com (35p) and mypix (54p). Has anyone any comments on them - I haven't found much on the Internet? In the case of foto.com the few comments seem to be split between very good and very bad.

Alternatively, would anyone care to suggest other companies?
 
pixum.co.uk - people i had prints with last and were great TBH

havent checked their prices but i'm sure they will be very competitive
 
brummie said:
pixum.co.uk - people i had prints with last and were great TBH

havent checked their prices but i'm sure they will be very competitive
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Thanks. I've just had a quick look and they quote 56p for 8 inch format (8x8 to 8x12). They're on my list - I'd rather pay a little extra for something with a personal recommendation.
 
Never had a problem with Foto.com. A bit slow in the post coming from belguim and all but prints were fine.
 
can you not print them yourself, be easier and you know the results will be ok
 
markgray said:
can you not print them yourself, be easier and you know the results will be ok
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Purely cost. An 8"x10" print is getting on for an A4 sheet. I haven't checked the figures, but I'd guess that doing 10 of these would use a fair bit of my ink cartridges (and I've currently got a modern Canon printer which means there aren't any cheap, reliable third party cartridges). And then there's the cost of the photo paper. I'd say that, all told, the wost could be significantly higher than the 35p each charged by foto.com. And, as I said, perfect quality isn't top priority in my particular case.

In fact a discussion of the relative costs of printing at home versus having them printed on-line would be an interesting topic. To be honest, if you're someone like me who simply wants reasonable prints from holidays or of family members, then I don't see how home printing can be anywhere as cheap as on-line printing.
 
I would think if I was printing at home I would be able to print 10x8 at less than 35p. If you are only doing 10 prints then it wouldnt use that much ink to be honest. Jet Tech ink I have found to be pretty good (and cheap) but not too hot on grey tones...so not good if the shots were black and white. Photo paper is pretty cheap these days too! I use Verbaitim Glossy Photo Paper ( Linky ) £9 for 100 sheets at 150grams - IE 9p a sheet (probably more sheets than you need, but its not like it goes off).

Its up to you, but I wouldnt rule out home printing - much more control and not as pricey as you may think.
 
I buy my cartridges (Genuine) and paper off ebay and pay far less than the shops charge. Hence why i print at home.

I also have acess to an Epson 10000 with a 44" wide roll of Gloss, Matte and 414gsm Canvas to print on, so a bit spoilt really. And the cartridges in the 10000 last ages.
 
markgray said:
I buy my cartridges (Genuine) and paper off ebay and pay far less than the shops charge. Hence why i print at home.

I also have acess to an Epson 10000 with a 44" wide roll of Gloss, Matte and 414gsm Canvas to print on, so a bit spoilt really. And the cartridges in the 10000 last ages.
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I've got an Canon iP4300 and like other recent Canon models it uses chipped cartridges. It seems that nobody is able, or is unlikely to become able, to reverse engineer these chips. You will find third party cartridges advertised, but these rely on you taking the chip off your old, genuine Canon cartridge, fitting it to the third party one and going through a complicated rigmarole to get the printer to recognise it. Also, it messes up the software that recognises when the ink is running out.

However, I'm not complaining - I went in with my eyes open. I bought it because it was cheap (£56 from Amazon) and had good reviews, especially for the blackness of text where many photo printers fall down.
 
hmm...that is a bugger. Cheeky monkeys chipping their cartridges!! Hope Epson dont follow suit!
 
Just for the record, I ended up sending them to foto.com and the results were satisfactory.

However, it also proved that you should always read the fine print about p&p first. Foto.com have a particularly complicated system and, for 10 off 10.5" x 8", I ended up paying 67p per print. This was only slightly less than it would have worked out for mypix or pixum.
 
Jimmy_Lemon said:
hmm...that is a bugger. Cheeky monkeys chipping their cartridges!! Hope Epson dont follow suit!
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Epson do chip their carts don't they, also I know if you google that you can buy for around £15-20 re-chipers that reset the chip on carts.
 
indeed epson do on some models and have been doing it for a good 7-8 years that i can remember. rotters.
 
hi mate..ive used foto.com for over a yearand found them exceptional. they r base din belgium but delivery of goods is usually in 5 days. i buy 30x40 poster prints which cost bout £6 inc delivery...unvelievable and on fuji royal paper too,...top quality. occasional they mail u with offers...recently i ordered 101
6x4 at 1p each.....there only trouble is that they dont do satin or matt prints....
try em..i cant rate them highly enough
 
Our photography club uses http://www.proamimaging.com/ for their prints and they swear by it. TBH I haven't printed any with them. But no harm trying.
 
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