OT: OFOTO

[christopher.]

OT: Anyone use OFOTO. I saw someone refer to this in a previous

post and looked it up. Sounds interesting. Do they make nice

prints?

[tom5]

I've used them twice. The first time, I had a set of cards made from a single photo. This worked out fine except the photo was a tiny bit darker than on my monitor.

 

The second time, I sent them about a dozen files - a couple were from a Canon digital, the rest were from "hi-res" scans done by a local drug store chain. (These are about 600-800KB files, each.) The scans were of Max 400 and Kodak T400CN B+W film. All were excellent and I couldn't tell the 4x6" prints from the best done in the automated drugstore printers.

 

I can't speak to enlargements but it seems that if you send Ofoto a high quality digital file, you will get as good a print back as you could get without going to a pro photo lab.

 

Just my opinion but I was surprised how good the prints were. Even the B+W prints were good.

[derek_stanton2]

I like them, although i haven't used any other similar service for comparison. The

prints i've had made have been 4x6 and 5x7. They are quite similar to the usual lab

prints from film. My only issue is that they do not offer a matte print finish.

 

But they are pretty quick to return prints, and relatively inexpensive. Not much risk to

try them for a few quick 'test' prints.

[allen]

I have used Ofoto, Shutterfly, Dotphoto, and Adorama. The best of the bunch is Adorama, followed by Shuttrrfly and Dotphoto, in my experience. You should try them all out, most have free trials of one sort or the other.

[dave_flanagan]

I have used Apple's service, and was pleased with the results. I thought they were

better than the local Agfa minilab, using the same digital files. It's Macintosh only,

though.

[rolfe_tessem]

Apple's iPhoto orders are fulfilled through Ofoto.

 

For the most part, all these services are similar in that they use the Fuji Frontier digital printer. However, only one that I am aware of publishes an ICC profile so that you can maintain end-to-end color management of the process.

 

That one is http://www.printroom.com

 

If you don't care about color management, then Ofoto, Shutterfly, and Printroom are roughly equivalent. EZPrints has a clunkier interface, but offers more print sizes, paper options, etc. It also accepts TIFF files. It is annoying that the other services accept only JPEGs, even thought the Frontier will take TIFFs just as easily. None of them seem to have a good explanation as to why this policy is justified.

[gerry_szarek]

Our extended family uses OFOTO, works pretty good. Your other option is your neighborhood photo shop, they usually have an epson printer in the back hidden.

 

Gerry

[somalone]

Pretty good thread here. I work for Ofoto. If you have any more questions, I may be

able to answer them.

 

Regarding matte prints: I've been wanting this myself and we've looked into it. It may

happen at some point, but we're focused on other projects that have priority for now.