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Dear Norbert and anyone else using AOL.

Try this: After you get online and check your email, minimize your AOL and open up Internet Explorer and use it for a much better internet experience.
Norbert W. said:
Robert John Andersen said:
Rex Frobenius said:
Rex
Mike Hatam said:
I've been using Shutterfly, and have been satisfied, but I haven't
compared it to Ofoto yet.
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I tried Shutterfly and had nothing but problems. It would not even
install. I wrote to them about it and they told me the reason was
that they don't recognize America On Line (my browser). Can you
imagine that? Millions of users use AOL! I predict S-fly won't be
around long.

Norbert W.
Norbert Weber said:
Norbert Weber said:
Norbert Weber said:
Has anyone compared prints ordered from these two services
side-by-side? What are your observations?

I like the 16"x20" and 20"x30" sizes that Ofoto offers - Shutterfly
doesn't offer those.

Mike
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--JWP
 
I've ordered 16"x20" prints from Ofoto from 3MP images (Canon D30) and I was very pleased with the results. I've also been pleased with the 4"x6" prints from my G1 (also 3MP). As with most things, it all depends on what you're willing to pay and what kind of results you're looking for.

I've not personally conducted tests between the varioius print sites but I've read a lot of reviews. It seems that all of them have a little trouble from time to time with consistency (great prints one day and so-so on another).
Norbert W. said:
Those lucky ones out there.. use your Canon G2 or S40, upload
prints to a site called Ofoto (Ofoto.com), have them make prints
for you, and when you open the mail you will be blown out of your
socks when you see the quality of the prints! Absolutely as good
as regular film!! You can even make a poster size 2 X3 feet! And
it will be sharp as a razor! Try it!
--
Norbert W.
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--RAD
 
When I was shooting my Olympus 340D (1.3MP) I thought OFOTO produced WAY better prints than shutterfly. I have 1.3MP 8x10s from Ofoto that look sharp hanging on the wall. I also have digital 4X6's and 5X7s in an album with 35mm film prints and I haven't had one person notice a difference between the two untill I pointed it out.
Mike Hatam said:
Has anyone compared prints ordered from these two services
side-by-side? What are your observations?

I like the 16"x20" and 20"x30" sizes that Ofoto offers - Shutterfly
doesn't offer those.

Mike
Norbert W. said:
Those lucky ones out there.. use your Canon G2 or S40, upload
prints to a site called Ofoto (Ofoto.com), have them make prints
for you, and when you open the mail you will be blown out of your
socks when you see the quality of the prints! Absolutely as good
as regular film!! You can even make a poster size 2 X3 feet! And
it will be sharp as a razor! Try it!
--
Norbert W.
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--
----------------
Mike Hatam
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FYI - http://www.photoaccess.com provides 4.5"x6" digital size prints that do not require cropping.

guy
Robert John Andersen said:
Norbert W. said:
Those lucky ones out there.. use your Canon G2 or S40, upload
prints to a site called Ofoto (Ofoto.com), have them make prints
for you, and when you open the mail you will be blown out of your
socks when you see the quality of the prints! Absolutely as good
as regular film!! You can even make a poster size 2 X3 feet! And
it will be sharp as a razor! Try it!
--
Norbert W.
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The AOL browser is lousy. Most AOL users already know that.

Assuming that you have AOL, you should be able to use the AOL as an ISP while using either Netscape or Microsoft IE. Just sign on AOL and open either browser.

Tim
Norbert W. said:
Robert John Andersen said:
Rex Frobenius said:
I actually like the prints from Shutterfly better than Ofoto. I
thought the colors were more vibrant. Shutterfly also did a good
job with lower resolution 1mp files.

Rex
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I've been using Shutterfly as well. One thing that no one has mentioned is that you can turn off their automatic image enhancement. With that off I've been getting great results. The colors are very nice- not too saturated.

The reason I stay with Shutterfly is that their quality is very consistant. I know that when one of my customers orders an 8x10 it will look great every time.

It sounds like I should try Photoaccess. I agree that it would be nice to print larger photos every once in a while. Have you tried the Snapbooks yet. Incredible! I showed my first one and we now have an order for 20!

