Ordering your photos

jleon · Jan 29, 2009

Anyone recommend any sites to use when ordering your pictures? I have only used simple ones like shutterfly, etc. any other suggestions?

Mgw189 · Jan 29, 2009

Iprintfromhome.com is a nice lab. They do great work and the prices are reasonable.

mrodgers · Jan 29, 2009

I'm new to printing, but I sent a handful of the same photos to 3 places, Adorama at the recommendation of family member, MPix at the recommendation of so many people here, and Snapfish at no recommendations other than I wanted to see a difference between obvious "photography" printers and a masses printers used by any Tom, Dick, and Henry.

I wouldn't recommend Snapfish to my worst enemy. Even my enemies deserve better quality than I got from Snapfish. I thought I goofed and sent them 640x480 images rather than the same images I sent to the other places.

Upon getting my Adorama prints, I am sending everything from now on to Adorama. That's how pleased I was by their prints. Not that MPix was bad, I was just overwhelmed by Adorama. I all 3 to color correct and the Adorama prints looked absolutely identical to my monitor when compared side by side.

edwardspw · Jan 29, 2009

I just received my first order from Adorama. I got the 25 free 4x6 prints on standard paper - they were great - noticeably better than the prints I got from Sam's Club(although Sam's has great prices and one hour service).

I got 8 5x7's printed on the high quality metallic paper. I was blown away by the quality. Now I'm going to get some larger prints.

I uploaded my photos on Sunday night, they were shipped on Tuesday, and I received them on Thursday.

Adorama certainly has my future business.

linpelk · Jan 29, 2009

edwardspw said:
I just received my first order from Adorama.

Did you use the "print like a pro" or the "easy upload" version and do you think it makes a difference?

Also, do most of you turn the color correction OFF when you order prints? I was leaving it ON for a while and my pictures seemed to be darker. A friend of mine told me to order with the color correction OFF and they seem better, but the person at the photo lab looked at me like I was crazy when I requested this so it made me think that maybe I was given the wrong info. I am just curious what all of you do.

edwardspw · Jan 29, 2009

I used the Easy Upload, and I let them color correct the photos, although I have no way of knowing if they did or not.

mrodgers · Jan 30, 2009

linpelk said:
Did you use the "print like a pro" or the "easy upload" version and do you think it makes a difference?

I don't remember this option. Sounds like just an upload option. If just an upload option, shouldn't make a difference other than how they are uploaded.

Also, do most of you turn the color correction OFF when you order prints? I was leaving it ON for a while and my pictures seemed to be darker. A friend of mine told me to order with the color correction OFF and they seem better....

Is your monitor calibrated? I don't know much about monitor calibration. I think if monitor IS calibrated, you need to get their color profile and use that with editing. Then you have them NOT color correct and your prints should be identical to how they look on your display when editing.

I don't have a calibrated monitor. I only used a website to adjust my monitor. Thus I left Adorama to color correct and my prints were exact. The other 2 printers I sent prints to were a little oversaturated in color for my taste (also left to color correct by the printer.)

That's what I didn't like about MPix, the color correction. I didn't like how slightly oversaturated the prints were to what I edited them to. Other than that, the quality of the prints were fantastic.

Snapfish was also a bit oversaturated to the same level as MPix were. The were just pixelated to **** and looked like I sent them low resolution images to print. You might not notice if you've only ever used a place like Snapfish, but comparing side by side to Adorama and MPix, the difference was huge.

....but the person at the photo lab looked at me like I was crazy when I requested this so it made me think that maybe I was given the wrong info. I am just curious what all of you do.

What photo lab? If just Walmart, Sams Club, or similar it would probably be because they are just someone punching a PRINT button on the machine behind the counter and not someone who knows anything about printing. 90% of the people having prints done at Walmart are probably people just snapshooting family shots and what they get is what they get.

Village Idiot · Jan 30, 2009

WHCC has done some of the best print work I've seen to date.

I did sign up with Smugmug to have someone else take care of online print order fulfilment, but up until a day or two ago, they were using EZPrints. They did just pick up a pro lab, Bay Photo, so I'm feeling a bit better about that.

linpelk · Jan 30, 2009

mrodgers said:
Is your monitor calibrated? I don't know much about monitor calibration. I think if monitor IS calibrated, you need to get their color profile and use that with editing. Then you have them NOT color correct and your prints should be identical to how they look on your display when editing.

I don't have a calibrated monitor. I only used a website to adjust my monitor. Thus I left Adorama to color correct and my prints were exact. The other 2 printers I sent prints to were a little oversaturated in color for my taste (also left to color correct by the printer.)

That's what I didn't like about MPix, the color correction. I didn't like how slightly oversaturated the prints were to what I edited them to. Other than that, the quality of the prints were fantastic.

Snapfish was also a bit oversaturated to the same level as MPix were. The were just pixelated to **** and looked like I sent them low resolution images to print. You might not notice if you've only ever used a place like Snapfish, but comparing side by side to Adorama and MPix, the difference was huge.

What photo lab? If just Walmart, Sams Club, or similar it would probably be because they are just someone punching a PRINT button on the machine behind the counter and not someone who knows anything about printing. 90% of the people having prints done at Walmart are probably people just snapshooting family shots and what they get is what they get.

Thanks for the reply. I've kind of high jacked this thread...sorry. I don't have my monitor calibrated. I've actually never heard that before (I'm a newbie) but I'll ask my husband about it (he's much more computer saavy). I've been ordering from Bay Photo (they are local for me so I can order online and pick up to save shipping charges) and they are supposedly a good place to print. I might have had a newer person at the counter that day. I only asked that one time and have since been ordering online so I don't actually talk to anyone. Thanks for the info about calibrating my monitor. Something I will look into.