I am an old-fashioned chap at
heart – I like my photos in albums. I have yet to really enjoy the
family huddled around a lap top looking at images of my kids growing up in
quite the same way as we do when it’s albums we are gazing at. Maybe it’s just
how I was brought up. The downside is that it’s a huge task and, despite
my best and continuing efforts, I am currently 7 years behind. It
takes ages to ingest and log photos on all the many devices we as a family have
– never mind going back through more than 20,000 photos we have on-line to make
sure they too are properly labelled. Then one has to choose from the thousands
that accumulate in any one year and make a representative selection. I recently
did just that for 2012 and totalled up more than 200 that I needed
printing.
The big question then is ‘where’? I have tried on-line,
department stores, supermarkets, chemists and photography shops and only their
inconsistency is consistent! The colour black can be anywhere from light grey
to coal black. Colours are all over the place and white can be, well, anything.
So I decided to do a test. I chose five locations in my hometown of Brighton
and sent each the same five images to print. These were the photography chain
Jessops, Boots, and photography shops Zoingimage, Colourstream and
ClockTowerImages. The results were frankly pretty shocking. It may
be unfair to rank them but I will tell you the best one – and it rather
surprised me: Jessops. I went in there to ask about their
gear and they said they use a dry-printing method and that helps them keep standards
high and regular. I did ask their PR department for more information
on exactly what equipment they use but no response has as yet been
forthcoming.
But the conclusion is: do a test in your local area and
make sure you find out who prints best before cramming your photo albums with
below-par reproductions of your fine photography skills!
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