Reviews: Online Print Services

Jessops

http://www.jessops.com

Delivery Time

Jessops took 7 days to send my order, which was by far the slowest service on test - avoid Jessops if you need your prints in any kind of hurry. I placed my order at 5.09pm on 29th July and received the prints on 5th August.

Packaging

Packaging was good, with the prints inside a traditional Jessops paper envelope, which was then shipped in an A4-sized card envelope. I'm not sure why an A4 envelope was used for 6x4 inch prints, but it was clearly marked with Jessops branding and "Photographs - Please Do Not Bend". Your postman will definitely struggle to fit the package through your door.

Price

Price per 6x4 print: £0.34

A price of 34p per print places Jessops firmly in the middle of the test from a value point of view. At only 5p more than Photobox, Jessop's prices aren't too bad at all.

Print Quality

Here are the 4 prints that I received from Jessops, scanned on my Black Widow 4830 Pro flatbed scanner at 72 dpi:

The prints from Jessops used FujiColor Crystal Archive paper. They had the look and feel of "traditional" photographic prints.

Overall I thought the prints were darker than the images that I could see onscreen, although it must be noted that I didn't calibrate my monitor for each print service.

Jessops's prints were vey similar to Photobox's in terms of colour. I felt that they were a little warmer than the other services on test, especially when looking at the white-to-black bars on the calibration image.

Unfortunately Jessops made a complete mess of cropping the prints. The images were very poorly cropped, with the soles of the little girls shoes on Print 3 almost completely disappearing, and the text at the bottom of the calibration image in Print 1 being sliced in half.

Furthermore, the prints were not cleanly cut. Each of the 4 prints had at least one edge that had a 1-2mm white border where the paper had not been properly trimmed.

Overall Rating

Despite the pleasing colours of the prints, I can only award Jessops a low rating for print quality, and this contributes significantly to the low overall rating. The fact that it took a week for the prints to arrive just rubbed salt into the wound. Avoid at all costs.

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