RE: Print Driven
Tuesday 20th September 2005
Print Driven
Fancy a quality print of your car?
Digitial photography has turned many of us from snappers into amateur photographers but like the TV advert says - how often do we print out pictures these days?
A service from PrintDriven.com may encourage more printing. Targeted at motoring enthusiasts in particular, PrintDriven will supply high quality digitally printed images from pictures emailed to them.
Sounds perfect for us petrolheads who'd like to furnish our offices with pictures of our own cars...
Links
Discussion
Not sure how this service differs from any of the other myriad places you can get digital photos printed online? And why only tailored towards cars? You send them the photos after all.
They also seem very expensive. £45 for an A1 print? 5 minutes googling I found Bonusprint who do the same for £22.99.
Am I missing something?
They also seem very expensive. £45 for an A1 print? 5 minutes googling I found Bonusprint who do the same for £22.99.
Am I missing something?
Also adds a logo to each one, only accepts by email, no web upload and payment is by cheque/po...?
Sorry, but I too am missing something I think...
www.redcliffe.co.uk/photographic_display_prints.htm
Sorry, but I too am missing something I think...
www.redcliffe.co.uk/photographic_display_prints.htm
The gallery has no relevance whatsoever to anything, because it's you who sends the photos, there's no real contact or address info, and I'd like to know if they're real photo prints, large format inkjets, or what? A triumph of Flash animation over content quite frankly.
>> Edited by tog on Tuesday 20th September 18:43
>> Edited by tog on Tuesday 20th September 18:43
I have a canvas of my Wedge hooning at Le Mans. It was made by Finest Hour Gallery (featured on PH a while back). (www.finesthourgallery.com)
It was cheaper than this bunch by some margin (even with them framing it) and the quality is astonishing.
Also, the FHG boys were a delight to deal with.
You pays your money.....
Andy
It was cheaper than this bunch by some margin (even with them framing it) and the quality is astonishing.
Also, the FHG boys were a delight to deal with.
You pays your money.....
Andy
Notice payment to be sent to "Energy Digital Imaging Ltd" - quick googley and :
www.energydigital.co.uk/
which leads you to
www.clickonprint.co.uk/
Both say "This is a new website which is due to online in May 2005"
I say we are now Sep 2005
.
I suspect they may be setting up a whole bunch of sub-websites trying to buy into the niche markets - photos printed of your pet/child/house!!!!
The hard to read white text on black background and naff start engine button put me off - as has been said a quality print company is a quality print company, not sure how subject matter comes into it. I'll stick with photobox. [/end_rant]
>> Edited by Prof Higgins on Wednesday 21st September 10:38
www.energydigital.co.uk/
which leads you to
www.clickonprint.co.uk/
Both say "This is a new website which is due to online in May 2005"
I say we are now Sep 2005
. I suspect they may be setting up a whole bunch of sub-websites trying to buy into the niche markets - photos printed of your pet/child/house!!!!
The hard to read white text on black background and naff start engine button put me off - as has been said a quality print company is a quality print company, not sure how subject matter comes into it. I'll stick with photobox. [/end_rant]
>> Edited by Prof Higgins on Wednesday 21st September 10:38
Thank you for the comments, some have been usefull and we have updated the site.
To answer a few of the comments
1. Printdriven is a new venture and as such any comments both good and bad are welcome, as this can only help us to improve our service. In the near future the site will accept file uploads and online payment.
2. Printdriven is a web prescence of our main company Energy Digital Imaging. EDI is a long established litho and digital printing company based in South East London, producing high quality products for many blue chip companies.
3. Printdriven is focused on all things motoring related as this is something we are passionate about. Printdriven even had two cars entered in last weeks Tuner Grand Prix at Donnington, one of the cars won its class.
Finally, to reply to one of the harsher comments:
"What bollox - a photo is a photo, I bet they send them to Photobox and charge 50%".
Firstly, all of our prints are produced internally on one of our Epson Stylus 10600 42" inkjet proofers, we do not send any printing out. Secondly, this seems a strange comment for a "professional photographer" to make as it kind of devalues your profession, I'm sure most professionals would disagree with you, or maybe your just a bloke with a camera!!!
Many thanks
Gavin Jones
Printdriven.com
To answer a few of the comments
1. Printdriven is a new venture and as such any comments both good and bad are welcome, as this can only help us to improve our service. In the near future the site will accept file uploads and online payment.
2. Printdriven is a web prescence of our main company Energy Digital Imaging. EDI is a long established litho and digital printing company based in South East London, producing high quality products for many blue chip companies.
3. Printdriven is focused on all things motoring related as this is something we are passionate about. Printdriven even had two cars entered in last weeks Tuner Grand Prix at Donnington, one of the cars won its class.
Finally, to reply to one of the harsher comments:
"What bollox - a photo is a photo, I bet they send them to Photobox and charge 50%".
Firstly, all of our prints are produced internally on one of our Epson Stylus 10600 42" inkjet proofers, we do not send any printing out. Secondly, this seems a strange comment for a "professional photographer" to make as it kind of devalues your profession, I'm sure most professionals would disagree with you, or maybe your just a bloke with a camera!!!
