Interesting experiment with unexpected results

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Having seen a few threads on here bemoaning the fact the quality of Photobox prints appear to be going downhill and others praising One Vision Imaging (nee Colab) I thought I'd send some prints away for a comparison test.

I chose five colour wedding images which were in RGB format for Colab and I used the custom profile that I've been using for Photobox. All images were ordered in 9x6 with Photobox working out at £0.37 each whilst Colab were a whopping £2.14 each including VAT. P&P was an extra £1.50 for Photobox and £2.29 for Colab. So a total of £3.35 for Photobox and £12.98 for Colab. Hmmm.

The prints arrived and I was eager to compare them expecting much better from the Colab offering given the recommendations and price. You know what, I could hardly tell them apart and if I mixed them up I would not be able to tell you which was which, both sets were excellent in reproduction, colour and clarity.

To say I was surprised would be an understatement so I did a straw poll of family and friends and out of the six people I asked five of them preferred the Photobox prints - all of them. :shrug: They couldn't give any specific reason why and the general consensus was that they just looked better.

Considering the reputation of both of these companies I was expecting more from the Colab set and had not set high expectations for the prints from Photobox. I am just glad I did not order a full set of 60-70 prints for an album which would have cost 4-5 times the amount had I gone the Colab route.

I realise this was not an exhaustive test but I thought it was worth sharing.
 
Worth sharing indeed Colin, many thanks for that insight :thumbs:
 
Thanks for the comparison Colin, I was made up with the quality of my Photobox prints tbh & won't be looking elsewhere for the time being :thumbs:
I was considering Colab for some upcoming prints but will stick with Photobox for now, think you've just saved me quite a bit :thumbs:
 
Thanks, certainly worth sharing your experiences. To be honest I have been using photobox for years and have had only one or two issues - and when I have mentioned these they have been rectified to my satisfaction instantly.
 
very interested to read this.

I have some prints I'm needing to get done and was going to go with photobox but then read a fair bit of negative stuff about them on here.

I'm going to give them a bash and see how they come out.
 
Never had any problems with photobox myself. Always a quick turn around and can't fault the prices.
 
I have just had one of my tiger shots from Chester zoo done A3 from Photobox to try them out. Never used anything like this and I was very impressed with the results.
Their packaging of the print was very good.

I will be sorting more out over the weekend, using their 30 free print offer. So I will see how they come back.

Cheerz:thumbs:
 
Never had any problems so far with photobox, so will keep using them for now. Thanks Colin.
 
Think I'll stick with PhotoBox after that ... :D ... until/if something better comes up ... ;)


Cheers for sharing your experience Colin ... :thumbs:




:p
 
Thanks for sharing that Colin. When I first chose photobox earlier this year, I sent the same shots to 4 different places but not 'professional' labs such as colab, and photbox were best by a country mile, but I have never used anyone that 'should' in theory be better, so glad to know that Colab couldnt do any better.
 
Why don't you give http://www.proamimaging.com a try.

They don't have a web uploading service and it's slightly more involved preparing prints for them, but their prices can't be beat.

16x12 or 18x12 £1:eek: printed on Fuji archive paper (heavier paper than photobox uses)

fast turnaround, usually in a couple of days once they receive your cd.

I am not connected with them in any way apart from being a very happy customer. I have used them 5 or 6 times and results have been great.
 
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