For us Macintosh owners we can use iPhoto to produce books now. I wonder what those look like.
Mike Hatam said:
Has anyone compared prints ordered from these two services
side-by-side? What are your observations?

I like the 16"x20" and 20"x30" sizes that Ofoto offers - Shutterfly
doesn't offer those.

Mike
Norbert W. said:
Those lucky ones out there.. use your Canon G2 or S40, upload
prints to a site called Ofoto (Ofoto.com), have them make prints
for you, and when you open the mail you will be blown out of your
socks when you see the quality of the prints! Absolutely as good
as regular film!! You can even make a poster size 2 X3 feet! And
it will be sharp as a razor! Try it!
--
Norbert W.
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--
----------------
Mike Hatam
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Flipteg said:
just a thought... to get a 2 x 3 feet photo without losing any
quality, you need atleast a 77 megapixel camera...
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Technically, yeah that's what you need... but you're not holding a 2x3 poster a few inches from your face... you're usually looking at it from at least a few feet away as it hangs on a wall. I made a 2x3 (not with Ofoto) from a 2 megapixel image, and hanging on the wall, it looks fine.

-Matt
 
Thanks I will.
guy said:
guy
Robert John Andersen said:
Norbert W. said:
Those lucky ones out there.. use your Canon G2 or S40, upload
prints to a site called Ofoto (Ofoto.com), have them make prints
for you, and when you open the mail you will be blown out of your
socks when you see the quality of the prints! Absolutely as good
as regular film!! You can even make a poster size 2 X3 feet! And
it will be sharp as a razor! Try it!
--
Norbert W.
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Click to expand...
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FYI, I just received prints from ImageStation and I am EXTREMELY impressed. I am going to go through the task of uploading the same images to other sites and let you know. I'm sure others have probably already done this.

--Amal Elaine
Norbert Weber said:
Good points, Larry!

Ofoto of course is owned by Kodak, therefore no chance of them
going under.

Norbert W.
Click to expand...
--Amal Elaine Schmitz
 
I see what you're saying, to a point...

The quality of the printed image, as far as I'm concerned is a constant that doesn't change based on the viewing distance. On the other hand, the perception of the quality of a printed image will vary depending on the distance you are viewing the image from.

If you take that 2 foot x 3 foot poster and view it from a few feet away, you'll notice the lack of quality, or the fact that many pixels were interpolated from a 4 megapixel or less image.

If you stand back 5 feet, then it looks clearer, but then you're eye is perceiving it as an 8x10 sized image... Stand back a little further, and your perception is that it's only a 4x6 image.

The quality of the image is always the same... you just see less of the detail as you move further from it.
T L Johns said:
Would it (the "quaitly" of the printed image) not have lot to do
with the "viewing distance". ie - a large billboard picture is
made of dots bigger than your fingernails but viewed from the
intended distance it looks normal.

A large 2 x 3 feet poster would look good on the wall when viewed
from across the lounge room.
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Frank, you're really dumb!! to live 1 billion years, just get yourself printed on photographic paper!!
lol
Frank C. said:
hank said:
They actually use a digital enlarger and expose photographic paper
rather than doing a computer printout, so it is a traditional
photographic print.
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...and will last 1,000,000,000 years with no fading or
orange shift. Problem is, I haven't figured out a
way to live that long yet... 8(
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The trick is in the post processing of the image. While it is very true that if you take an image from a G1 and print out at 16X20 it will not look that good. You will have about 100 DPI and the "blocks" of the pixels will start to show.

BUT....

There are programs and techniques to "upsample" the image for printing (OFoto must do this for you :-) Using Genuine Fractals or Lanczos interpolation are two of the best methods for upsampling. They do a great job of interpolation while still maintaining the edge sharpness. In PhotoShop, you can upsample by 5-15% intervals using the built in Bi-Cubic Spline and it does an OK job.

After this it is a good idea to sharpen the image a bit to help define the edges even further. This is where grain... I mean noise enters in. This is also the difference between $700 cameras and $2000-> $5000 cameras. The lower the noise, the more enlargement can be done.

