Who does your printing?

Just interested to see how many pentaxians like to be in control of thier own print jobs and how many use online/local printers.

Personnaly i cannot justify the cost of doing my own printing, and have never managed to get results that match a pro online lab.

For general shots i use photobox, at 10p per print its hard to beat.

For what I've needed to print, I've used Tescos.
They are good enough for my standards at the moment.

I'm looking at getting one printed on canvas and Costco have an offer on, so might try them out.

Wow, Tescos do everything!

As a second question, if anyone does use online printers how do you mange colour control?

Using a calibrated monitor. I've used photobox and been unhappy, pixum and been unhappy, digitaloriginal.de and been happy and now loxley colour.

I haven't seen the prints yet, though, so I can't really comment. Hopefully have them soon.

Bret

What did you dislike about photobox? I do find some prints from them a little on the dark side but I edit with that in mind if i am editing for a print.

I also use loxley colour now and find them very good with good advice for colour management too.

Tescos or Asda here, have had poster prints from both & been happy lots. I wait until they have a half price offer or some similar give away, order online & collect at the weekend, then round the corners to the framers.

ProAM Imaging - every time

Calibrated monitor, calibrated printer profile from ProAM and the colour is accurate every time
(You really do need full Photoshop to use this though. It is possible in Elements, but pretty tricky )
Matt

I use Photobox for fun prints, and Loxley Colour for the £££ ones. To be honest, I've been rather happy with Photobox's prints however you need to be sure that you've calibrated your monitor and you've saved your JPEGs in sRGB mode and not Adobe RGB. No such limitations with Loxleys.

I got some prints from Snapfish on one of their ubiquitous free offers, and they were actually quite good. For 'proper' prints (for framing etc.) there's a small place near me called Stephensons Photographic that does a brilliant job.

Again i use costco. In cardiff they have classed it as a flagship store,as is the photolab, The printer alone cost £125,000, I pay £1:90 for a 12x18 print and the colours and paper are fantastic, they use fuji film silver paper in either lustre or gloss.

I get on well with all the staff there, so i usually dont have to wait they just do it on the spot for me, however im still waiting for a colour profile

Snaps: bonusprint online service (as well as a mug and fridge magnets)
Photobook: Blurb
Film (mainly BW): Peak Imaging and... err.. I have forgotten the other one that Peter recommended and I used.
High quality A3/A2 prints: the Siskin Press.
LF: DIY at work.

K.

PS. Having done one photobook, I now prefer the idea of making up books of photos rather than having lots of loose prints hanging about.

PPS Hoping to set up my own darkroom for BW at some point.

For 4 X 6 prints, I use whoever has a "special offer". For everything else, I do my own printing, unless I need larger than 24 in. For those extra large prints, I use the services of a printing company that owns a 44 in. HP Z 3200. Since my 24 in. is the same model, only narrower, I don't have to worry about color accuracy, since we use the same calibration and papers.

I do 99% of my own printing work with 3 different photo printers online in my studio. I have only jobbed out once a printing job.

The Photomonk

I use One Vision in Coventry or Loxley in Glasgow. However I had a rush job on for a client and used Costco in Glasgow and the quality was superb and 25% of what Jessops charge for a 10x8.

Having said that I've just bought a Kodak ESP7 combined copier/scanner/printer. It was bought as a general office machine reckoning I would save £350 a year in ink costs over the previous Epson. The photo quality is first rate and I won't being outsourcing for anything under A4 in the future. I particularly like the way that Kodak papers are barcoded and the printer automatically uses the correct settings.

Thats interesting.

Not many people printing at home, is that due to cost or some other reason? Loxley are getting good comments and Tesco which surprises me.