Nice Christmas card printing

[GetCarter]

From photobox.

Very impressed with quality, A4 folded serious weight, strong colours etc - and they donate a bit to charidy.

www.photobox.co.uk/static.html?name=unloggedcard&args=666f72776172647c787c2f73747564696f2f6772656574696e6763617264732f64657369676e65722e68746d6c

[GetCarter]

...doesn't mean any of you lot are getting one mind.

[freddies_dad]

That's good news for me! I've just used the very same as our new baby announcement cards. I originally bought some pre-creased card and intended on printing it myself. The card barely stands up on its own.

[badbeachbuggy]

So let's see the design then Steve if we're not getting one

Mine were here...

www.pistonheads.co.uk/gassing/topic.asp?t=319239&f=109&h=0

[350wedge]

I looked at these the other day, seemed really good quality.

Only thing that put me off from doing it was if you order a pack you can only have one photo. I wanted to buy say a pack of 20 cards but i wanted to at least have more than one photo to choose from. Same with Snapfish too although their cards are not proper folding ones, just a single sheet of card...

Ended up making a Calendar for next year instead from photobox

[GetCarter]

badbeachbuggy said:

So let's see the design then Steve if we're not getting one

Mine were here...

www.pistonheads.co.uk/gassing/topic.asp?t=319239&f=109&h=0

Mine were nothing so clever... but (of course) did have the obligatory dog involved

Edited by GetCarter on Thursday 7th December 21:12

[SGirl]

I had these done. Their turnaround time was very impressive, ordered on a Friday night and dispatched on the Saturday afternoon.

But I wasn't overwhelmed with the print quality, I must admit. The prints were rather dark and looked a bit grainy - which the original image wasn't, and didn't. That said, I don't suppose the recipients are going to be looking at the print quality anyway.

Photobox is a great company, I've used them a lot and I'll continue to do so. But they do have their moments as regards print quality. Prints to photo paper always seem to turn out a lot better than prints to card. Their 30" x 20" prints are excellent, and so is their customer service.

[EmmaP]

SGirl said:

The prints were rather dark and looked a bit grainy - which the original image wasn't

You need to add a lighten curve in Photoshop:

Image>Adjustments>Curves and set Input to 110 and Output to 140.

Your monitor may not be calibrated correctly either.

The print quality will never match that of the photographic print as the two processes are different. What you may be seeing is the dot pattern inherant in the print process. Having said that, I think they use digital printing rather than lithographic. Make sure that your resolution is 300 pixels per inch.

Edited by EmmaP on Friday 8th December 13:19

[SGirl]

EmmaP said:

SGirl said:

The prints were rather dark and looked a bit grainy - which the original image wasn't

You need to add a lighten curve in Photoshop:

Image>Adjustments>Curves and set Input to 110 and Output to 140.

Your monitor may not be calibrated correctly either.

The print quality will never match that of the photographic print as the two processes are different. What you may be seeing is the dot pattern inherant in the print process. Having said that, I think they use digital printing rather than lithographic. Make sure that your resolution is 300 pixels per inch.

Thanks Emma, that's great advice! I'll give that a try next time.

I think the monitor calibration may well have something to do with it, but a similar image which I had printed to photo paper wasn't dark at all.

[EmmaP]

I add the same lighten curve to all my photographs, irrespective of the lab used. (My monitor has been calibrated.)

[graham@reading]

My monitor isn't "properly" calibrated, but I spent 5 iterations of the same photo printed at photobox and then adjusting things when it came back

[Captain Beaky]

Photobox will send you a calibration print which you can match to the screen image. Not sophisticated but a good start on getting the colour and levels about right.