Many thanks
Gavin Jones
Printdriven.com
'Gav'
I maintain that printing a photo of a car is no different to printing a photo of anything else. It's pixels, bytes and ink. If you want to split printing into many divisions - you may consider a 'Cuisine' printing company that has many blue chip clients
and specialises in printing photos of food - then the world is your lobster, as long as people believe that your photos of Cuisine are better than any other processor's, presumably because your Kamagotchi 9000 Deluxe jobbie has been calibrated by Jamie Oliver, then let's hope you make millions.
I said: "What bollox - a photo is a photo, I bet they send them to Photobox and charge 50%".
OK, so you do them in-house. Well done. But I stand by part one.
Inverted commas are not necessary - people pay me money to take photos, though I'm happy to state that some people here are considerably more experienced than I am. This forum contains all sorts. Why not post some of your best efforts for appraisal?
With which bit exactly?
Bwahaha indeed. BTW the word you were struggling for is 'you're'. At least you have served a purpose in adding one to my hit counter.
>> Edited by simpo two on Friday 23 September 21:08
I maintain that printing a photo of a car is no different to printing a photo of anything else. It's pixels, bytes and ink. If you want to split printing into many divisions - you may consider a 'Cuisine' printing company that has many blue chip clients
and specialises in printing photos of food - then the world is your lobster, as long as people believe that your photos of Cuisine are better than any other processor's, presumably because your Kamagotchi 9000 Deluxe jobbie has been calibrated by Jamie Oliver, then let's hope you make millions. I said: "What bollox - a photo is a photo, I bet they send them to Photobox and charge 50%".
OK, so you do them in-house. Well done. But I stand by part one.
gav said:
Secondly, this seems a strange comment for a "professional photographer"
Inverted commas are not necessary - people pay me money to take photos, though I'm happy to state that some people here are considerably more experienced than I am. This forum contains all sorts. Why not post some of your best efforts for appraisal?
gav said:
I'm sure most professionals would disagree with you
With which bit exactly?
gav said:
or maybe your just a bloke with a camera!!!
Bwahaha indeed. BTW the word you were struggling for is 'you're'. At least you have served a purpose in adding one to my hit counter.
>> Edited by simpo two on Friday 23 September 21:08
Simpo
You can't expect to post a comment as aggressive as your first one without getting a bit of digging back, thats the nature of forums, and anyway, I thought the bloke with a camera bit was quite good.
Look, all we are doing is providing a service for like minded people who love their cars, bikes, karts, whatever. We care about what we are doing and believe the prices are reasonable.
Cheers
Gavin
>> Edited by Gav vxr on Friday 23 September 21:29
You can't expect to post a comment as aggressive as your first one without getting a bit of digging back, thats the nature of forums, and anyway, I thought the bloke with a camera bit was quite good.
Look, all we are doing is providing a service for like minded people who love their cars, bikes, karts, whatever. We care about what we are doing and believe the prices are reasonable.
Cheers
Gavin
>> Edited by Gav vxr on Friday 23 September 21:29
Gav vxr said:In that case, what a ripoff!
Firstly, all of our prints are produced internally on one of our Epson Stylus 10600 42" inkjet proofers
You can get full dye sub prints for a fraction of what you are charging for, and give continous tone rather than the relativly poor 720x1440dpi that the 10600 does
What a rip off.
It is my understanding that nearly all the people that produce large format posters print them on Epson Ultrachrome printers, dye sub normally only goes up to A3. Bonusprint and Redcliffe, both mentioned earlier in this thread use the very same machine, we area bit more expensive than bonusprint but our prints are laminated which protects them from damage, bonusprint simply print them straight out to paper, roll them up and post them. In fairness Redcliffe offer a similar service to us.
I'm not going to get into a slanging match, you are not being forced to buy anything so why worry about it.
Gavin
I'm not going to get into a slanging match, you are not being forced to buy anything so why worry about it.
Gavin
Err - and pixaco go up up to just under A1 using a fuji chemical printer, and that A1 is £11.99 compared to your £35.
So, a real photo, or an bubblejet for three times the price. Hmm, not that hard is it....
As to worrying about it, I'm not, merely pointing out your service is a pure ripoff. If you believe it isn't, why worry about what people say, as clearly your business will flourish The very fact you seem to be defending your position would suggest you are rather worried about it...
J
>> Edited by joust on Saturday 24th September 07:32
So, a real photo, or an bubblejet for three times the price. Hmm, not that hard is it....
As to worrying about it, I'm not, merely pointing out your service is a pure ripoff. If you believe it isn't, why worry about what people say, as clearly your business will flourish
The very fact you seem to be defending your position would suggest you are rather worried about it... J
>> Edited by joust on Saturday 24th September 07:32
joust said:Actually, the quality of the high-end Epson wide format printers is extremely good, and these models are used by many top photographers for exhibition quality prints.
So, a real photo, or an bubblejet for three times the price. Hmm, not that hard is it....
