Prints from iPhone - alternative to photobox
Discussion
Evening,
Firstly, apologies if this has been done to death and/or regular visitors here would simply know the answer and my question irritates.
I have some photographs on my iPhone I would like to print to (roughly) A4 size. I recently used photobox and have just received the prints. They’re awful. Many have been cropped grotesquely. All are far flatter and darker than the image visible on screen. They’re dreadful. My bad for not researching and simply being sucked in by fancy marketing and cheap pricing.
So who should I use?
I do not have a home printer. If the answer is “buy my own printer” I’m very happy to do so.
Many thanks in advance.
Firstly, apologies if this has been done to death and/or regular visitors here would simply know the answer and my question irritates.
I have some photographs on my iPhone I would like to print to (roughly) A4 size. I recently used photobox and have just received the prints. They’re awful. Many have been cropped grotesquely. All are far flatter and darker than the image visible on screen. They’re dreadful. My bad for not researching and simply being sucked in by fancy marketing and cheap pricing.
So who should I use?
I do not have a home printer. If the answer is “buy my own printer” I’m very happy to do so.
Many thanks in advance.
Try Loxley Colour, you need to set up an account for pricing but as an example 10-49 prints in A4 is £1.92 each.
Had a photo book made by them and was quite impressed. They appear expensive but once you compare with Photobox and all the extras it's not really that different, I find Photobox are very much like Ryanair with their pricing model and everything you'd actually want is an extra.
Had a photo book made by them and was quite impressed. They appear expensive but once you compare with Photobox and all the extras it's not really that different, I find Photobox are very much like Ryanair with their pricing model and everything you'd actually want is an extra.
scenario8 said:
I recently used photobox and have just received the prints. They’re awful. Many have been cropped grotesquely. All are far flatter and darker than the image visible on screen. They’re dreadful. My bad for not researching and simply being sucked in by fancy marketing and cheap pricing.
I have used Photobox in the past and not had any issues with quality or cropping. This was on multiple occasions with prints from 7x5" to A3 size.For comparison, I've also used Loxley and a couple of other "pro" labs also with very good results.
What was the process you went through when ordering the prints?
Did you download them to your PC/Mac, then simply upload them to Photobox, or was there any editing involved first?
To avoid unexpected cropping, it is a good idea to re-size the photos on your PC/Mac so they are exactly the size of the prints you're ordering. So if you're ordering A4 prints, resize to 297mmx210mm at a resolution of 300dpi (or whatever their printers are natively set to - usually can be seen from their website).
In terms of the image being flatter and darker than on the screen, this is not unusual as the image on your screen may look completely different to the image on another screen. When you say screen, not sure if you are talking about your phone screen or the screen on your PC/Mac.
Although this is over the top for the odd casual print. the only way to guarantee that prints match your computer screen is to calibrate the monitor, and ensure that whenever you edit photos on the computer, the ambient light levels and colour temperature in the room are always the same as when you calibrated it.
On a more practical level, it may be worth you editing a test photo with various levels of brightness/saturation etc.. then sending them all for a small print. When you get them back, see which settings had the best outcome and use these for your larger prints. Also when ordering prints, always tick the option for asking them not to automatically enhance/optimise the photos so that how you edited them is reflected in the prints produced.
Another option would be to go to somewhere with a photo printing kiosk (Snappy Snaps for example), and print from your phone there. The images on the kiosk screen should be a good approximation to the prints it produces.
Finally, whilst you can get good prints from home printing, you'd need to get a decent photo printer and photo paper. Unless you're going to be using this regularly, chances are the inks will dry out and you'll spend a fortune on new ink cartridges. It's the reason I use Photobox and Loxley etc..
Thanks for the responses.
To clarify, the images concerned were taken by the iPhone and stored on it. Some of those images will have been edited in some fashion (lightening and cropping (to the same aspect ratio as the original) for example) using the built in standard apple software embedded within the phone. I then simply went to the photobox website using the phone’s browser and was invited to upload the selected images directly from the phone’s album. At no point was any other device involved. At no point was there the (obvious) option to check how the final image would be presented. Had I known the images would be cropped to anything like the level they were I would have put the brakes on straight away.
With respect to the nature and extent of the cropping we are talking borderline practical joke levels. Imagine a group photo with the subjects sitting nicely within the original image returning with feet or heads being cut clean off and nicely framed images of faces arriving with the subject massively off centre and one eye off the edge! Something has gone awry.
