Photobox Print Quality

[DJBenson]

I'm posting here in the hope some of you have used Photobox (http://www.thedvdforums.com/affiliatelink.php?localaffiliateid=136) rather than in the supplier forums where it may be overlooked...

We got married earlier this month and a friend of ours (an amateur photographer) and a friend of hers (a professional photographer) did our photographs. We went round to visit her and she showed us the raw images and then the ones she'd touched up with Photoshop and the images looked amazing, crisp and vibrant. She then compiled an "A4 Photobook" on Photobox (http://www.thedvdforums.com/affiliatelink.php?localaffiliateid=136) which we purchased two copies of. These turned up this week but the quality is awful.

Out of the 26 or so prints in the book, only three are actually "visible" (2 black and white and 1 colour). They just look so dark and washed out, you actually need to look at them under a bright light to see them.

As I said, we've seen the masters so something went wrong. Does anybody have experience of using their print services and is the quality usually acceptable?

[Dave B]

There quality is usually not bad but I had a Photobook and thought it was ok. I suppose for £20 you can't expect brilliant quality.

Not sure why some of yours are not visible though.

Dave

[DeadYankee]

They might look fab on someone's screen but if the calibration is ****** then that's your answer

I've had no problems with photobox at all

[DJBenson]

I did a bit of Google'ing and saw quite a number of posts where people complained of dark image quality - some of which had replies from them blaming screen calibration. Now I am by no means an expert on this matter, hence me entering this forum, but can screen calibration be so off that a picture on paper be too dark to see? These were a mixture of shots, some taken outside on a bright day, so it's got me really baffled.

I'm not sure if taking a photo of the book would give the true effect but it is very profound.

EDIT: To add, I've had one of the photo's emailed to me and that is nowhere near as dark as the print version - if anybody has their screen calibrated to such a degree they could test the image then I can put it online.

EDIT2: Forgot to also add that the preview book that you use before ordering looked fantastic too, on my laptop, not hers. This (http://www.thedvdforums.com/affiliatelink.php?localaffiliateid=136&url=http://www.photobox.co.uk/1xC8C8A7/creation/106531392?cid=puksecs001) is said book, does it look dark on your screens?

[emeyedeejay]

I have to say they look very dark to me ... e.g. p7 I can't really make out the brides right side of her face at all. Page 6 - the rose looks very dark too - in fact they all look under-exposed quite a bit. Page 9 - the top right image I can;t make out at all...

[DeadYankee]

A good 20% look dark to me, needed flash to compensate for backlighting. I wouldn't expect an invisible book though

[DJBenson]

No worries, thanks for the opinion. It does appear that the photo's taken by the friend are underexposed (as the ones by her are the ones that are dark) whilst the ones taken by her friend (the professional photographer) are fine (i.e. most of the shots of the ceremony).

[driver8]

Yep, some dark ones here, too.

Another vote for screen calibration as the cause - it's easy to have brightness & contrast wacked up, especially if the setup is used for viewing dvd's or movie clips.

Here's a few very simple tests as a start -

http://www.photofriday.com/calibrate.php
http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/viewing.html
http://epaperpress.com/monitorcal/index.html


and just a thought, but I wonder if the original pics were uploaded by mistake, instead of the adjusted ones ?

[Matholwch]

I made a photobook of a wedding I shot in January. Because I didn't quite trust that my then new monitor was calibrated, I order all the shots as 6x4s. Saw that a few of my shots were darler than I expected, and compensated my monitor and images accordingly (although I should've ordered the samples in matt rather than gloss!).

When I ordered my photobook, the cover looked great (had onw with a print as the cover), however - all the images had a yellow/orange hue, and all the black and white shots had the highlights completely blown.

I couldn't believe that the results could be so different, so I rang up Photobox complained, they said that it occassionally happens that the printing process goes wrong. They ran another print for free, which turned out fine.
So it may have been a dodgy print run?

[Wendelius]

Agreed with a calibration issue. Have your friend calibrate her screen (preferrably with something like a Spyder device for best results but at the very least with some of the sites linked above) and then reprocess her pictures to have them exposed correctly and / or recover information in the darker areas. Update the album with them before trying any reprint.

Wendelius

[DJBenson]

Spoke to my friend last night and she was surprised we'd ordered from the sample she sent us - it was only a proof of concept and she hadn't done any of the calibration stuff yet :doh: We have obviously been over enthusiastic and rushed in.

She said she'd ordered the calibration sheet from Photobox (http://www.thedvdforums.com/affiliatelink.php?localaffiliateid=136) which she'll use to calibrate her screen, after which she'll order a test print and if she's happy with that will order our copy of the book - I assume that is the correct method of getting good digital prints?