I've been doing digi scrapping since Jan of this year. I knew I would want to keep up with my kids paper scrapbooks, but I want to create a printed book for each year. So, this requires that I get some of the 12X12s I've been working on printed. I'm just giving info on the 2 places I've tried so far.
ScrapbooksPlease (SC) - I ordered 14, 12X12 prints, Standard Matte. I paid $.99 a print (sale) and $7.55 shipping = $13.86. Took 3 days to receive by usps.
I liked - the weight of the paper. It feels like a nice card stock. The colors of the papers and elements are great. I learned that a lot of my fonts, embellishments and extras are a little bigger than I like, so it was good to see the scale when printing.
Didn't like - all my pictures are grainy - doesn't matter the size. Also, when it was shipped, it was in a cardboard priority mail envelope. I don't know about your usps delivery person, but if I wasn't here, I have no doubt she would have bent the package to get it in the mailbox. I did sent an email about how grainy my pics were, because after you spend all this time on the pages, you certainly want your pics to look great. Here is their response:
We found most photos on the pages are underexposure. This is why "paper" and "embellishments" look good, but photos not. Please understand that the quality of the image directly impact the quality of its prints. You may adjust the photos to get better print effect when printing the photo alone. However, there is no way to adjust the photo on the scrapbook page image, as it will mess up other elements on the page. The best way is to adjust the photo before putting it on the page and you will have much better effect. Also, choosing premium paper, which is professional photo paper, will significantly improve the print quality. Besides, we also noticed that some photos on the pages are "over-enlarged". This is another reason for the grainy and blurry.
I can't say that I agree with this response, because some of my pics were not cropped at all, and not enlarged at all and they were still grainy. So, I wanted to see if was my pics or the prints so I went to the link from daily digi to see where I could try again. This time I chose Persnickety Prints.
Persnicketyprints (PP)-I ordered 8, 12X12 prints, 2 Pro Glossy, 6 Pro Matte Prints. $1.99 each, $5 shipping = $20.92. Arrived in 3 days by usps.
I liked - the way it was packaged. It was a square card board box - no way to get in the mailbox to be possibly bent. The colors are great!! Really, these prints look phenominal!! The pictures look amazing and there is not 1 that is grainy!! I love both the glossy and the matte! The ones I happened to do glossy were of my dd and they are sooo awesome!
Didn't like - Not so much a didn't like, just wished the paper was a little heavier at first touch.
So, I did happen to get 1 print at both places in matte. While I first thought persnickety prints felt lighter, I think they are the same. The colors in the PP prints are actually better and it took some close looking to see the difference. When you just look at both pages, they look the same. Upon a closer look at the details, the papers from PP stand out way more. For example, I used a off white background paper which has a white pattern in it. It is cleary defined in PP but not so much in SP.
So overall, I'd definitely use Perskicketyprints again. I would not use SP again. I may try others, but since I'm pleased with PP, I'll stick with them a while. And since I'm on their email list, I am notified of sales.
Hope this helps someone out there. Happy Printing!
