I finally have the sample prints from Jessops/Snapfish, Photobox, Kodak and BonusPrint.
Of those four print companies, I can observe the following:
- Kodak and Bonusprint got the greyscale/black and white photo correct
- Photobox and Snapfish added a green tint to the black and white photos
- Photobox’s prints are horribly fuzzy
- Kodak generates a less green-saturated photo than the other three, but may not be an accurate green
- Due to the above, the Kodak print skin-tones are warmer
I still don’t have a calibrated monitor, so some of the colour distortion can be attributed to the fact that what I’m seeing isn’t necessarily right according to sRGB. The softness/blur applied to the Photobox photos rules out their service for me - I supplied them with very high quality JPEGs (which is probably an oxymoron), with all the appropriate sharpening/blurring applied.
On the plus side for Bonusprint, their Windows client accepts TIF files, which means the JPEG compression artifacts won’t be present in any photos I submit as TIF. However, compared to the default Kodak prints, the green saturation is definitely higher, possibly too high. I scanned in sample images from all four print shops, and comparing a single spot between Kodak and Bonusprint, I get (RGB) 117,127,70 from the Bonusprint print, while the Kodak print says 87,108,73 for the same location.
Decisions, decisions.
