Of course you know my answer to that question…ME!
I held out offering a disk of high resolution images to my customers for a long time. It wasn’t because I’m a stick in the mud or control freak…okay I might be a little bit of a control freak 🙂 it was more because my work and my prints that are framed in homes are often times my best advertisement. When I offer a disk the customer has the ability to print their photos wherever they want. However, a bad print job can ruin a beautiful photo! The last impression I want to leave on a prospect is a negative one and that is likely when my customers print their own images.
I figure if I’m going to offer the disk, I will at least try to educate my customers and point them in the right direction if they are going to choose to print their own images. So…I have taken the liberty of printing the same photo with several different printing companies.
I use a professional print company for my personal and customer photo prints. The quality of paper is excellent, the finish is a subtle matte texture, the color is excellent, and my enlargements come with a rigid backing so they are ready to put in a frame. When your photos are printed through me they are looked at and ran through a printer by a team of professionals that do this for a living!
The test I performed was with four different printing companies: My professional printer, Meijer on Illinois Rd., Shutterfly, and Mpix. The image below shows subtle differences between printers so I took one of the images and shot it close up; this is where you can really start seeing the difference.
There are many things to consider when picking how and where you should print your professional photos.
I still believe my product is better, but among the others to my surprise Meijer had a good overall product. Meijer’s cost was the best and the turn around time was quick…no waiting for shipping. However, I believe for large prints one of the others would be better suited.
I hope this helps when making your decisions on printing your next batch of photos.