Digital photo
print services review (part 1)
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-- [review part 2 - June 2004]
Introduction -- Test photos -- Cost -- Ease of use -- Delivery time -- Image quality -- Compare scans -- Cropping -- Final results
Cropping
The two photos that were pre-cropped to a 3:2 aspect ratio were compared to the prints received to gauge how much of the original image was lost by each print service. Understandably, none of the prints retained the entire image, but some were better than others. It should be noted that some of the online printers state that they are unable to print the entire image, and Peak Imaging gave instructions on how to minimise this by adding artificial borders and requesting a print size larger than required (at the cost of the customer, of course... and this would also require the customer to cut the print to size).
The following images show the original image, the same image marked with the area captured by the best and worst cropped prints together with scans of those prints.
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The table below shows the marks out of 5 given to each print service for cropping. A further half point was deducted from Boots because one of the prints they supplied was so badly cut/cropped that a white border was visible on the right hand side.
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Black & white |
Bath |
Average |
Deductions |
Total | |
|
Bonusprint |
3 |
4 |
3.5 |
- |
3.5 |
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Boots |
3 |
3 |
3 |
0.5 |
2.5 |
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Canon i850 |
3 |
3 |
3 |
- |
3 |
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Colab |
4 |
4.5 |
4.25 |
- |
4.25 |
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digi-prints |
5 |
5 |
5 |
- |
5 |
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Peak Imaging |
4.5 |
5 |
4.75 |
- |
4.75 |
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Photobox |
4.5 |
5 |
4.75 |
- |
4.75 |
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Photodeal |
3 |
4 |
3.5 |
- |
3.5 |
|
Pixum |
4 |
4.5 |
4.25 |
- |
4.25 |
Note that the Canon i850 prints received poor marks because they were printed on 6x4 paper with the printer driver set to borderless printing - the printer manual states that this process enlarges the print to ensure printing to the edges of the paper. The inkjet prints would have received top marks if they were printed on larger paper and manually cut to size - at the cost of more effort, but the paper costs would be reduced.
Bonusprint -- Boots -- Canon i850 inkjet -- Colab -- Digi-prints -- Peak Imaging -- Photobox -- Photodeal -- Pixum
© David Griffin, November 2003