Online photo printing review – part 2

Comparing Adorama, Apple, Costco, Mpix, SmugMug, and Snapfish

Part 1 of this review dealt with the web ordering experience and pricing. In this second part I examine the received print quality, based on this criteria:

• Colors: color casts on people’s faces, and accuracy against my monitor’s representation.
• Consistency
• Paper quality
• Shipping: time to arrive and quality of the shipping materials.

The first batch of photo printing sites consisted of Costco (local), Mpix, Apple, and Smugmug.

Costco

The operator seemed to ignore my instructions once again (unlike the other submissions, these files had been converted to the printer profile for this Costco location, and I was trying to tell them to print on the correct Noritsu printer). Not sure if the instructions would have made a difference but the results, colorwise, were pretty poor this time, with some strong yellow color shifts making people and the overall picture look unnatural. Once again I see a tendency for the prints to be dark. The Fuji Crystal Archive paper is nice, the white borders are done correctly (by shrinking the image) – I just wish they got the colors right like they once did.

 

Mpix

I got the pictures delivered in exactly one week; the cardboard envelope seemed OK as far as integrity, although inside the pictures were not presented that well (just a simple envelope). In any case the glossy pictures I requested were printed on Kodad Professional Endura paper, which is not really glossy, more like luster. I was quite disappointed with the output, with some yellow color casts on people’s faces (not as bad a Costco’s), but even worse, several pictures had obvious banding on them! I could not believe I paid so much for the prints (29 cents each) to get these results. It could be the occasional bad batch, but after the poor web experience and printed results, I’m not going to try again.

Apple (via Kodad EasyShare)

The prints came a day after the ones from Mpix (one week and one day since submitted). The presentation was nice, the photos were printed on Kodak PerfectTouch paper, which does not have the same thickness as Fuji’s Crystal Archive, but is fine nonetheless. All the prints lacked contrast, looking rather dull. Anyway, I was not expecting too much and I did not get that much at the end.

Smugmug (part 1)

Well, after a two week wait the prints appeared to be missing in action. Bummer.

So after the first batch I ended-up with no good prints. In the second batch I tried AdoramaPix and Snapfish.

AdoramaPix

The prints arrived pretty fast, in three days, in an impressive cardboard box, with the three submitted jobs very nicely wrapped separately and each backed with a piece of cardboard. No wonder shipping was $4.95!

The regular glossy prints were done on Kodak Royal Paper, which appears to have a thickness close to the Fuji Crystal Archive. I was happy to see the white borders done right (I did like their web site a lot). The colors were OK, but maybe not the best of the bunch; some pictures were a bit cool (more bluish than yellowish), and the oranges were not great, but what I found odd was that the few I had also printed in luster were way warmer than the glossy versions.

I had a couple printed on Endura Metallic finish and they looked very different (in a good way). This is finish I want to experiment a bit more on.

So AdoramaPix did a good job but did not totally convince me with their colors (specially seeing the difference between glossy and luster). I would not write them off (maybe their operator-based color correction is good), but the high shipping rate makes it hard to do much experimenting with.

Snapfish

The Snapfish prints came on the same day as the ones from Adorama (so about three days), but with the flimsiest packaging of all. When I first saw the prints, I was shocked – these were by far the cheapest yet the colors looked great, with no color shifts on people’s faces! And they were printed on Fuji Crystal Archive, which has been my favorite paper for a long time.

The prints had the requested white borders, but then I realized the borders had been masked onto the picture (thus discarding some of the picure area, and in some cases cutting-off important stuff). The prints also were a bit too light overall (giving a slight desaturation effect), and some of the oranges (like on pumpkins) could be better. Still, the border and brightness were things I could compensate myself, and I was very excited to finally see prints they were very close to what my monitor was showing. I immediately sent a second job with an array of gamma (brightness) and border variations to see if I could hit the right combination.

Smugmug (via EzPrints) (part 2)

Three weeks after I submitted the order my Smugmug pictures arrrived! They took forever, but after looking at the prints I realized they were quite good. Actually, very good. So I started comparing them to the Snapfish prints and against my computer, and I realized two things:

• The prints appear to have been sharpened; they look like the sharpened ones I submitted to the other places. If this is true, it’s great! No need to have two versions, one for web, and another for printing.
• Update: subsequent prints did not appear to have automatic sharpening, so I am not sure what happened with the first set. 
• The printer profile from EzPrints gives a very close preview of what the prints will look like. This is great too.

As far as colors, the oranges came-out good; Smugmug was the best at dealing with the picture above (rusty chain and metal), which has a tough gammut to reproduce. People’s faces looked quite good, maybe some of the Snapsish were better but then again they were less dense, so less prone to saturation. Some of the blacks were more muddy than the ones from Snapfish, but overall I think Smugmug might be better.

And the winner is…

Well, it is between Snapfish and Smugmug. AdoramaPix was not bad, but I see better results in these other two. Out of the fifteen photos, I liked 7 better on Smugmug, 5 on Snapfish, and 3 were a draw. So it’s pretty close.

The second Snapfish order arrived (the one where I experimented with different brightness levels and my own borders). Unfortunately the whole set was warmer (yellowish) and darker than the first one, making my tests overshoot the gamma compensation. There goes consistency.

As for Smugmug, a few days after receiving the prints they announced a change from Fuji paper over to Kodak. Arrgh!

So I’m going to do a run-off test to check-out how the Smugmug prints look with the Kodak paper (and also try to do my own white borders), and I might give Snapfish another chance. Hope Smugmug does not take three weeks again!