Who do you use online for professional printing?

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photographer100

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I usually have 2 local printers print for me. 1 has gone out of business and the other is shut.

So who is best online?
 
For smaller prints I use DSCL and One Vision Imaging for larger prints.
 
Your question is a bit vauge.. different online printers suite different people.. .. I use photobox.co.uk because they fill my needs of selling lots of pics online at the sizes I require (very few do actual a4) DSCL would be nice but £5 delivery too much for one 7x5 pic..
 
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Do you mean professional printers or the cheapo ones ?

Have never used the former and the latter only a few years ago:

Snapfish: OK if you like a warm toning. They seem to think that I don't know what colours I want in a print and made them 'nicer'. I complained and got a refund.
Aldi: cheap and actually not bad for the price for a quantity.
Jessops: I think I used them once - more expensive but they used to get them done in Germany, I think. Nice quality. Was planning to get some photobooks from them.

That's about the extent of my personal experience.
 
I print mine 16x12 and place an order every couple of months with Sim Lab. Great service and next day delivery. Prints look good to me. They change around 7 quid for delivery but the prints are really well packed.
 
I always use DS Colour Labs, never had a problem, the platform is easy to use, you get your prints very quickly and the quality is great.
 
I printed my LRPS panel with DSCL - cheap as chips - BUT - when they arrived the quality was so bad I immediately threw them in the bin and went with Loxley instead

I do know of others who sell a lot using DSCL though, so maybe mine was a one-off

Others I know prefer Colourworld or One Vision Imaging and SIM

As others have said though, without knowing what the OP wants to print, to what sizes, volumes, quality and paper standards etc. its really hard to help

Dave
 
I only send out when I have something special I want printed and use Klein Imaging in Manchester. Great communication, good choice of papers and good value IMHO.
 
For many years I have produced a photobook of our year's events and I find that Photobox does a good job of an A4 book. But I always wait for their offers when there can be anything betwen 25-70% off. Of particular note are their offers to buy a credit book. You pay up front and then this allows between 1-3 months to produce.

Recently i carried out a comparison between DSCL, Photobox and Snapfish for 'A4' type prints.
I sent each six, 4x3 photo files.

Colours were comparable but DSCL had more depth.

Snapfish cut off alot of the image, as did Photoshop, but not as much.

DSCL printed true to size because they have the widest range of standard sizes. In this case I chose 12x9 inches and they produced the file (shot as m4/3) accurately.
At 70p a standard print they are also cheaper than either of the other two. P&P is expensive at £4.99 if I remember but they state that they will send back by return if files are submitted before 1pm - and they did, as I received them the next day. The other two took over a week.
 
Spiderdudeuk said:
I’ve always used Loxley Colour as the quality is superb as is their support.
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Ordered a print from one of the photographers on YouTube. He uses Loxley Colour. The photograph arrived today and the quality of the printing is superb. So is the image by the way.
 
theprintspace for me
 
Basically I don't. I have always done all of my own processing both B&W and colour or digital. I cannot remember ever sending or taking it to anyone to be processed right from 1963
 
When I did some weddings I used Loxley and would probably continue with them if it were for pro work. For home stuff I just use DSCL and they've been great.
 
I'd second the print space - just had a couple of 40cm x 30xm c-type prints back and they look great.
 
Another for printspace here. Can't say I've used many other printers but compared to snap fish, they are in a different league. You definitely get what you pay for!
 
Just had 500 prints done at Snapfish.... with a pale band across the top of each print. Great!

Really disappointed with the response from their off-shore customer services dept.

First guy claimed it was my photos. I got the problem escalated and they now claim it's my cropping (!). The images and prints are 6:4 so...?!

They've offered to credit my money back, so I'll try again, but starting to wonder if it's company policy not to admit to printing errors.

Looks like some kind of alignment problem. Guess they could have banged out thousands and thousands of bad prints....
 
furq said:
Just had 500 prints done at Snapfish.... with a pale band across the top of each print. Great!

Really disappointed with the response from their off-shore customer services dept.

First guy claimed it was my photos. I got the problem escalated and they now claim it's my cropping (!). The images and prints are 6:4 so...?!

They've offered to credit my money back, so I'll try again, but starting to wonder if it's company policy not to admit to printing errors.

Looks like some kind of alignment problem. Guess they could have banged out thousands and thousands of bad prints....
Click to expand...

Ouch! I would struggle to give them another shot at it after they didn't admit liability straight away. I don't mind companies making mistakes.. s*** happens... For me it's all about how they go about fixing the problem.
 
Lefrash said:
Ouch! I would struggle to give them another shot at it after they didn't admit liability straight away. I don't mind companies making mistakes.. s*** happens... For me it's all about how they go about fixing the problem.
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Well, they've offered me credits rather than cash back (so far).

Will certainly think twice before using Snapfish for a new order.

I've previously had terrible service from Photobox. Doesn't look like Aldi do 6x4 (??), so I'm running out of cheap options.

I get prints done of family photos and put in large albums, to decide if I really like or not, and then select my faves to go into a printed book.

I've got behind. I'm currently on 2015. :D
 
Casual stuff - Photobox.

Run of the mill stuff up to A3, especially if in batches to mitigate the postage - DSCL

Archival inkjets on special papers for sale / long-term display - Point 101, or Printspace (other labs like Loxley would no doubt be equal, and often who I use depends on their paper choices).
 
I used DSCL for many years (just for the cheap 10x15" C-type prints), without any issues, however a couple of years ago, the prints started coming back with an orange cast on them - even the mono prints. They were adamant it wasn't them however the images looked fine on my calibrated screen and countless mobile devices. I sent a small test batch to both DSCL and SIM Labs who use the very same Fuji frontier machine, and the SIM Labs ones came back fine. They're pretty much the same price as DSCL too so SIM get's all my regular print business now.

For customer fine-art prints and larger items I use Loxley Colour. Recently got some 5 foot aluminium di-bond prints made by them and they did a fantastic job :-
View: https://www.instagram.com/p/CRmb1RVDsCH/
 
Peak Imaging for me - top class service amnd amazing prints :)

Online Photo Printing & Personalised Photo Gifts

Peak Imaging is a professional photographic laboratory and digital imaging centre based in the U.K. offering photographic and digital imaging services to photographers throughout the world.
www.peak-imaging.com www.peak-imaging.com

Les
 
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