This is a test of 8 online dig­i­tal photo print­ing ser­vices and one print made at home with a Canon IP4300 printer.

Why this test?

I mostly use my pho­tographs in dig­i­tal form and sel­dom get them printed but with the lat­est add-on to my fam­ily I had to send some pic­tures to offline fam­ily mem­bers. I read a cou­ple of test that con­cluded that almost all photo print­ing ser­vices avail­able for Danes pro­vided the same qual­ity (or bad qual­ity) so I ordered 20 pic­tures and received them a cou­ple of days later.

Then the shock hit me — the pic­tures were really bad… My girl­friend sug­gested that I should drop my beloved Nikon D200 DSLR cam­era and buy a nor­mal pocket cam­era that could pro­duce usable pho­tographs in print. In the evening the same day I checked if my Apple iMac 24″ was cor­rect cal­i­brated (using Huey by Pan­tone) and every­thing seemed fine?

I tried order­ing 10 pho­tographs from 2 other print­ing ser­vices and one of them looked like the first but the sec­ond one looked very dif­fer­ent — actu­ally quite good. I ended up with 8 orders at 8 online print­ing ser­vices and made a print on my cheap Canon IP4300 printer.

Instead of keep­ing the result to myself I will try to share my expe­ri­ence but please keep in mind what equip­ment I used, pri­mar­ily that the screen was cal­i­brated by a Huey device from Pan­tone (and if pos­si­ble please remem­ber to des­e­lect the opti­mize option some online print­ing ser­vices offer).

Con­tes­tants

1. dk.photobox.com
2. labnet.dk
3. extrafilm.com
4. billedbutikken.dk
5. foto.com
6. bilka.dk (luxus qual­ity)
7. pixum.com
8. Apple via Apper­ture
9. Canon IP4300 (with Glossy Photo Paper for every­day use)

Rat­ing scale

(10/10) Excel­lent
(9/10) Very good
(8/10) Good
(7/10) More than suf­fi­cient
(6/10) Suf­fi­cient
(5/10) Nearly suf­fi­cient
(4/10) Insuf­fi­cient
(3/10) Strongly insuf­fi­cient
(2/10) Poor
(1/10) Very poor

Pic­ture 1 of 10

(10/10) dk.photobox.com
(10/10) labnet.dk
(9/10) extrafilm.com
(8/10) billedbutikken.dk
(7/10) foto.com
(7/10) bilka.dk (luxus qual­ity)
(7/10) pixum.com
(6/10) Apple via Apper­ture
(6/10) Canon IP4300

Note: All ser­vices passes this test.

Pic­ture 2 of 10

(8/10) dk.photobox.com
(8/10) labnet.dk
(7/10) extrafilm.com
(6/10) billedbutikken.dk
(6/10) foto.com
(5/10) bilka.dk (luxus qual­ity)
(2/10) pixum.com
(2/10) Apple via Apper­ture
(5/10) Canon IP4300

Note: Some ser­vices just made the grey in the top of the pic­ture black or just the wrong color.

Pic­ture 3 of 10

(8/10) dk.photobox.com
(9/10) labnet.dk
(7/10) extrafilm.com
(7/10) billedbutikken.dk
(6/10) foto.com
(4/10) bilka.dk (luxus qual­ity)
(3/10) pixum.com
(4/10) Apple via Apper­ture
(5/10) Canon IP4300

Note: The back­ground and espe­cially the man to the left just dis­ap­peared on some of the prints. The top con­tes­tants are hav­ing prob­lem with the skin color.

Pic­ture 4 of 10

(9/10) dk.photobox.com
(10/10) labnet.dk
(6/10) extrafilm.com
(6/10) billedbutikken.dk
(6/10) foto.com
(3/10) bilka.dk (luxus qual­ity)
(3/10) pixum.com
(3/10) Apple via Apper­ture
(5/10) Canon IP4300

Note: The same as the other pictures.

Pic­ture 5 of 10

(9/10) dk.photobox.com
(9/10) labnet.dk
(8/10) extrafilm.com
(8/10) billedbutikken.dk
(6/10) foto.com
(6/10) bilka.dk (luxus qual­ity)
(5/10) pixum.com
(6/10) Apple via Apper­ture
(6/10) Canon IP4300

Note: Almost all con­tes­tants are hav­ing a hard time mak­ing the right skin color.

Pic­ture 6 of 10

(9/10) dk.photobox.com
(10/10) labnet.dk
(5/10) extrafilm.com
(8/10) billedbutikken.dk
(8/10) foto.com
(7/10) bilka.dk (luxus qual­ity)
(4/10) pixum.com
(4/10) Apple via Apper­ture
(5/10) Canon IP4300

Note: Only labnet.dk could make the dark cloud, the yel­low house and the lower right bricks look right.

Pic­ture 7 of 10

(9/10) dk.photobox.com
(10/10) labnet.dk
(8/10) extrafilm.com
(5/10) billedbutikken.dk
(7/10) foto.com
(7/10) bilka.dk (luxus qual­ity)
(5/10) pixum.com
(5/10) Apple via Apper­ture
(6/10) Canon IP4300

Note: This pho­to­graph got some pretty pow­er­ful col­ors. Only labnet.dk nails those but photobox.com got close.

Pic­ture 8 of 10

(8/10) dk.photobox.com
(10/10) labnet.dk
(8/10) extrafilm.com
(7/10) billedbutikken.dk
(6/10) foto.com
(6/10) bilka.dk (luxus qual­ity)
(3/10) pixum.com
(3/10) Apple via Apper­ture
(5/10) Canon IP4300

Note: Only labnet.dk got this right.

Pic­ture 9 of 10

(7/10) dk.photobox.com
(8/10) labnet.dk
(4/10) extrafilm.com
(5/10) billedbutikken.dk
(3/10) foto.com
(3/10) bilka.dk (luxus qual­ity)
(3/10) pixum.com
(3/10) Apple via Apper­ture
(4/10) Canon IP4300

Note: Not a sin­gle print provider can match what I see on my screen

Pic­ture 10 of 10

(9/10) dk.photobox.com
(10/10) labnet.dk
(4/10) extrafilm.com
(7/10) billedbutikken.dk
(6/10) foto.com
(5/10) bilka.dk (luxus qual­ity)
(3/10) pixum.com
(5/10) Apple via Apper­ture
(3/10) Canon IP4300

Note: This should be a BW print but some prints got a pur­ple, brown or yel­low stain.

Sum­mary

And here is the aver­age rat­ing for the 10 pictures:

(9.4/10) labnet.dk
(8.6/10) dk.photobox.com
(6.7/10) billedbutikken.dk
(6.6/10) extrafilm.com
(6.1/10) foto.com
(5.3/10) bilka.dk (luxus qual­ity)
(4.9/10) Canon IP4300
(4.1/10) Apple via Apper­ture
(3.8/10) pixum.com

Can it really be true that the dif­fer­ent is so big? Just to prove my point I dusted off my old Canon 3000 scan­ner and here is the result:

Scary!?

The final conclusion

Only two ser­vices pro­vided a rec­om­mend­able service:

labnet.dk makes the best prints but is a bit expen­sive. (1.60 DKR when order­ing 50 prints in 10x15cm)

dk.photobox.com makes really good prints con­sid­er­ing the price (0.74 DKR when order­ing 50 prints in 10x15cm — at the moment they offer prints at 0.49 DKR).

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Notes:
— Both labnet.dk and dk.photobox.com used Fuji Film paper as the only ones (the other online print­ing ser­vices used dif­fer­ent kinds of Kodak paper).