Digital Online Printing Shootout Review
Ok, as noted in my
previous post, the winners in the picture quality category were
Imagestation.com followed by
Snapfish.com.
Oddly enough, between then and now, there have been some changes in that other most important category,
PRICE.
Specifically,
Imagestation.com has eliminated their bulk prepaid price discount to create a flat fee $.24 print price (for a 4x6, although they do have a limited summer sale of $.19).
Photoworks.com seems to have retiered their prepaid bulk discount as well.
Based on price and image quality, my recommendation for those of you who want to just quickly and cheaply print some snapshots to send to your non-tech relatives (ie: Mom), the hands down winner is:
Snapfish.com.
It doesn't hurt that they are having a summer sale, where the base price is now $.19.
Here is a table of the final breakdown:
* -
Snapfish.com is having a summer sale, where the base price is $.19.
+ -
Winkflash.com is having a summer sale of free shipping.
All photos were taken with my trusty Sony DSC-P51 2 megapixel camera, Fine setting, 1600x1072 (3:2 ratio camera output), output by camera in JPEG exif format. Images were raw uploaded (ie: no batch processing or other manipulation via Photoshop or other editing program) to the respective online print houses. No manipulations were done of any kind, and when available, Zoom & Trim option was NOT selected. Only
Imagestation.com had a problem with zoom&trim, placing a white border around the image even though it was already sized for a 3:2 ratio. All prints were 4x6 glossy prints, and (with the exception of
Winkflash.com) all prints were ordered using the free 10 or 15 picture sample offers. Shipping was relatively quick for all printers, none exceeding 1 week from ordering to shipment arrival, even with Memorial Day weekend inbetween.
Image quality was subjectively measure by taking an poll of co-workers who happened to pass by my desk.
Imagestation.com won 5 first place votes, and 3 second place votes.
Snapfish.com won 3 first place votes and 4 second place votes.
Ofoto.com won 1 second place vote.
The most common complaint was that of extreme red tinting. Prints are generally tinted slightly red to make the pictures look warmer, especially with people, and to correct for artificial lighting (both in the picture taking and viewing).
Ofoto.com was the only exception, apparently tinting the prints slightly blue, leaving a very cool (as in cold) feeling.
Shutterfly.com was the worst, with excessive redness, followed closely by
photos.yahoo.com and
Winkflash.com.
The second most common complaint was that of darkness. Indoor pictures were shot with low light levels to begin with, and the darkness of the prints made this problem worse.
photos.yahoo.com and
Winkflash.com were the worst at this.
Snapfish.com slightly over-corrected for the original's slight darkness, and so some fine details were lost, but the resulting pictures were pleasant enough to overlook this minor problem.
It was pointed out to me by an artist co-worker that both the redness and the darkness could be corrected out before being sent to the printer, via a batch process in Photoshop. Based on that understanding, the key detail to look for would be fine detail quality and relative color correctness.
Imagestation.com followed by
Ofoto.com came up as the top two under these criteria, the rest being relatively equal, except
Snapfish.com which comes up last for having washed out some fine fine detail in overexposing the prints. However, I pointed out that this was a test of quick and dirty printing. Pull the pics off the camera, dump them online, and print up some pics fast to send to grandma. Not everyone knows how to run batch processes in Photoshop.
Photoworks.com lost a lot of points for very poor interface design for both their website and their upload tool. And their picture quality cannot justify the high expense of pictures either.
So there you have it. That's my review of online digital printers (snapshot).
To summarize:
Snapfish.com is the best online printer for your digital pictures.
Scanned pictures of the prints, as well as the originals, to come soon. Otherwise, happy picture taking!
I've included a composite photo of all the services tested so you can compare for yourself.
::
So I went to Jersey on Friday night to visit with the cousins, and maybe get something to eat in the process. Instead what I got was right in the middle of a little family argument.
So I headed out to the 24 hour Korean restaurant in Fort Lee, Kyung Pung. And got some bulgolgi. That had no meat in it.
*sigh*
