Professional Prints

[amospro]

Hey all,

I have a Canon EOS 20d and I took a CD rom into Costco to have some 5X7 prints done and I also took the CDROM into Target to get some 4X7's printed. The exact same prints. I chose Costco becasue the overall cost per print on 5X7's in cheap. I chose Target on the 4X6's becasue I had a coupon for (48.) FREE prints. The Lustre Costco prints came out pretty good but the glossy Target prints are horrible.

My questions to you all is, what should I look for in a print lab for the BEST quality prints? What are the differences of GLOSSY, LUSTRE and MATTE???

 

[DocFrankenstein]

Matte = soccer moms. fingerprints won't show.
I choose glossy usually. Better quality framed.
Lustre... Don't know about that.

 

[Hertz van Rental]

Because of the way light reflects on the surface (just like flare) matte and lustre reduce the tonal range of the prints - makes them look washed out. Glossy gives the best tonal range - blacks actually look black.

 

[Jeff Canes]

I prefer matte or lustra IMO whites looks more natural. With B&W clear skies will have a pearl white look to them when print on glossy. Also IMO when displaying prints matte helps cut down on glair reflecting from room lights.

Have the same image printed in both glossy and lustra at the same mini-lab to see witch one you like better.

I use both Costco and Adorama. My Costco uses Fuji papers, Adorama use Kodak lustra it is flatter that Fuji IMO but still semi glossy. Both are fine paper and with last for years.

P.S. DocFrankenstein Lustra is a semi glossy matte.


Hope that does not sound too preachy

 

[danalec99]

I regularly print from Adorama.
Also check out Mpix.com. Get their free samples first. They both use Kodak papers.

 

[Bokeh]

I regularly print from Adorama.
Also check out Mpix.com. Get their free samples first. They both use Kodak papers.

I used Eckerds the other day and the prints looked great. One thing I noticed though was the crop wasn't exactly what I gave them; a light was cut off a bit.

 

[Big Mike]

You can't expect the best quality prints from either Costco or Target. You can get great prints from either place...just don't expect it all the time.

Either way, most places will reprint for you if question them about it. A real photo lab should certainly reprint if you are not satisfied.

Also, it might help if your monitor is calibrated correctly, assuming that you are doing some post processing.

 

[Bokeh]

You can't expect the best quality prints from either Costco or Target. You can get great prints from either place...just don't expect it all the time.

I thought of taking some to Wolf camera which is down the road and comparing... I've also wondered how prints like that would compare to ones I would print on a nice printer like an Epson stylus.

Also, it might help if your monitor is calibrated correctly, assuming that you are doing some post processing.

I downlloaded "wyziwyg" and it seemed to work pretty well, the colors look great; I'm sure it's not as good as other otols though since it was free. What do you use for yours?

 

[Big Mike]

I have only printed a few scanned photos on an ink jet printer...all my shots are still on film.

I take my film to Blacks, it's a photo shop mostly geared toward consumer level stuff. I'm pretty sure they use a Fuji Frontier, just like Costco & Target probably do. The differences is that they have a technician evaluate each shot when they print...much better results than if they let the machine run on auto. Also, I never get the one hour service and avoid taking film in on Sunday or Monday when they are busy.

When I do get reprints done at Blacks, the results are good. If they are not, I just ask them to reprint with instructions on how I think it should be different.

 

[amospro]

You can't expect the best quality prints from either Costco or Target. You can get great prints from either place...just don't expect it all the time.

Ya, I didn't expect to get the BEST quality from them, just decent prints. It just raised a brow and made me think that I should choose carefully. The Target prints are pretty much unacceptable to me. How do you return FREE prints??? :shock: LOL! I guess that's why they were free!

 

[DocFrankenstein]

I have only printed a few scanned photos on an ink jet printer...all my shots are still on film.

I take my film to Blacks, it's a photo shop mostly geared toward consumer level stuff. I'm pretty sure they use a Fuji Frontier, just like Costco & Target probably do. The differences is that they have a technician evaluate each shot when they print...much better results than if they let the machine run on auto. Also, I never get the one hour service and avoid taking film in on Sunday or Monday when they are busy.

When I do get reprints done at Blacks, the results are good. If they are not, I just ask them to reprint with instructions on how I think it should be different.

I dunno... my blacks has some teen sitting in front of a cheap 17 inch monitor "evaluating" my shots. I had to ask them to re-print without "corrections"

Costco is better IMO.

 

[Jeff Canes]

You can't expect the best quality prints from either Costco or Target. You can get great prints from either place...just don't expect it all the time.

Ya, I didn't expect to get the BEST quality from them, just decent prints. It just raised a brow and made me think that I should choose carefully. The Target prints are pretty much unacceptable to me. How do you return FREE prints??? :shock: LOL! I guess that's why they were free!

Why not, they used same machines, paper and chemicals. The different is rotation of chemicals, up keep of machine and training staff. Any mini-lab that keep up it's equipment and staff can produce good work.

 

[Big Mike]

I dunno... my blacks has some teen sitting in front of a cheap 17 inch monitor "evaluating" my shots. I had to ask them to re-print without "corrections"

Costco is better IMO.

I guess the moral of the story is that it's the person running the machine...not what store the machine is in. I have always been happy with the Blacks outlet that I use. I started going to Blacks when I was looking for better quality than Wal-mart was giving me.

 

[amospro]

I guess the moral of the story is that it's the person running the machine...not what store the machine is in.

Haaa, that TOTALLY explains why the Target prints came out so poor!

 

[the_peel]

I used to go to Blacks when I was shooting film. But recently I bought a D70 and seem to have gone completely digital (I don't touch my film camera anymore!).

Now that I do digital, I do all the "processing" myself via photoshop and take it to Costco as they don't do any color corrections for you (so your photoshopping skills better be good). I'm also playing around with ICC profiles for the costco that I go to. I get my profiles from www.drycreekphoto.com. I'm still in the process of testing and learning about color profiling (very time consuming to learn).

I don't go to Black's anymore because the people that work there do not seem to be any more knowledgable than Costco people (they're all teenagers!!!), and Costco is much cheaper with similar quality machines and paper.

If you got the time and patience to learn about color profiling, I suggest you try going the Costco route and start learning about how color profiling works. The drycreekphoto web site is very well known and has an abundance of info on this.