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artists_bewareEDIT: ADDED PROOF/PRINT SCAN FROM MOO
This was the first place I could think of for advice on where to get good prints! Basically I am looking to get some postcards or greeting cards made of my photos to sell at cons. I tried a small run with Overnight Prints and while the price is great, the quality is not quite what I was hoping for. It's not terrible I'm just picky. I've tried to show the quality by posting part of the file I submitted and then a scan of the card next to it. Keep in mind this is 300dpi blown up to 72 dpi for the web, and that my scanner may be upping the contrast a little. It's not bad, but I've seen smoother prints!
proof vs print:
Here is what overnightprints looked like (proof on left). Note the sales reps assured me that the greeting cards get the "quality" print, not the "value" print
Here is what Moo looks like:
Thoughts so far:
I'm not sure if the resolution is really better with Moo, but I would say the print is definitely smoother. My biggest problem with the OvernightPrints order was you could see faint vertical lines where I guess one of the print heads was doing something a little different from the others. Moo cards do not have that!
However, Moo cards are a lot more expensive. I paid $1 each for a run of 10 from overnight prints ($1.36 each including S&H) vs $1.20 each for a run of 25 from moo ($1.54 including S&H). Doesn't sound so bad except that if I bumped up my size to 250 from overnight prints it'd be $0.22 each from overnight prints before S&H, vs $1.23 for 250 Moo cards. Maybe I can reduce that to $0.86 with a coupon... but the S&H is huge! Moo's site says the S&H for the 250 cards will be $47.75, vs OvernightPrints economy shipping is just $7.75 (economy takes 3 weeks however - the shipping option on overnight prints that takes two days [about what my Moo order took] is still $33.59)
The upshot of Moo is that you can put many different designs in your order, vs each run with overnight prints is a single image.
Conclusion: Moo's quality is a bit nicer but the cost is prohibitive for the prices I wanted to sell for, even with a large run. I'm going to try a few other places.
So, my question is, where does one get nice postcard prints? I get the feeling this level of quality is fairly standard for most print on demand places hence I'm hesitant to just keep ordering small runs willy-nilly!
Recommendations much appreciated :)
This was the first place I could think of for advice on where to get good prints! Basically I am looking to get some postcards or greeting cards made of my photos to sell at cons. I tried a small run with Overnight Prints and while the price is great, the quality is not quite what I was hoping for. It's not terrible I'm just picky. I've tried to show the quality by posting part of the file I submitted and then a scan of the card next to it. Keep in mind this is 300dpi blown up to 72 dpi for the web, and that my scanner may be upping the contrast a little. It's not bad, but I've seen smoother prints!
proof vs print:
Here is what overnightprints looked like (proof on left). Note the sales reps assured me that the greeting cards get the "quality" print, not the "value" print
Here is what Moo looks like:
Thoughts so far:
I'm not sure if the resolution is really better with Moo, but I would say the print is definitely smoother. My biggest problem with the OvernightPrints order was you could see faint vertical lines where I guess one of the print heads was doing something a little different from the others. Moo cards do not have that!
However, Moo cards are a lot more expensive. I paid $1 each for a run of 10 from overnight prints ($1.36 each including S&H) vs $1.20 each for a run of 25 from moo ($1.54 including S&H). Doesn't sound so bad except that if I bumped up my size to 250 from overnight prints it'd be $0.22 each from overnight prints before S&H, vs $1.23 for 250 Moo cards. Maybe I can reduce that to $0.86 with a coupon... but the S&H is huge! Moo's site says the S&H for the 250 cards will be $47.75, vs OvernightPrints economy shipping is just $7.75 (economy takes 3 weeks however - the shipping option on overnight prints that takes two days [about what my Moo order took] is still $33.59)
The upshot of Moo is that you can put many different designs in your order, vs each run with overnight prints is a single image.
Conclusion: Moo's quality is a bit nicer but the cost is prohibitive for the prices I wanted to sell for, even with a large run. I'm going to try a few other places.
So, my question is, where does one get nice postcard prints? I get the feeling this level of quality is fairly standard for most print on demand places hence I'm hesitant to just keep ordering small runs willy-nilly!
Recommendations much appreciated :)
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no subject
Date: 2011-01-31 12:51 am (UTC)NO FURTHER REQUESTS FOR AN LJ-CUT AFTER THIS POST, PLEASE.
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Date: 2011-01-31 12:57 am (UTC)Cut is done - my monitor res is way high so they didn't look too big to me XD
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Date: 2011-01-31 01:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-31 01:05 am (UTC)http://us.moo.com/
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Date: 2011-01-31 01:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-31 02:00 am (UTC)Pricier but if the prints are really nice I think it'd be worth it :) I'm going to try a small sample run, thanks!
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Date: 2011-01-31 02:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-01 02:02 am (UTC)I mean Moo!
