just a little comparison test

[livin4lax09]

I did this comparison test and thought i'd share. this is taken straight from another forum

OK, so here's the deal. lately I did a little comparison test because I wanted to see which online photo processor did the best job.

I looked into four different companies: Adoramapix (which I have been using for a while) snapfish, clark color, and york photo. While clark, york, and snapfish are basically the same companies, I found slight variation in their printing and shipping.

First off, shipping costs. since the three are owned by presumably the same corporation, their shipping costs are the same (very cheap) I was only charged a dollar for 10 4x6 prints. compared to other labs (like adoramapix) which charges a 4.95 flat rate, this is very inexpensive. But if you are ordering a LOT of photos, adoramapix will be the better choice. But not unless you are ordering large or bulk quantities of photos.

As far as print quality goes, they are all around the same, but after very close examination, i found that clark photo has more detail, smoother lines, and handles noise much better.

As far as the quality of paper printed on, adoramapix wins, and they use kodak gold paper. It's really nice stuff.

So let's see. One of the biggest things to look at. Price. snapfish is 12 cents per 4x6. york - 10 cents. clark? 11 if you order normally, 9 if you pre-purchase lots of prints. Adorama? 19 cents. so clearly at adorama you are charged for the better paper. But another thing to consider is other print sizes. adorama charged 50 cents for a 5x7, while the others charge around 25 cents more, on average. So with bigger prints, it may be cheaper to go w/ adoramapix.

And last but not least, the way in which the photos are shipped. snapfish ships them the worst way, just in a paper envelope stuffed inside another paper envelope, sealed shut and saying "photos enclosed, do not bend." we all know the PO can't control that that much, so my photos arrived bent. york sends in the same way, but they put a piece of cardboard in with the photos to keep them straight. clark does the cardboard technique, but also uses another cardboard envelope for the outer envelope. Adorama ships in a thin cardboard box, sealed with adorama tape so you know if your prints have been tampered with. the prints are also sealed airtight so humidity doesn't affect them.

Another thing to consider is that york, clark, and snapfish all offer 10 free 4x6 prints at sign-up, but adorama does not.

so the bottom line? Adorama is good, but costly, and york and snapfish are good as well but lack in small areas. the best value for the money is clark color labs. they have great quality and make sure your photos get to you in pristine condition

adoramapix - www.adoramapix.com
snapfish - www.snapfish.com
clark color labs - www.clarkcolor.com
york photo labs - www.yorkphoto.com

[walterick]

Great write-up. Thanks for posting this. I am going to link to it in a future FAQ thread.

[natatbeach]

give Mpix.com a try some time and ask them for a sample of papers (which is free)....

[another view]

Thanks for doing this - always good to hear what else is out there. Like Natalie, I've used Mpix before and been happy with their work. I think they have the $5 flat shipping fee as well, and they're at $.29 per 4x6 but offer a quantity discount. It's not cheap compared to the places you've mentioned (or $.15 at the grocery store Fuji Frontier which is actually very good) but their turnaround is fast and they have a lot of professional services that they offer. And the Kodak Metallic paper which looks great for some shots!

[mjs1973]

Thanks for the write up Brent. I'm basically doing the same thing myself, with some of the online printers too. Mpix, Adorama, Snapfish & Shutterfly are the ones I have been ordering from. I just placed a couple orders last night, of the exact same photos from a couple of these places. I'll add my thoughts to this thread when I get the prints back and have some time to compare them if you don't mind.

[livin4lax09]

Michael,

interested to see what you dug up about mpix. I've been meaning to try them out for a little while. I just ordered from winkflash, and have to say I am pretty impressed with them.

first off: the site isn't that aesthetically pleasing, but if gets the job done, and gives you a good amount of options. what I like is that you can mix matte and glossy photos in the same order. this is not available from a lot of sites I have seen. custom cropping is available, along with borders. really, they offer a great amount of services. also, they offer cool stuff like mousepads, mugs, puzzles, etc., for good prices.

shipping: within a couple hours of my order, I got an email saying my order had finished printing and has been shipped off. I received it about 2-3 business days after I ordered it. Very good shipping times. Oh right. the best part? 99 cent flat shipping rate! and they ship in a hard cardboard non-bend envelope, which ensures the photos don't get bent.

right out of the package:
they include an index print for your photos, for no cost. right out of the shipping package, i was less than impressed with the quality. so I took the photos up to my room, sat down with the prints from clarkcolor, adoramapix, and winkflash, and noticed a few things. the colors in the adorama ones and winkflash ones are much duller, and not nearly as saturated. while clark's photos are sharper, they sacrifice sharpness with digital artifacts.

it was not until i logged onto winkflash.com that I realized why the colors on the winkflash print didn't pop. my original didn't pop. Winflash does NO color correction to their photos. they are printed exactly as they are shipped to them. which is AWESOME, but only if you have a calibrated monitor. I'm happy about this, as a recent order from clarkcolor changed the color of the sky a bit so it wasn't as deep of a blue.

so in the end, winkflash has great photo prices, great shipping prices, great service, and nice print quality. but you have to make sure your prints are spectacular when you send them in if you want them to look good when they come out. but oversharpen a bit, and boost that saturation for a nice looking print!