Has anyone tried the new sister company of West Coast Imaging - Aspen Creek Photo? They offer what looks like to be very similar printing service as I usually get from WCI (Chromira and Fuji Crystal Archive Paper) at a much reduced price compared to WCI (just for comparison a 20x30 Chromira Fuji Crystal Matte is $45 at WCI versus $27.99 at ACP) . I inquired about the difference, and got the following:
"The sharpness and clarity of our prints is what you would expect from any professional lab. While some things are similar, we use a completely different process because of our online ordering system, we have different shipping and packaging methods, and different printing options."
Its tempting, but I thought I'd ask and see if anyone has any direct experience.
Thx
Posted by Richard Wong on July 17, 2008 at 5:54 PM
From the email they sent, they said that they have a lot of experience with nature photography so they know what makes for good nature photography prints. So I'm guessing that if they don't think it is saturated or contrasty enough then they won't hesistate to crank it up.
Richard and Greg - If they're running it anything like WCI, then they expect you to have a color managed workflow and they won't do a single thing to your image except print it with the proper ICC profile. (WCI will of course work extensively on your file if you ask them to and pay for it.)
The Aspen Creek website help seems to support this. Although this was really interesting :
Should I softproof my images before printing?
We can see no benefit to using Photoshop's Proof Colors command to softproof when making photographic prints. The best way to see what your prints will look like is to use a high quality display and to profile it. You'll want a LCD that can display at least 69% of AdobeRGB, and we recommend the X-Rite Eye-One calibration packages.
We did a test with the NEC LCD2690WUXI which can display 94% of AdobeRGB, one of the most accurate LCDs available, and we profiled it with the $1,300 Eye-One photo package.Then we compared prints under Solux 4700K lighting to the display. The prints looked most like the display WITHOUT using the Proof Colors command. Using the Proof Colors command made the display look less like the print, and gave false information. These conclusions were made by highly experienced printmakers who can discern colors and differences imperceptible to the average viewer.
Note that you can ONLY upload jpegs to Aspen Creek. Jpegs are compressed/lossy, while a tiff (which you can upload to WCI) is an uncompressed/lossless format. You probably would not notice quality loss at small print sizes, but I would be hesitant to upload a jpeg for a big print. I would recommend tests before committing to a huge print from a jpeg.
Richard, it seems they send your image directly to print.
David, I saw that as well....hmmmm.
Michael, I missed that in the help section, and only found out when I tested their software-which doesn't recognize tiff's. Seems they ONLY work with jpg's. Bummer
I wouldn't worry too much about the JPG issue guys. I've tried printing both fairly large (like 12x16) and couldn't tell the difference, as long as the quality was very high on the JPG. I've heard others much more expert than I am say the same thing. It might be a little image dependent though - especially if you have a 16-bit TIFF with large, subtle, smooth gradations.
Posted by Roger Rouch on July 20, 2008 at 11:20 PM
I've used WHCC and JPEG files for 16X20" prints that look fine to me. I honestly don't think there should be any big differences between JPEG and TIFF. JPEG is lossy only if it is repeatedly opened and resaved. I think the trick should be to convert to JPEG as a last step and then saved at level 10. It was recommended to me to open a TIFF and JPEG of the same photo, copy and stack them into the same file as different layers with the JPEG on top. Set the zoom level to 100% and set the blending mode on the top layer to Difference. This should show any significant differences. I'm not the printing expert, but am thinking JPEG files shouldn't be a show stopper. WCI has a great reputation and I'll be giving Aspen Creek a try.
Thanks for the input David and Roger. I'll be printing large (20x30), so I am worried jpeg compression might be an issue here, but that is a cool technique Roger, so maybe I'll make a final tiff for printing after interpolation, save as jpeg then inspect using the difference blending mode to see...
For what its worth, I tried the technique Roger described: interpolated my image to 200dpi at 20"x30", then saved as tiff or jpeg's with varying degrees of compression.
-At photoshop quality 12 there was almost no difference (it was impossible to see at 1000% in just the blend mode, but the histogram showed a tiny difference - if I enlarged to 1000% with a normal blend mode and clicked the jpeg layer on and off I could see one or two pixels shift, mostly in the 'smooth' transition areas, but the change was minimal - these pixel shifts couldn't be seen when viewing at lower view sizes, say 100%).
-At photoshop quality 5 there was a large difference that can easily be spotted by eye at just about any view size, most notably at "print size" (~50%).
My conclusions: I'm sure it is image dependent, but the jpeg compression at Highest Quality (photoshop 12) is so low I doubt any difference could be seen in a print even by the most trained eye.
For what its worth (again )...I received a print the other day and must say it was top notch. Compared to other test prints I received: comparable to WCI and blows mpix away.
I'm sure it is image dependent, but the jpeg compression at Highest Quality (photoshop 12) is so low I doubt any difference could be seen in a print even by the most trained eye.
Guess it doesn't matter now, but just an FYI - given the dot spreading of ink on paper and further interpolation of the image by the printer driver, I would think that any differences you did find would definitely not show in the print. Glad to hear it worked out so well!!
Discussion
10 replies"The sharpness and clarity of our prints is what you would expect from any professional lab. While some things are similar, we use a completely different process because of our online ordering system, we have different shipping and packaging methods, and different printing options."
Its tempting, but I thought I'd ask and see if anyone has any direct experience.
Thx
The Aspen Creek website help seems to support this. Although this was really interesting :
David, I saw that as well....hmmmm.
Michael, I missed that in the help section, and only found out when I tested their software-which doesn't recognize tiff's. Seems they ONLY work with jpg's. Bummer
-At photoshop quality 12 there was almost no difference (it was impossible to see at 1000% in just the blend mode, but the histogram showed a tiny difference - if I enlarged to 1000% with a normal blend mode and clicked the jpeg layer on and off I could see one or two pixels shift, mostly in the 'smooth' transition areas, but the change was minimal - these pixel shifts couldn't be seen when viewing at lower view sizes, say 100%).
-At photoshop quality 5 there was a large difference that can easily be spotted by eye at just about any view size, most notably at "print size" (~50%).
My conclusions: I'm sure it is image dependent, but the jpeg compression at Highest Quality (photoshop 12) is so low I doubt any difference could be seen in a print even by the most trained eye.
Guess it doesn't matter now, but just an FYI - given the dot spreading of ink on paper and further interpolation of the image by the printer driver, I would think that any differences you did find would definitely not show in the print. Glad to hear it worked out so well!!