To clarify, the images concerned were taken by the iPhone and stored on it. Some of those images will have been edited in some fashion (lightening and cropping (to the same aspect ratio as the original) for example) using the built in standard apple software embedded within the phone. I then simply went to the photobox website using the phone’s browser and was invited to upload the selected images directly from the phone’s album. At no point was any other device involved. At no point was there the (obvious) option to check how the final image would be presented. Had I known the images would be cropped to anything like the level they were I would have put the brakes on straight away.
With respect to the nature and extent of the cropping we are talking borderline practical joke levels. Imagine a group photo with the subjects sitting nicely within the original image returning with feet or heads being cut clean off and nicely framed images of faces arriving with the subject massively off centre and one eye off the edge! Something has gone awry.
On the unwanted cropping:
The Photobox site should have given you options (b) and (c), if not an actual preview. I haven't used Photobox for a some time but it was very good then; I used them for exhibition prints.
scenario8 said:
Some of those images will have been edited in some fashion (lightening and cropping (to the same aspect ratio as the original)...
A4 has an aspect ratio of 1:1.4. By contrast your photos were probably 4:3 or 16:9. So you're trying to fit (in rough terms) a rectangle into a square. It doesn't go. So there are three options - (a) squash it until it fits (hardly satisfactory!), (b) have all the image printed with white areas on two sides, (c) 'crop to fit - the image is expanded until there's no white. This of course crops off the opposite ends.The Photobox site should have given you options (b) and (c), if not an actual preview. I haven't used Photobox for a some time but it was very good then; I used them for exhibition prints.
Thanks again.
iPhones shoot in 4:3 I specifically mentioned in the thread title that the images I wish to print are from an iPhone in the hope someone would immediately think “oh you should try app X or Y” (since I can’t be the first person in the World to wish to print images directly from their phone).
I mentioned I was wishing to print “(roughly) A4 size” to give a sense of the scale of the prints I was wishing to produce. Again, in case that was significant to someone with experience or knowledge. The specific size I ordered were 12x8. I anticipated there being some cropping. I suspect either an individual at the press ballsed up majorly or a robots algorithms went haywire momentarily because some of the cropping is ridiculous. I’m not going to post up images but I have prints here where a very large chunk of the original image has been removed.
I wonder whether this partly a data size issue and photobox will not process correctly files over a certain size. I dunno..
It’s just not what I expected.
iPhones shoot in 4:3 I specifically mentioned in the thread title that the images I wish to print are from an iPhone in the hope someone would immediately think “oh you should try app X or Y” (since I can’t be the first person in the World to wish to print images directly from their phone).
I mentioned I was wishing to print “(roughly) A4 size” to give a sense of the scale of the prints I was wishing to produce. Again, in case that was significant to someone with experience or knowledge. The specific size I ordered were 12x8. I anticipated there being some cropping. I suspect either an individual at the press ballsed up majorly or a robots algorithms went haywire momentarily because some of the cropping is ridiculous. I’m not going to post up images but I have prints here where a very large chunk of the original image has been removed.
I wonder whether this partly a data size issue and photobox will not process correctly files over a certain size. I dunno..
It’s just not what I expected.
Thanks for the accurate information. 12x8" is, if one applies some Class 1 arithmetic, 3:2. That's not going to fit into 4:3 so the options I listed before still apply. The curiosity is why the Photobox website didn't show you ways to deal with the problem.
I would forward the images to Photobox and ask them what went wrong, and hopefully they will reprint them as you wish. You will get cropping or white bits; the choice is yours. White bits can at least be cut off.
As for apps, robotics, algorithms etc, you're overthinking it. It's just rectangles
ETA: I wonder if some of the massive cropping is due to a confusion between landscape and porttrait format?
I would forward the images to Photobox and ask them what went wrong, and hopefully they will reprint them as you wish. You will get cropping or white bits; the choice is yours. White bits can at least be cut off.
As for apps, robotics, algorithms etc, you're overthinking it. It's just rectangles
ETA: I wonder if some of the massive cropping is due to a confusion between landscape and porttrait format?
I’m quite baffled by it if I’m honest. It’s 2020, iPhones have been around for a dozen years. I suspect “most” photography these days is captured by phone. I’m the very definition of a late adopter so had expected issues such as this to be resolved years and years ago. Why is 4:3 printing simply not an option? If we must offer 3:2 why do I not get the option to choose my cropping or even see their mandated cropping to see if I’m happy with it? It’s just a surprise to me I’m expected to get what I’m given.
