High Street printers recommendations?

smelltheglove

I was contacted by a client today asking about the quality of the images on a disc supplied to them. This has been maybe the 3rd or 4th time this happened. A client brings a disc of high resolution (8x12inches and 300ppi) images to a high street printers only to be told one of the following, theres no pics on your disc go back to your photographer or the pics on the disc are too low quality for me to print go back to your photog.

Now every disc I give to clients is a lightscribe, with all my details on it so the staff at any of these shops would be aware they are dealing with professional quality images, I also have printing permissions written on the disc in case of any questions. SO I wonder, why do these guys think it is ok to give clients a bad impression of their photographer? I feel so stupid when I get these calls and have to say to my clients look, if you put the disc in your laptop can you see the images? ans= yes, me ok well they are there, the guy in the shop hasnt set his machine up well enough to handle the high quality so go somewhere better, to me it sounds 1 cocky and 2 like a brush off.

From speaking to one store owner I found out the following, he told me the discs I use have so many high quality pictures on them that unless a machine is set up correctly it may not be able to read it, so say a machine has a read timeout of 1 minute it will consider my disc blank whereas this particular store has a read time of up to 3 minutes and my discs get read correctly every time.

I thought maybe we could get recommendations of places to have lots of pictures printed. The majority of my work involves disc packages, I am well aware my clients are going to go to their local chemist or wherever to print so it would be handy to know places in each locality that are good.

My recommendations of good customer service and decent enough quality and machines that can read every disc I bring in are:

Fuji Centre in Liffery Valley, love this place, the staff are lovely and never any hassle

Harvey Normans in Blanch, I know Harvey Normans, but the staff know what they are doing and again the machines read the discs so I cant complain.

Can anyone add to the list of recommendations?

PCPhoto

why not give them 2 discs ... one with a decent enough resolution to get printed in a local print shop and another for professional printers - charge the client an extra €20-€25 and explain to them most shops cant print at such a high level so you can let the client choose to have lower lever stuff or high end stuff ... or both.

* the extra €20-25 is for batch resizing and transfer to CD/DVD

Abelloid

I've only used Harvey Normans once, with a couple of 12mp images on a USB stick, the girl at the counter commented that the images were 'great quality', but the black and white came out with a green tint. I'm not sure if it was my files at fault or the printer but I really should find out...

stcstc

actually another option is to put the images in folders. so there are less than 100 files in each

some computers could have problems with more than 100 files in the root of the cd / dvd

another option is to offer a cheap print deal, say the local chemist is 2 euros a print,why not set up a deal where you only charge say 2.75 a print, then get them printed in a pro lab?

Quite a few of my wedding photography clients have stopped offering disc only packages as they then have no quality control over the prints. this in turn can look bad when the client gets crap prints and starts showing them to friends who get put off using the photographer cos the prints are rubbish, even though the prints have nothing to do with the photographer.

Abelloid

I think this is the answer. Designers go to great lengths to build relationships with printers to ensure the image on screen is translated accurately to paper. By offering prints as part if your service you can control the quality, and bypass the race to the bottom in terms of price and subsequently, quality.

jaybeeveedub

another great thing about doing your own printing is being able to specify pearl paper....

most clients have never seen a photo on anything but glossy, or ripple matt and love the finish....

smelltheglove

There's a few good suggestions alright! Quality control is an issue. I already put images into folders colour, black and White and watermarked files for Internet! Maybe a disc of 4x6 images may be the best option for me.

I use pearl paper myself for printing and I know it is much nicer alright.

Borderfox

HN in Blanch or Airside, I have my screen calibrated to match their output. Never had any complaints from clients who went there.

samhail

I don't get it... They can't open your images or they can't read your disc?
Photoshop can open very large files so shouldn't be the files.

Do you finish the burning on the cds? Or a bad batch of cds maybe

melekalikimaka

is it not risky given out the files? you have no idea where those images will pop up and the standard they will be in? What is your copyright situation with them?

stcstc

actually, just thought

is it that they have a different profile. ie not srgb, some of the machines dont like argb etc

Eirebear

JustinOval wrote: »

I've only used Harvey Normans once, with a couple of 12mp images on a USB stick, the girl at the counter commented that the images were 'great quality', but the black and white came out with a green tint. I'm not sure if it was my files at fault or the printer but I really should find out...

Colour casting happens a lot with lower end printers, i use Jessops for quick test prints all the time and get a green cast on B&W's all the time.

