Ofoto/Kodak Gallery Discount Codes?

Old Oct 11th, 2005, 02:11 PM
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Ofoto/Kodak Gallery Discount Codes?

I have placed a few small orders of my photos from my safari last month. I am really itching to make a large order that will include some larger prints (all the way up to 20" x 30") but I am waiting until I get a discount offer.

If anybody currently knows of any discount codes, please e-mail to me (or post here). A 25% discount on a large order will really make a huge difference in the final price.

Thanks!
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Old Oct 12th, 2005, 09:21 AM
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I don't know if this is the same site, but I order over 300 pictures through my Mac computer, using Kodak gallery and just received them yesterday. I was very disappointed in the outcome. Not only were they completely out of order ( it took me nearly 2 hours to put them in order) but a lot of the bottoms were cropped off. I had a great shot of an elephant wading in water with the sun in the background so that his full reflection was in the water. Half of the bottom was cut off, making the composition not nearly as nice as it should have been. This was the first time I used them and I won't again. I tried to access the coupon code but could not.
By the way, I am the one who recommended you buy the safari photographers vest. I love mine and am glad you liked yours.
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Old Oct 12th, 2005, 12:56 PM
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Lolo12: The cropping is normal on digital camera photos. On some sites you can choose how you want it cropped (top, bottom or a bit of both). It's annoying, huh?

Rocco: I would just second that comment on online photo processing--it's the equivalent of droppping film off at Wal-Mart as far as quality.

I use snapfish.com for regular snapshots but we took our safari photos to a place that specializes in photo developing--their color is much better and they can help you with the cropping--they won't cut off any horns or hooves. After all the beautiful photos you took and expensive equipment you invested in, take your film to a photo store. We use a local one so I can't actually recommend one for you (unless you are near the Shenandoah Valley, VA!)
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Old Oct 12th, 2005, 01:00 PM
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Also, Rocco, I know you already ordered photos online so you probably are dismissing my comment thinking, "These look fine." I always thought so too until the Photo store we use offered free reprints for comparison. I will say, there was no comparison.
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Old Oct 12th, 2005, 01:02 PM
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schlegal1 and lolo,

Thanks for the feedback. I am starting to lose my patience with Ofoto, as well.

Too many legs, heads and horns cropped right off. I did find a professional photographer that offers an Ofoto/Kodakgallery type service. He even digitally touches up the photos as part of his processing/photo service. I will definitely give him a shot and I will post a link to his website once I find it.
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Old Oct 12th, 2005, 01:06 PM
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I use Photobox. Provided I supply photos that are in the correct aspect ratio they do not seem to arbitrarily crop them.

I don't know if this is a UK only site.
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Old Oct 12th, 2005, 06:27 PM
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I thought I replied to this earllier today, but it appears to have been lost --

There is a box on the order that as a default is checked and you have to uncheck it -- otherwise they "zoom and crop" I discovered that when they cut off most of a mirror/water reflection of an elephant in a waterhole. I had it reprocessed without the crop AND enlarged to an 8x10 and it turned out fine.

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Old Oct 12th, 2005, 08:44 PM
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LOL,

The problem with turning off the crop, as I have experienced in the past, is that the picture gets an ugly 1/4" white frame around the photo.

I would ideally be able to find a company that was able to show me the finished product before I committed to the purchase. I just did a $100 order with Ofoto, consisting entirely of 8x10 photos for $3.99 each, and I would say that there were five photos that cropped off more than I was expecting, ruining all but a couple of these photos. That starts to get annoying, especially once they are 20x30 photos for $17.99 per pop.
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Old Oct 12th, 2005, 09:05 PM
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I have used EZPrints (www.ezprints.com) for a large format (30x40") print for one of my polar bear pictures ($35). [24x36"print is $27]. They even sent me free photos to calibrate the color profile in order for me to make sure the print I get will be matching exactly the picture I am viewing on my screen.