I haven't tried their post cards, but I've bought several orders of business cards from them. They are a wee bit pricey, but I've never seen business cards of this quality.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-04 02:15 am (UTC)The same job through VistaPrint is only $65.
Unless I'm doing something wrong? o___O
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Date: 2011-02-04 04:11 am (UTC)That said, yes when I first looked at their prices I had a hard time imagining how someone could give those business cards away for free, they're so expensive @-@ Maybe it's worth it for folks who can write that off as a tax return or something
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Date: 2011-02-05 12:47 pm (UTC)Also, I got my business cards from overnight prints for about $70... 2000 of them... and ridiculous high quality, double sided, full color.
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Date: 2011-02-07 10:58 pm (UTC)Their quality is better I would say, but not enough to overcome the cost I think... especially if I factor in the whopping S&H fees (almost $50 for an order of 250 cards!!)
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Date: 2011-01-31 01:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-31 02:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-31 01:19 am (UTC)The quality was amazing and looked like it came right off the computer screen!
I'd give Vistprint a look as well, I know they make lots of different things like buisnesscards.
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Date: 2011-01-31 02:24 am (UTC)Looking at the business card though if the quality is the same it would not be quite what I'm looking for, but they're cheap so maybe I should give 'em a whirl anyway...
... maybe turn this into a "card quality review" post :P
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Date: 2011-01-31 01:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-31 01:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-31 01:53 am (UTC)That's a major bummer, I've been ordering from them for years and haven't had any issues. Gotten x-mas cards, post cards, business cards, bookmarks, no issues!
Moo.com is my second choice I think, if my feedback still counts. XD
no subject
Date: 2011-01-31 01:58 am (UTC)I'm just a bit picky and would like to know where to get a really nice photographic print. I would definitely consider ordering more from overnight prints for cheaper table stuff if the price for nicer prints is like 10x more though :P
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Date: 2011-01-31 02:29 am (UTC)I would also try Nations Photo Lab they are based in MD and have INCREDIBLE print quality.
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Date: 2011-01-31 03:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-31 03:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-31 03:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-31 03:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-31 04:03 am (UTC)Personally curious, but also consider this a +1 for Moo too. I've had friends use them for the mini cards and they're really sweet.
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Date: 2011-01-31 04:19 am (UTC)I did notice the postcards had the "value" and the "premium" options, and I tried to ask customer service whether the premium option would be with the offset press and thus a better print quality than the greeting cards I received. This seemed reasonable to me since I thought when I looked on the quality section of the webpage (http://www.overnightprints.com/?A=qual) it seemed to say that greeting cards could be done with either. However the rep said that all greeting cards were done with offset press.
... I asked to be extra sure if the quality of the greeting cards would be the same as the premium post cards, not the value post cards, and haven't heard back from the rep yet. But basically unless they tell me otherwise I'm figuring the greeting cards were with the "premium" press.
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Date: 2011-01-31 04:34 am (UTC)Ah well... may Moo do better in the card department than Overnight, with whom I'll stick with business cards.
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Date: 2011-01-31 05:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-31 04:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-04 04:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-31 05:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-31 08:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-31 08:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-31 08:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-04 04:09 am (UTC)That said, yes vistaprint does do sketchy things like the "free trial month" where they hope you forget to unsubscribe so they can charge you.
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Date: 2011-01-31 10:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-31 12:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-31 06:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-31 09:37 pm (UTC)My mate works for FedEx Office (formerly Kinkos) and he would have been appalled by that proof vs. print!
I'm biased for FedEx, but they have very good quality postcard/greeting card prints.
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Date: 2011-02-02 04:09 am (UTC)Ehhh, I made my own personal family cards there since I was in a rush to do them and I'm not really fond of their format. Either I have to pay a $5 "digital processing" fee to get someone who knows the printers to print for me, or I pay per minute to try to print my files and goof them and pay for the paper because their photo processing software is lame and the staff are uninformative.
... sorry, that was a bit of a rant XP I think the quality was about the same as the other cards I got, also.
I just really hate their interface. I can figure digital stuff out pretty easily but charging per minute makes me anxious even if it's not all that much.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-08 03:08 am (UTC)I do support Moo.com. I use them for their mini cards with my DA address for conventions because they're great to hand out along with my professional business cards.
As for postcards, they can be pretty pricey but Modern Postcard delivers beautiful prints. They even slightly adjusted the color balance of my image (with my approval) to make it even more warm and inviting. They also have mailing lists for sale to client bases for illustrators and such, and they will mail all of your postcards out to that list for you when you order them.
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Date: 2011-02-08 04:11 am (UTC)Currently I have an order pending from Nations Photo Lab - will see how that goes!
Modern Postcard looks like it might be good: though pricier than overnight prints it still looks to be about half that of Moo... I'm going to ask if they'd be willing to give me a sample of my test print... I'm willing to pay a little but I don't want to buy 250 just to see how they'd do it XD