Printing is a really complicated process when you break it all down, and i always advise people of this, and tell them that it is always worth the extra money to get a good lab to do it - for example, i have never used stcstc for work, due to the fact i would be paying P&P on stuff when i can pick up from people more local to me, but if i was in Ireland doing a job for someone he would be my first port of call given the way people speak of his work on here.

It's amazing that, given the way digital technology has opened photography up to the "masses" and the public are becoming more and more educated, that your average person doesnt notice the quirks in cheaper printing unless you put a cheap print beside a quality one.

stcstc

i agree, its not just the public that dont notice the difference its photographers too would you believe.

as for the casts, generally its that colour chemistry is being used for b&w prints

I had a client bring some small prints he had done with photobox recently, we compared them to prints i had done of the same image and the difference in colour was huge. the photobox ones were washed out and flat in comparison.

smelltheglove

Thanks Keith, I do find Harveys quite good.

It is not an issue with the discs nor the files, at this stage I have given out hundreds of discs with my work on them, only 3 or 4 times this has happened. I came to the conclusion of a machines read time being too slow after being informed of these issues by someone who runs a shop with 6 of these machines so I do trust what he has said.

Yes I would prefer quality control but in an industry where every Tom Dick and Harry is competing for work we have to supply what the clients want and that is a disc of high res images. Otherwise work will dwindle so I give my clients what they want. As for the images popping up everywhere, well all my work is completed under contracts which explain the limited copyright release, I.e. My clients can print as and when they wish but Internet upload requires use of my watermarked images (I supply every image in a low res watermarked version) and use of images for publication or competitions requires permission.

I am happy enough with the way things are run on my end, with such a low percentage of problems and the fact that I tested a disc myself once I know it is an issue with the read time. I also know that no matter how many times I have recommended specific printers I.e. Steve to my clients they will still go and get the cheapest and quickest print available to them, which basically is why I was hoping for high street recommendations, I can pass these recommendations onto clients then when I deliver the discs.

Eirebear

smelltheglove wrote: »

Thanks Keith, I do find Harveys quite good.

It is not an issue with the discs nor the files, at this stage I have given out hundreds of discs with my work on them, only 3 or 4 times this has happened. I came to the conclusion of a machines read time being too slow after being informed of these issues by someone who runs a shop with 6 of these machines so I do trust what he has said.

Yes I would prefer quality control but in an industry where every Tom Dick and Harry is competing for work we have to supply what the clients want and that is a disc of high res images. Otherwise work will dwindle so I give my clients what they want. As for the images popping up everywhere, well all my work is completed under contracts which explain the limited copyright release, I.e. My clients can print as and when they wish but Internet upload requires use of my watermarked images (I supply every image in a low res watermarked version) and use of images for publication or competitions requires permission.

I am happy enough with the way things are run on my end, with such a low percentage of problems and the fact that I tested a disc myself once I know it is an issue with the read time. I also know that no matter how many times I have recommended specific printers I.e. Steve to my clients they will still go and get the cheapest and quickest print available to them, which basically is why I was hoping for high street recommendations, I can pass these recommendations onto clients then when I deliver the discs.

Sorry, my comments werent meant as any sort of advice to you STG - you know your market and what people will do. Apologies if i came across as telling you what you should be doing

It was more just a general reference to peoples ignorance as to what makes a good print.

VisionaryP

smelltheglove wrote: »

Yes I would prefer quality control but in an industry where every Tom Dick and Harry is competing for work we have to supply what the clients want and that is a disc of high res images.

This is one of the reasons I stopped offering a disc only package. I was concerned there may be a drop off in business, but there wasn't. Not even a bit. Most people recognise that their local chemist with a Fuji kiosk just doesn't compete with high end fine art print.

smelltheglove

Eirebear wrote: »

Sorry, my comments werent meant as any sort of advice to you STG - you know your market and what people will do. Apologies if i came across as telling you what you should be doing

It was more just a general reference to peoples ignorance as to what makes a good print.

Ah no, I just wanted to make clear what the issue is really.

VisionaryP wrote: »

This is one of the reasons I stopped offering a disc only package. I was concerned there may be a drop off in business, but there wasn't. Not even a bit. Most people recognise that their local chemist with a Fuji kiosk just doesn't compete with high end fine art print.

I guess when you are doing it as long as yourself there isnt really a need to worry too much about it. I look at it from both sides though, when I got married I only looked for someone who would supply a disc, it is what I wanted and I like being able to give my clients the full selection. On the other hand I am not in the business that long, going into my 4th year in weddings, not long out of the budget market and only the last year seeing the recommendations coming in so when things are starting to get quite good I really don't want to put a spanner in the works.