I have taken G1 shots up to 16X20 @ 300 DPI and they looked great. It is good to hear that OFoto has a good process for larger prints:-)
Steven NoyesNorbert W. said:
Flipteg said:
just a thought... to get a 2 x 3 feet photo without losing any
quality, you need atleast a 77 megapixel camera...
Click to expand...
Flipteg...

Nope! I can't agree. A 4 Megapixel camera will do it! Try it
out! You will be a convert to Ofoto for life!

Norbert W.
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Just in case it's not in one of the answers below. YOu have to post as large an image as possible to get a good large print. The Ofoto site will recommend the best sizes for prints. You can't get a sharp 2 x 3 foot print from a 640 x 480 image.

I switched to Ofoto when Zing went under. The site works quite nicely, but I wish they would allow you to click on an image and have it come up in the original size. They limit the viewing size quite a bit.

Isabel
Norbert W. said:
Those lucky ones out there.. use your Canon G2 or S40, upload
prints to a site called Ofoto (Ofoto.com), have them make prints
for you, and when you open the mail you will be blown out of your
socks when you see the quality of the prints! Absolutely as good
as regular film!! You can even make a poster size 2 X3 feet! And
it will be sharp as a razor! Try it!
--
Norbert W.
Click to expand...
 
Isabel Cutler said:
but I wish they would allow you to click on an image and
have it come up in the original size. They limit the viewing size
quite a bit.
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I agree. That is one of the biggest problems with Ofoto for sharing pictures. The pictures are always tiny. I would like to able to view them at various resolutions (depending on how much resolution my monitor has). Also, the fact that you can't share multiple albums with one link makes sharing albums very cumbersome. You'd think Kodak could improve this site with some simple enhancements but its remained unchanged ever since Zing went under.
 
I just got my first "test" order from EZ prints last night in the mail.

I'm extremely thrilled with the print quality. I had both glossy & matte finish done, and they're both excellent.

One thing I'm confused about, though, is the box you check for "fit to size". I thought I had this one sized right, but when it came back, it wasn't full frame like I intended. I have to go check my sizing on the original file.

Delivery time: well, my order was completely processed on Tuesday, Jan. 2nd. I received my photos on Thursday, Jan 10th. It took longer than I expected to get my prints, but I can live with that.

When you finish completing your order online, I like the receipt that prints out for it. It has a thumbnail of each photo you've ordered along with sizes, finish, quantity, pricing, and pertinent info.

I only ordered 4x6 & 5x7 prints this time, but will be sending off for some 11x14s and 16x20s soon to see how they come out. --Janeen
 
John Marsh said:
In my judgement, Ofoto was the hands down winner; their prints were
well exposed for highlights and shadows while the Shutterfly prints
tended to burn out the highlight detail. The color in Ofoto prints
was generally less saturated but more realistic for my taste.

John
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Hi, John,

I haven't used Shutterfly but I did do a recent comparision side-by-side of identical prints from Ofoto and PhotoWorks. (anybody else use them?) I thought Ofoto's were perfect but Photoworks' were too pink. I wrote to them and told them and they let me return the prints to them for credit.

So, John I agree that Ofoto's prints were more realistic and natural!.

Norbert W.
 
This is no longer the case. Some of the Epson inks/archival papers are expected to last 200 years. Wet process is expected to last only 35!
Check out some of the reviews here: http://luminous-landscape.com/2000p.htm

Frank
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Frank C. said:
hank said:
They actually use a digital enlarger and expose photographic paper
rather than doing a computer printout, so it is a traditional
photographic print.
Click to expand...
...and will last 1,000,000,000 years with no fading or
orange shift. Problem is, I haven't figured out a
way to live that long yet... 8(
Member said:
Member said:
I mean, do they use photo-paper, which they "impress" with light
though some transparent LCD screen (i don't know if this is
possible!!), while a home printer "puts" ink on a glossy paper?
or do they simply use high quality (and cost) printers instead of a
darkroom-like processing?
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