"Real" photos are fine for some purposes, but many people prefer the look of the fine art ink jets, especially if you're planning on mounting and framing the prints to hang on the wall.
These printers aren't in the same league as the cheap consumer printers that the term "bubblejets" indicates, and if you don't believe me (and can hold on for a few months!), I'll be happy to do a print for you from an Epson 9800 - I think you'll be pleasantly surprised
ehasler said:
Actually, the quality of the high-end Epson wide format printers is extremely good, and these models are used by many top photographers for exhibition quality prints.
These printers aren't in the same league as the cheap consumer printers that the term "bubblejets" indicates, and if you don't believe me (and can hold on for a few months!), I'll be happy to do a print for you from an Epson 9800 - I think you'll be pleasantly surprised
Ed - I have over £25000 worth of "bubblejets" at work, four of them A0 size, and two of them higher resolution than these people are using.
I also have access to an A2 dye sub proofing printer, a A2 laser, and send away £100s worth of chemical prints per month.
I'm therefore aware of the quality of these prints, and also, the costs of producing them. Up to A1 you can't beat Fuji checmical printers but if you really need A0 then bubblejets are the only real choice.
My point is that you can get A1 for £12.99 from a chemical continous tone print, so why on earth would you pay three times the amount for a bubblejet from these people????
I personally wouldn't charge more than £6.99 for an A1 bubblejet print, and even that would give me 70% gross margins on the consumables - an amazing margin given the cheapness of the prints.
So, sure, after A1 you only have a bubblejet choice, but How many "enthusiasts" (apparently who this is aimed at) would need an A0 print??
J
>> Edited by joust on Sunday 25th September 12:45
joust said:I disagree - you can beat the Fuji chemical prints, but it depends what you actually want to get. Not everyone wants a glossy photo. I actually prefer the output from the large format Epsons over the Fuji photo prints. For simple photos that you want to look at and pass around your mates, "photos" are great, but for anything that's going on the wall, then I just don't like them. That's just personal choice though - you pays your money and all that...
Ed - I have over £25000 worth of "bubblejets" at work, four of them A0 size, and two of them higher resolution than these people are using.
I also have access to an A2 dye sub proofing printer, a A2 laser, and send away £100s worth of chemical prints per month.
I'm therefore aware of the quality of these prints, and also, the costs of producing them. Up to A1 you can't beat Fuji checmical printers but if you really need A0 then bubblejets are the only real choice.
My point is that you can get A1 for £12.99 from a chemical continous tone print, so why on earth would you pay three times the amount for a bubblejet from these people????
I personally wouldn't charge more than £6.99 for an A1 bubblejet print, and even that would give me 70% gross margins on the consumables - an amazing margin given the cheapness of the prints.
Also, I think you are way out on your ideas of cost for inkjets. The amount you quote is way too low, especially if you're using decent paper and inks (quite easy to spend almost double your £7 per page cost on paper alone for A1), and factor in the hardware costs, creating accurate profiles etc... in addition to the time taken to make the print itself.
I don't know what these guys are like in terms of quality, but if you want a good quality print rather than simply running one off at the cheapest possible cost, then you'll need to pay a lot more than you seem to think is reasonable.
[pedantic]Finally, describing the Epson printers as "bubblejet" is actually incorrect - they use a piezoelectric printhead, and no bubbles are involved.
[/pedantic]
ehasler said:I presonally prefer the gloss chmical print behind glass for upto A1.
I disagree - you can beat the Fuji chemical prints, but it depends what you actually want to get.
ehasler said:Ed - not sure where you buy your paper from, but the A1 paper for our Designjet 800ps in satin matt coated (C6019B) is £19 each.
Also, I think you are way out on your ideas of cost for inkjets. The amount you quote is way too low, especially if you're using decent paper and inks (quite easy to spend almost double your £7 per page cost on paper alone for A1)
That gives you 76 A1 prints per, or 25p in paper for 90gsm.
The same calc for Q1412A, HP's 120gsm paper that is espcially designed for posters or mounting gives 39p per A1 sheet, or Q1968A, 146gsm proofing is 80p per A1.
Inks add another 80p or so to that, giving around £1-£1.60 per A1 sheet.
Sure the printer costs just over £3000, but the consumables are nice and cheap.
ehasler said:Sure - hence I said 75% gross margins by selling £1.80 cost at £6.99 is pretty good.
and factor in the hardware costs, creating accurate profiles etc... in addition to the time taken to make the print itself.
ehasler said:A quick google finds other companies at around half these people's price, so their quality would have to be "stunning". Hell, even "Snappy Snaps" are cheaper than them!
but if you want a good quality print rather than simply running one off at the cheapest possible cost, then you'll need to pay a lot more than you seem to think is reasonable.
ehasler said:
[pedantic]Finally, describing the Epson printers as "bubblejet" is actually incorrect - they use a piezoelectric printhead, and no bubbles are involved.
[/pedantic]
At work we do a lot of test runs of 2, 9 and 16 sheet adverts for our consumer brand, mostly on the HP800, and so I do have a good idea of the quality of these things compared to litho printing of the final items....
J
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