You’ve invested so much in your actual session. Whether it be your wedding photography, or a portrait session. Why not invest in prints as well?! I get emails all the time saying “I printed these at Walgreens but they just don’t look like the images on my disc”. I’ve tried very hard to verbally explain why that is. As a professional photographer I, of course, recommend a professional photo lab. Why? Because when I edit images, I want to know that the lab I send those images to will print them to my specifications. Pro labs do this. They take the digital file they receive and print it just as it is. On amazing archival quality paper with amazing quality ink. The places I call neighborhood labs, Walgreens, Target, etc. don’t do this. They print quickly and economically on sub par paper and sub par inks. They also “Auto Correct” images in their printers software. So, all the time I spent tweaking images to get your skin tone looking just perfect, or to get the sparkle in your eyes to pop, they go and ruin it by auto correcting. Muddying the colors, making skin tones red or orange, and leaving dark spots under skin. Shoot! Target even sold me prints with ink smudges all across the top! You’ve invested so much into your photography. Time choosing clothes, time getting your kids ready, time during the actual shoot. You’ve invested money in my session fees and my wedding package rates. Please do your investment justice by having your images printed somewhere that takes your investment seriously. You can always order from my professional lab, or I also recommend an online printer to each of my clients as well. If you all have any questions I’m just a phone call or an email away to make your investment everything you wanted it to be. We worked so hard together to create art, not snapshots. Choosing the correct printer is the last and final step to creating lasting artwork.
I decided to do more then just verbally explain, I had two different images printed at neighborhood labs as well as my professional lab and have compared those three with the original digital image. Hoping to show everyone exactly what those sub par printers do to your artwork ;-)
I trust every word you said, and the pictures just hammer home your point. You know where we’ll be ordering :)
Great informative post Jenn…Quick question…how do the photo websites (shutterfly, dotphoto, snapfish etc) compare to Walgreens and Target? LIke for everyday images that I take, is the quality better if I order through one of these websites?
What a great visual comparison! We still have to decide which of wedding pictures to have printed and where to hang them….
I compare online labs to the target images, color is a bit better but still sub par compared to pro labs. I would say mpix.com and shutterfly however do a better job then most, but again, still dont compare to a pro. labs quality.