How would you rate Mpix.com as a photo printing service?

Question

Please only answer if you have actually used this photo printing service. I currently use WHCC but cannot afford to get a calibrator for my screen and some of my prints end up dark :( And I just wonder if there is something else out there I can try.

Answer 1

WHCC is one of the best printers in the country.



Mpix is more set up for consumers, so they auto correct the images for you. This might make them better or worse.





In my experience it is almost impossible to send photos off to a lab and expect good results without a calibrated monitor.



If you can't afford to buy one, you can rent one here: http://www.lensrentals.com/rent/calibration/colormunki



If you have an LCD monitor, you are supposed to calibrate it every 4 weeks, but I know form experience that you can get away with doing it much much less often. The color on a monitor changes the most in the first year. After that it is very stable until it is about to die.





Edit:

Picturetaker is wrong: Every monitor can be calibrated. You can even use a Colormunki to calibrate projectors, televisions, and crt monitors. When I send something to a lab, it looks exactly like it does on my monitor because my monitor is calibrated.

Answer 2

MPix has both consumer and professional services. I love MPix. They have great prices and they pack your order very well.



You can get a calibration kit from them for $3 I think. Your monitor should be calibrated to your printing service or your printer.



Edit-What I mean is that I've tried calibration kits like colormunki and I was not happy with them. The way I see it, what really matters is that your printer or the lab's printer matches what you expect to see in your prints. Which is why I went with the mpix kit.



@picture taker-the kit includes a cd with an image and instructions and it includes a print to compare to the image on your monitor. You can then manually adjust your monitor settings. It's very easy and seems to be effective. Although I can't say that I wouldn't have gotten the same results without it.

Answer 3

From what I have been able to see from what others have said, the cheapest place is Wal-Mart. Now, if you want them shipped to the store for pick up (and you would have to be patient for that to be an option) then you can get them for like 12 cents a picture, which is the best. If you want one-hour photo, you would have to pay for that. However, if you wanted them shipped to your home, you could do that as well and it is relatively inexpensive for that. I have done it and think that it works the best of any other set-up. It takes a little while to upload them all but if you are doing just a little at a time, that's no big deal. I just got married and used WalMart for all of my pictures. I got some 200 plus pictures (plus some in larger than 4x6) and it cost me a total of like $40.00. Great deal. Good luck and hope you find what you are looking for.

Answer 4

I've been using Mpix for about 5 years and I am quite satisfied. I do not have the color management problems that you have, though. I send my stuff in and tell them that I do NOT want color correction, as I know what it is going to look like when they print it. I give up the opportunity to request a remake when I tell them not to color correct, though. If you let them color correct (which is their default), you can ask for a remake if you are not satisfied.



The problem you will have is that they might think you intended to have a dark exposure unless the image actually looks okay on your camera's LCD monitor. I'd send them maybe 3 r 4 or 5 images and see how they come back to you. If you need to ask for a reprint, you will be able to discuss this (e-mail only) with customer service and then you can tell them more specifically about your problem.



I have a cheap LCD monitor for my computer and I can tell you that you can't really calibrate them properly. You have to make changes to your printer or your "internal auto-adjust" (getting to know your own system) to know how the prints will come out. Personally, once I like the way things look on my screen, I just boost the brightness +15 (CS4) and I know that it will come out just the way I like it on my home printer or from Mpix.



I'll have to check out their calibration kit. I have not seen that before, but then again, I never looked for it because I am happy with my results.



@@@@@@



Tim



I'm sorry to say that you are wrong. I bought (and returned) a Spyder3Pro and then bought (and returned) a Pantone Huey Colorimeter, because the tech department at both companies could not assist me and told me either buy a new monitor or just return the product. Cheap LCD monitors, as are typically supplied with home computers these days, do not play well with their systems. I repeated each one twice before calling, because I got a deep blue shade every time I went through the 30 minute process. When I say blue, I mean that it looked pretty much like this:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/samfeinstein/2205769356/

instead of this:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/samfeinstein/476181751/



In Shutterbug magazine, David B. Brooks has said repeatedly that cheap LCD monitors are problematic when it comes to calibration and they should generally be run just as they ship or replaced with better monitors. He answers a question about this problem almost every month in his column. Here's one where he specifically mentioned the problems with "affordable" LCD monitors.



"There are only two “affordable” LCD display models that I have tested that actually work for color managed photographic image processing. One is the NEC MultiSync P221W, an HD resolution 22”, and the EIZO FlexScan S2243W, which is a higher resolution (same as most 24” displays) in a 22” model. Both displays reproduce over 95 percent of Adobe RGB color gamut size. Both EIZO and NEC have similar larger-sized displays at considerably higher prices."



Source: http://shutterbug.com/digital_help/0910digitalhelp/



Here's another: "First of all, I would not particularly recommend trying to use a home/office Dell display in conjunction with the NEC display because there is no way the two can be brought even close to a match in either color or brightness. Home/office LCD displays will not work satisfactorily at a white luminance of 90.0 CD/m2; about as low as most will go and function decently is 120.0 to 140.0 CD/m2. As a result, a photo image adjusted to look the right brightness will print between a half to a full f/stop too dark. Second, the NEC reproduces over 95 percent of Adobe RGB color while home/office displays only reproduce 30 percent or less of a color range, close to sRGB.

Yes, the Datacolor Spyder3Express would be a good system for the Dell, but the current version does not help adjusting the screen brightness white luminance level.

You cannot come anywhere close trying to match a Dell home/office LCD to the NEC either in color or brightness that matches paper white. It is not that I am being an elitist, but most computers are not made to do graphics and photography—they are made for home and office computing. So don’t even try or assume you can use a graphics setup in conjunction with a Dell office computer. They can’t be matched. It’s a Mutt and Jeff problem, one is tall, the other is short."



Source: http://shutterbug.com/digital_help/0810digitalhelp/



So there is clearly a problem with the luminance of cheaper LCD monitors. I have solved this for MY particular monitor-printer-Mpix combination by simply boosting the brightness level to +15 once I am happy with the appearance of the image on my monitor before I print or send to Mpix.