Image sharpness compared - Photobox & Truprint !

[driver8]

Thought this was interesting enough to share - crops from a photo-montage, ORIGINAL are crops of digital image.

10x8" prints were made by Photobox & Truprint, which showed obvious difference in sharpness. By coincidence, the photopaper used by both companies was the same - Fujifilm Crystal Archive. Prints were then scanned in (so ignore colour differences & scanning artefacts). The 3 sets of images were cropped & aligned for comparison.

Currently following up with Photobox, who have admitted "there is definitely room for improvement". Anyone techy enough to know what the problem might be here ? (Equipment needs adjusting/servicing ?)

Anyone got similar experiences/advice ?

http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e317/Driver8_pics/compare2.jpg

(remember - the Photobox & Truprint images are scanned results from 10x8" prints).

[JiBeRjAbEr]

And the original & scanned image specs are....?

12/16Bit RAW/TIFF or 8bit JPEG, what DPI?

I think there is more info you may need to supply to draw a proper conclusion to what you are saying. You certainly cant ignore "scanning artifacts" and colour balances as they are fundimental to the percieved sharpness of the image.

Your cropping is spot on, but there is no notion of the actual dimensions of each crop in pixels.

[driver8]

sorry JiBeRjAbEr, I should have been clearer.

the point of the post is to compare the different results between Photobox & Truprint - the photobox print was noticeably less sharp.

Both scans were done in exactly the same way, and the original digital image is only there for comparison (comparing the scans with the original would be an entirely different exercise !) The artefacts I was referring to are the white spots, particularly on the face (rhs).

[bollecks]

Interesting stuff. The only thing is, both companies probably use similar equipment so the next question would have to be, are these results consistent from day to day and machine to machine (assuming that these companies have more than one).

I've had pictures back from Bonusprint that look great, and a others where the colour is decidedly washed out,.

[Taq]

I find photobox too inconsistent with anything these days to use them very often, which is a pity because they used to be excellent. Haven't tried truprint though.

Taq

[driver8]

so where do people recommend for the best price, to get decent & consistent quality ?

Surely there's no need to pay specialist "pro" prices ?

[-monk-]

I take mine to Jessops in store, always v pleased with the results.

[Tintop]

I use DSColour Labs now. You really need to put in a bit of effort on the source files for the best results, no matter where you are printing.

Resize to fit the paper at the resolution they print in (probably 300dpi), sharpen the image correctlt, colour correct your display and convert the image to the profile of their printers. If they don't provide a profile, suggesting you use sRGB then I'd not bother with them to be honest. It does make a difference.

[driver8]

thanks for the Jessops & DSColour recommendations.

[At The Gates]

Personally i though Jessops were diabolical. Every single photo i've had developed there has been completely off in brightness and colour balance. One photo came back with a completely different colour cast, dark blue in this example. High Street best i've seen with regards to sharpness, colour, contrast etc are Snappy Snaps! Although i can't say i've personally had an issue with Photobox who always seem to be pretty good for 10x8s.