I did crop the picture myself to the ratio of the picture size I ordered to eliminate any surprise, and I would highly recommend anybody doing that for any size print because if you don't, and you do NOT have the "zoom & crop" check-marked, you may end up with white borders.

BTW you may be surprised that my original photo was taken with a lousy 2.1 megapixel camera (picture size 1600x1200 pixels and 72dpi and JPEG format) that would normally suggest a maximum enlargement of 8x10" - but my LARGE print is amazing (and appropriately displayed on my refrigerator door). EZPrints prints all orders at 300dpi.
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Old Oct 12th, 2005, 09:11 PM
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Sorry, Rocco - I must have been still typing while you posted your comment about the white border...
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Old Oct 14th, 2005, 05:19 PM
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Africaholic,

Thanks for the referral to EZPrints. I just opened an account and I hope to download some photos this weekend.

I have quite a few 20" x 30" frames with photos from safaris past that are screaming for new and improved photos!
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Old Oct 15th, 2005, 03:48 AM
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Rocco,
Are you happy with the printing quality of the Tomboy print you purchased from me when I was selling my prints for DSWF?
DPC Prints, where you bought it from, use EZPrints to do the actual printing and delivery so you've already experienced their products.
I have to say that, during that period when I was doing that project, all the prints I ordered myself were printed beautifully and the reports I had back were excellent too. But some months later I put in an order and it was horrendous - on the SAME digital files, not reloaded or anything, the colour balance was off, the prints were darker or lighter than they should have been, they were cropped incorrectly. When I sent them back (a headache in it's own right though postage was refunded) I included a couple of the prints they'd done before for them to colour match too, having extracted a promise that these would be returned to me with the reprinted order. When the reprinted order arrived my own prints were not included, one of the prints in the order itself had been missed out. I was furious and basically got a full refund and went somewhere else. DPC Prints were hugely apologetic but are at the mercy of EZPrints so couldn't offer anything other than another go. I wasn't willing to wait that long a third time.
So, what I'm saying is that, when they are good, they are excellent, but my experiences (and those of others I have since spoken to) show that EZPrints are very inconsistent.
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Old Oct 15th, 2005, 06:14 PM
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Kavey,

Thanks for the feedback.

I have downloaded a few photos on EZPrints and I need to know if you use the "Auto Enhance" feature or not when ordering your photos.

Thanks.
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Old Oct 15th, 2005, 06:16 PM
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Kavey,

Also, where have you now gone to do your prints now that you are no longer sending them to EZPrints?

Thanks.
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Old Oct 16th, 2005, 03:07 AM
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As above, I use photobox.

And no I don't use autoenhance - that tends to be useful for folks who download their images straight from camera and don't do any post processing on them - the feature does some auto contrast and auto levels adjustments for them - I prefer to control all post processing myself.
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Old Oct 16th, 2005, 04:38 AM
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Rocco
Some reviews of the autoenhance here:
http://www.smugmug.com/prints/digital-prints.mg
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Old Oct 17th, 2005, 11:45 AM
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Hi Rocco,

If you use Photobox, it's worthwhile to order one of their (free) calibration prints to calibrate your monitor beforehand.

Photobox tends to work better with sRGB or generic RGB color profiling -- the files I've sent using Adobe 1998 profiling came back looking very washed out. Kavey, has this been your experience?

Cheers,
Julian
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Old Oct 18th, 2005, 01:41 AM
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Julian, I'll have to check which profile I used - I've tried so many photo printers I don't recall off the top of my head which Photobox is - haven't sent anything there for a while.

Oh wait, Pete just checked for me (the last ones we did were his) and we did indeed use Adobe RGB 1998. The prints were certainly not washed out at all.

It may be worth recalibrating your monitor - this should ideally be done regularly - every couple of months...
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Old Oct 18th, 2005, 01:46 AM
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Rocco
I emailed you a referral which will get us both 10 free 6 x 4 prints.

Having recommended the service, if anyone else is interested, would appreciate your dropping me a line so that I can enter your email address (before you register with them) as a referral and get us both these free prints too. Thanks!
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