I suspect my inexperience is at play here but I also wonder if there wasn’t some issue at their end as some of these images are “just about fine” while others are definitely veering towards “are they taking the piss?” I cannot believe file size really is the issue as (again) I cannot be the first person to ever have uploaded original iPhone images for printing. A colleague suggested I return the “really bad” images as he finds the cropping extraordinary and wonders if there wasn’t just some unexpected fault. In honesty I’m not sure I really care enough to get that involved if an easy fix is available either elsewhere from another provider or simply by editing the files manually myself on a pc before submitting a second time.
I suspect my inexperience is at play here but I also wonder if there wasn’t some issue at their end as some of these images are “just about fine” while others are definitely veering towards “are they taking the piss?” I cannot believe file size really is the issue as (again) I cannot be the first person to ever have uploaded original iPhone images for printing. A colleague suggested I return the “really bad” images as he finds the cropping extraordinary and wonders if there wasn’t just some unexpected fault. In honesty I’m not sure I really care enough to get that involved if an easy fix is available either elsewhere from another provider or simply by editing the files manually myself on a pc before submitting a second time.
scenario8 said:
I’m quite baffled by it if I’m honest. It’s 2020, iPhones have been around for a dozen years. I suspect “most” photography these days is captured by phone. I’m the very definition of a late adopter so had expected issues such as this to be resolved years and years ago. Why is 4:3 printing simply not an option?
4:3 IMHO is quite an 'old' format - it's what TVs used to be before 16:9 came in about 20 years ago. Of course when you're dealing with pixels you can have any ratio of pixels you like, hence why there are options. According to Google, iPhones can shoot in other formats too - have a look in the menus.By contrast print sizes are more traditionally related to photography which was and still is usually 3:2 format. Hence (in inches) you have print sizes of 6x4, 8x6, 10x8, 16x12, 30x20 etc. Printers also do A4, A3, A2 etc as they are standard paper sizes
scenario8 said:
If we must offer 3:2 why do I not get the option to choose my cropping or even see their mandated cropping to see if I’m happy with it? It’s just a surprise to me I’m expected to get what I’m given.
There should have been options I agree. Another angle is to look for places that make 4:3 prints and start that way. scenario8 said:
...if an easy fix is available either elsewhere from another provider or simply by editing the files manually myself on a pc before submitting a second time.
If you can crop the images to the right format for the print you want, then everything should fit nicely. It's a bit chicken and egg - do you want to shoot the format you want then try to find prints and maybe frames that fit it, or consider the print format you want first and work backwards. If you can set your phone to 3:2 and you're happy with that format the problem might be solved.Only once really had an issue with Photobox and they reprinted with absolutely no questions asked. Their customer service at all other times has been exceptional (eg extending credits etc).
They will provide a test print/image for you if you want to check things (search their site).
Once uploaded to their 'album' ready for you to order, you can check every image, adjust crop if you need to as well. I only ever do this via PC so can't be sure what options you get directly from the phone but if you're using their website rather than their app, I would image you can see the options too.
Colour on screens, particularly iphones/ipads shouldn't be compared directly with a print - one reflects light, the other transmits it. Doubt you can colour profile a phone screen so using a monitor (which you can) as well as soft-proofing will help you get more of what you want to achieve.
Also, a question for you/others - what profile do phones use? Photobox and others will expect sRGB I believe not Adobe RGB or Pro Photo etc.
https://photobox-en6.custhelp.com/app/answers/deta...
They will provide a test print/image for you if you want to check things (search their site).
Once uploaded to their 'album' ready for you to order, you can check every image, adjust crop if you need to as well. I only ever do this via PC so can't be sure what options you get directly from the phone but if you're using their website rather than their app, I would image you can see the options too.
Colour on screens, particularly iphones/ipads shouldn't be compared directly with a print - one reflects light, the other transmits it. Doubt you can colour profile a phone screen so using a monitor (which you can) as well as soft-proofing will help you get more of what you want to achieve.
Also, a question for you/others - what profile do phones use? Photobox and others will expect sRGB I believe not Adobe RGB or Pro Photo etc.
https://photobox-en6.custhelp.com/app/answers/deta...
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