Which would look better on your walls? The cd you paid a lot of money for from your photographer or a lovely canvas print of your favorite image from your session? Part of my pricing strategy is to get more customers to think like this. Everyone wants the digital images but the question to ask yourself is what do you want them for? Me, personally, I like digital images. I am an avid scrapbooker and these images will be printed and cut up and collaged in my books and showed off for years to come. I can't bring myself to cut up my good quality professional print lab prints so I don't mind cutting up cheapy prints and being that they are in the scrapbook and part of the appeal is the book itself and not just the image, I am ok with the lessor quality for this. However, when it comes to prints on display, on my walls, in frames, as gifts, this is a different matter. I like giving high quality prints to show off the best of my kids and of my images. I am not going to get the same print from a local drug store or consumer print lab that I would get by going through my professional companies. The printers they use are built for commercial print jobs and meet my expectations of quality and color. Being that I am a scrapbooker and probably print about 1,000 photos per year for my books, I have been through several printing companies and each one has disappointed me for one reason or another. Color from one set of prints that looks nice can be totally orange or washed out on the next set causing me to again journey on my everlasting quest for the perfect reasonably priced consumer printing company. There are things that I like and dislike about each of the ones I have used.
The following shows some examples of prints I ordered from my pro lab, printing myself and picked up from a couple of local stores.
My professional print lab is a spectacular print. There is little glare. The quality can clearly be felt and seen when held in person to the comparison prints. All of my prints 8x10 and larger are printed with a layer of matboard to protect against dings and creases. There is a light texture to protect against fingerprints. The photo I printed myself was the closest comp but was a tad saturated. The Walmart print was contrasty and showed a bit of pixelation (not sure if that is a real word, but you get what I mean), as seen in this photo below. The Walgreens print was green tinged and looked, "dirty" to me. The Walgreens print was very glossy and showed fingerprints and creases worse than the others. The Walmart and Walgreens prints had an off balance crop as I was unable to choose my own crop.
Another example. Note the blacks came out grey/greenish on the Walgreens print. Also, around the baby was an unattractive "blue halo", especially around the hair. This was a true black and white print, one of my favorite newborn photos taken to date.
The risks of printing on your own:
Color casts. This is my biggest problem with printing companies. There is nothing I dispise more than orange photos. I once picked up a batch from a local printing company that I uploaded through online and they were completely orange. I was horrified. They were so bad I didn't use a single one of them in my scrapbooks. Another local lab I have frequented when I need something in hurry tends to fade out all of my colors to drab greys and greens. People look grey and dismal in the photos, very pale. It is quite disappointing.
Crops. Have you ever ordered a print that looked great on your computer and then when you picked it up the head was cut off? This is because the image was not sized before you sent it to the printer. Photos are taken with a certain ratio/size. My photos are generally a hair off of a 4x6 size if I don't crop or do anything special to them. Sometimes I add canvas space to them or crop a certain way to get a look I am going for but generally I know when ordering that if I am not ordering a comparable size ratio, I will need to do a little work. When you order your prints through your photographer, hopefully this is me, I resize the photos for the crop that I want to ensure you aren't getting a photo with a head cut off. Sometimes to do this, I add to a photo to make the size work or I might suggest a different size if we are doing this for a canvas. By ordering your own photos, you are jeopardizing what kind of crop you will get and your print chain will certainly not add size to your photo to make the size work without losing any of the "good stuff". Can you imagine going into a store and ordering a canvas only to pick it up and find that part of your child's face was lost on the wrap around the edges? Or that the crop didn't work for the size you wanted? Now you are out the money for the canvas and have to choose a different size and order another. I am aware of sizing and how the wrap will fall when I order and I adjust accordingly. Here is an example of different size ratios and how the same image would work with different sizes. For canvas, I would need about 2 extra inches on each side for the same effect.
Timing. Most of my professional prints come within a couple of business days. Sometimes if they are ordered with a canvas or collage, I will hold them until the order is complete and deliver at once. I have waited as much as two weeks for prints for scrapbooking before, and I also have paid large shipping fees to get my prints. I do not charge fees for shipping if orders are picked up.
So who do I recommend. I recommend mpix for printing personal photos. THIS IS NOT A PROFESSIONAL QUALITY PRODUCT. I want to stress that I don't use mpix for business but I will use them for my personal photos for scrapbooking and sharing with family and friends. They do have a quality product and the prices are comparable to box store prices. They are the closest I have found for quality products at a consumer (non-professional quality) price.
The benefit to purchasing digital images from your photographer is for the archival advantage. Having the photos available to print again later. I only hold images about 60 days from expiration of galleries. This is to keep my computer running good, I need to clear these files often. Purchasing the digital images ensures you can get more later through me or your printer of choice. Just this weekend I was doing a homework project for school for my son and pulled a flash drive out with photos I wanted to use. That was convenient to print them out from home and do his project within and hour and without spending a lot on photos I will never see again. Budget-wise, I would say to splurge on the canvas or photos you will look at all the time, these are the images you will treasure and share. We have a wall of canvas photos in our living room that gets many many compliments by guests and friends. Compliments I would have never received with them sitting on a flash drive in a desk drawer. If I had to choose between the canvas or digitals, I would have stayed with the canvas.
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