Online photo processing

[Project88]

In a recent post I mentioned that I had lost (hard drive went bang) and then found (old back up folder hoorah!) some photos on my PC.

Having now got back to some normality and with the PC up and running again I thought I had better print some of the recovered shots. So has anybody used one of the online photo processing sites? If so what experience have you had? I could go to the local Jessups with a CD for between 12p and 15p a shot (over 100 pictures 6x4 or 7x5).

Please share any experience you have had, good or bad

Cheers,
John.

 

[gidon]

John
I generally use Photobox. Next day delivery and good quality. Not the absolute cheapest but I like the service. (I also print them off myself when I don't have too many).
Also bearing in mind your recent troubles - they give a generous amount of space to store your photos (although of course their terms and conditions say this is not guaranteed backup. But it's saved my bacon before!)
Cheers
Gidon

 

[Dave S]

I have used Digi-Prints several times and been very happy with their speed and quality.

I also used Photobox before Christmas for a calendar with which I was very pleased. I haven't used them for normal prints though.

Dave

 

[RobertMP]

My other hobby is photography. These days I spend my online time between this site and http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/ - a photography forum equally as friendly as here.

You won't find much bad said about Photobox. Fast and the prints are generally good. They do make mistakes at times but always respond to any problem.

I don't go in for many prints but my wife likes to have them in albums. I use http://www.bonusprint.com/ because they are quite a bit cheaper and the quality is very acceptable. They do good quantity discounts.

My camera produces pictures with a size that is 3:2 ratio of width to height and that does not fit the print papers without leaving 2 white edges or cropping (losing) some of the picture. I use a simple free program called jpegcrops from http://ekot.dk/programmer/JPEGCrops/ which lets you crop to paper size ratio without the quality loss you get with a normal editor and re saving. Means you choose what to cut off the picture and it is very fast to go through a lot of pictures.

 

[promhandicam]

Another vote for photobox - it is also where I upload photos to for hosting on this site. For christmas presents this year we used photobox to produce a family calender - we each took some of the photos - and it seems to have gone down well with the recipients. not actually seen the result but everyone has said they thought it very good.

Steve

 

[dedee]

I've also used Digiprints on the PC at work. Very quick, inexpensive and print quality excellent. More recently I used Bonusprint and again no complaints.

Digiprints used Fuji paper Bonusprint used Kodak - apart from that no difference that I could tell.

Andy

 

[RogerM]

I've used http://www.bonusprint.com/ for years and always found them very acceptable for both quality and price.

 

[Project88]

Thanks for all your replies.

I went to photobox on Jan 31 and noticed that they were having a January special where you could buy 600 print credits for 3p each, didn't sign up at that moment, then forgot. So missed out on the offer :evil:

Anyway on my way through the local shopping complex I noticed that Boots were offering 7p per print on a 24 hour service, so I will probably go with them.

Thanks again.

Cheers,
John.

 

[RogerS]

I took some photos while on holiday and took them to Boots to print on the instore Kodak machine. The results were poor but due to an incompatibility between the resolution of my images (2560 x 1920 pixels) and their system.

So I thought about using the online places but wondered if I'd still have the same problem.

If I were to reduce the resolution, what should I go for?

 

[RobertMP]

You don't need to reduce the resolution. Sounds like an excuse for a bad job to me. just upload them to an online print service like Bonusprint or photobox.

Since my original post in this thread i have had prints (of the same picture) done at bonusprint and photobox - the results were identical.... but bonusprint are cheaper.

You can post a CD with the files on it if you have a slow connection.

Bonusprint use a program that you need to install to if you want to upload the pictures from your computer. It obviously does some optimising too as it does not upload the same amount of bytes as the files you want printed - less than half in my case but results are fine. With Photobox you upload the full size files which sounds better but can take ages.

last time 205 7 x 5" pictures from Bonusprint was about £23.

 

[iajon69]

Another vote for photobox - signed up last week and had 50 free prints just for signing up! Uploaded 50 pictures on Wednesday night and they were delivered on Friday morning, just had to pay £1.50 p&p
Very pleased with the quality of the photos - will definitely be using photobox again.

Ian

 

[brianhabby]

My camera produces pictures with a size that is 3:2 ratio of width to height and that does not fit the print papers without leaving 2 white edges or cropping (losing) some of the picture.

Robert,

The link for the JPEGCrops looks interesting but I am curious about what you say about the aspect ratio of your images. A 3:2 aspect ratio will fit perfectly on the following print sizes:

6" x 4", 7½" x 5", 9" x 6", 12" x 8", 15" x 10"

You should find a suitable size amongst that lot surely.

regards

Brian

 

[andrewm]

Another vote for Photobox here. Ordered seventy-odd prints Friday and they arrived Saturday morning. As far as I remember they have an offer on at the moment where you can get prints for 4p each if you do at least 500 of them. How many did you want?

 

[RogerS]

Have given Photobox a try...initial impressions vis a vis uploading etc very good and the 'deal' is good. Some photos that I uploaded this morning seem to have gone awol and so there's a call out to them to try and work out why/where they've gone to.

Like the seamless integration with their dedicated Mac uploading program and iPhoto on the Mac

 

[andrewm]

Like the seamless integration with their dedicated Mac uploading program and iPhoto on the Mac

Actually one of the things that I like the most is that you don't need dedicated uploading programs or java applets. They allow you to ftp direct to your storage space.

Andrew

 

[RobertMP]

My camera produces pictures with a size that is 3:2 ratio of width to height and that does not fit the print papers without leaving 2 white edges or cropping (losing) some of the picture.

Robert,

The link for the JPEGCrops looks interesting but I am curious about what you say about the aspect ratio of your images. A 3:2 aspect ratio will fit perfectly on the following print sizes:

6" x 4", 7½" x 5", 9" x 6", 12" x 8", 15" x 10"

You should find a suitable size amongst that lot surely.

regards

Brian

My wife is the prints user. I'd only print a few if it was up to me

The rest of her albums are all for 7 x 5" prints and she wants to continue with that format - so a small crop is required. better to choose where to crop ourselves than just lose 2 edges equally to the print companies defaults.

--

Going back to Photobox and uploading... My jpegs are about 8Mb each and are produced from processing 'RAW' files. 200 of those uploaded to photobox is well over a gigabyte and even with my broadband connection would take ages. Using the Bonusprint program only 350Mb was uploaded for the whole 200 pictures. As i said above I have had the same file printed by both companies to test the results and they were identical.

Bonusprint was cheaper and the upload was much quicker so I'll continue using them. Photobox may be a day quicker on delivery time but that is all.

 

[RogerS]

Robert..that seems to suggest that the Bonusprint uploader compresses the files??

Just heard back from Photobox to say that my photos didn't upload (even though their program said that they did)...bit of a pain as they are all pretty large...so think I'll give Bonusprint a try as well.

Or may try ftp with photobox as well.

 

[RobertMP]

bonusprint does compress the files which did worry me first time. However having 2 prints of the same picture (at 10 x 8" size) from both and comparing them side by side showed them to be identical.

 

[RogerS]

Bonusprint - horrible - clunky and definitely not Mac friendly. Will give it a miss.