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99% of my clients purchase a CD of the photos from their portrait session, and since printing rights come with Wenzel Photography photo CDs, the question that I usually get asked next is “Where should I have my photos printed?”. Well, I thought I would do a little experiment and post the results here on the blog in case any of the 4 of you who actually read this blog have been wondering the same thing. For this experiment I chose two photos, one black and white and one color, and had them printed by four different printers.
Drug Store #1
Drug Store #2
Snapfish.com
Wenzel Photography Printer (these prints are purchased from the online gallery that is included with each portrait session)
Here we have Exhibit A:
The photo on the top left is obviously blown out and way too bright, and the top right photo is way too dark. They were printed by drugstore photo centers, and let’s be honest, drugstores specialize in drugs and not photo printing. Yes, they may be inexpensive, but it’s kind of like going to a pizza parlor, ordering a $1 cup of coffee, and expecting it to taste like Starbucks. It won’t taste like Starbucks because Starbucks specializes in coffee and pizza parlors specialize in… well, pizza. I think you get the idea so let’s move on to the other two photos. The bottom left photo is pretty good. The color is a bit too saturated (see how the red pants are really red and the coat is more blue than black?), and this can be really bad in some situations, but it’s passable in this photo. The bottom right photo is a dead ringer in brightness, color saturation, contrast, everything. Why? Because it was printed by a professional printer that specializes in photo printing and even color corrects ever photo so your prints look like they should.
Let’s look move on to Exhibit B, shall we?
This one is the real kicker. Black and white photos will point out a printers flaws every time. On the top left we have a greenish tinge, top right looks downright pink, and bottom left is feelin’ a little blue (and a bit blown out). Bottom right wins again because it’s blacks are black and it’s whites are white, which works out nicely because hello, it’s a black and white photo! A fabulous black and white photo can go wrong so easily when printed poorly, so this is definitely something you will want to think about when you want to blow up that black and white photo that you just adore.
So, what does this little experiment tell us?
You get what you pay for!
It may be more expensive to order prints from your Wenzel Photography online gallery, but it is well worth the extra money. Now I know we live in difficult economic times so I totally understand if high quality prints just aren’t in the budget. If you choose to go the cheaper printing route I highly suggest that you not print your photos at a drugstore or any other store for that matter unless it’s a Ritz or Wolf Camera store. A much better option would be to have your photos printed online by a website like http://www.snapfish.com/, http://www.kodakgallery.com/, or http://www.ritzpix.com/. You may still run the risk of those slightly off color black and white photos or overly saturated color photos, but they are much better than the non-photo-printing-store photos.
Now go forth and print thy photos!