Recently, I endorsed MPix.com, an online photo printer. As a small business owner (I also do a lot of professional printing for the graphic design-related job I do when I’m not doing photography) I’m always on the lookout for a good general collateral printer that can do things like postcards, stationary, flyers, brochures, etc.

I just tried a new printer, Zoo Printing Trade and thought that I’d provide a comparison of it against other online printers I’ve used.

I didn’t include any more high-end local printers. I’ve found that in most cases local printers have higher prices, but much better customer service (it’s always nice to have a local person that you can work with, receive support from, yell at when something goes wrong, etc.). As with most things, you pay more, but you get more.

The Comparison

The three online printers we’ll take a look at are: Zoo Printing, Print Pelican and PrintingForLess.com. (One thing to note – I signed up for a trade account from Zoo Printing and received slightly lower pricing as a result of that.)

Criteria	Zoo Printing	Print Pelican	Printing For Less
Price
Quality
Speed
Printing Options
Service
Website
Overall

Choices

Printing for Less (www.printingforless.com)

Printing for Less provided the best customer service of all three sites. I sent several questions via e-mail (and one that was unrelated to my order) and they were answered very quickly and politely. Their delivery speed was average – they did, however, have the highest prices in the comparison printers.

Print Pelican (www.printpelican.com)

Print Pelican had the second best price and the best set of options (they have a better selection of brochures, printing much longer brochures and a few other products the other two didn’t have), yet they still finished in third place overall. I rated them so poorly because their customer service responses were slow and, in some cases, a little rude. Also, their time to delivery was very long. In some cases, I had to follow up several days past the time they were supposed to ship and they still weren’t done (they did end up expediting things at that point – but they were still way behind their already lower-end delivery times).

Zoo Printing (www.zooprinting.com)

Zoo Printing has prices that blow the others away. That, their solid selection and great web site (it has a feature that allows you to automatically track your printing through the different stages at the press) make them a great choice. The one area that they suffer is their customer service. I sent a few e-mails and didn’t even receive a reply. I haven’t tried the support line – but in the future, if I had a problem, I would definately go that route instead of the e-mail.

My Choice

Amazingly low prices, a reasonable selection and a solid web site make Zoo Printing Trade my favorite option. But, watch out for their poor customer service. If it’s important to you, you may want to consider Printing for Less.

Criteria

• Price: Almost always one of the top factors – how attractive are the overall prices? All three choices provided similarly priced shipping. Check out the in-depth comparison here. It details specific prices from all three companies on some standard printing projects. (You won’t believe how much lower Zoo Printing is!)
• Quality: Are there any quality problems? I gave all four options 4 stars in this area – all delivered a product that fully met my expectations. Printing, trimming, etc. were all perfect.
• Speed: How fast is the product at your door from the day you ordered? See the in-depth comparison for more specifics on quoted turn times.
• Options: How many different printing products are available to choose from?
• Support/Customer Service: How responsive was their customer service? How quickly were e-mails answered? How complete/helpful were the answers?

I got to the airport a bit early, so I have some time to wrap up my summaries of Photoshop World.

A few days ago I summarized a class/photo safari I attended with Joe McNally (Joe’s the one in the picture above) and Moose Peterson. During the shoot, I watched Joe/Moose quite a bit and learned quite a bit. Both are great shooters – each with a distinctive style. Joe is a location shooter and focuses on flash. He’s shot everything from the world’s largest laser to college sports superstars.

Even with their differences, though, they had several themes running through the experience.

Know Your Camera

There wasn’t a ton of time devoted to camera functions, which was fine by me. It was clear, though, that each knew their camera and other equipment well. When running a successful shoot, you need to make sure that you become one with your equipment. Spending time fighting with or trying to find a setting can spell disaster.

Human Light Meter

Both Joe and Moose have over 30 years experience in photography. As a result, both are walking light meters. In just about every situation, they would look at the sun and how it was interacting with the models. Then, they would say something like “This looks like f5.6 at ISO 200, with a flash at 1/4 power through a diffusor from 10 feet. They’d take a shot and only have to adjust by 1/3 of a stop or so. It was clear that experience with various conditions is crucial to success.

Working with the Model

They relayed tons of tips for working with the models. Their ability to relate to and work with the models made the shoot go much more smoothly. Making sure they were comfortable and had direction really made for great pictures. Some of their tips included:

• Always stay talking – don’t fuss with the equipment. Many models (especially when they aren’t professionals) are nervous in front of a camera. If you are fidgeting with technical things, it only makes the matter worse. Gently talking with and directing the models actions shows confidence and creates a calming effect.
• Provide a story line. Sometimes, folks freeze up a bit in front of the lens and don’t provide an interesting picture. Giving them a pop-culture action to perform can give them poses to shoot for. In one case, we were shooting a few models in an area with a good amount of foliage. Saying something like “give me an intense tarzan in a jungle look” provides a lot of context for the model and can allow them to have some fun.
• Touch the model. Making some initial physical contact can help calm nerves and establish trust. A small amount of preening (straightening some hair, a collar, etc.) lets the person know that you are interested in making them looks good and breaks down barriers.

Light, Light, Light

Not suprisingly, the number one lesson was to look for the light. Good light can tell a story and sell a picture. While walking around the location, they kept pointing to a place and saying “ooh, look at that light, we should shoot there” or “can you see that light?”.

Always look for the light.

A Few of My Photos

During the shoot, I took a few frames of the beautiful area and great models.

I shot these flowers from inside the art museum the photo safari was held at. Most of the time was spent outdoors, but we had to ride out a pretty heavy Orlando rainstorm for a few minutes.

The garden had a ton of great religous-based sculptures. This one was one of my favorite. I was able to exagerate the muted colors even more in Lightroom.

We were lucky enough to have 4 models join us at the shoot. We shot them in available light and, when it got darker, with some flashes. Unfortunately, they were using Nikon flashes, which were using Nikon wirless technology, so I wasn’t able to take advantage of the flashes. This was one I liked, though. The sun was directly above and behind her and someone was holding a large gold reflector in front of her at camera right to reflect some of the light into the shadows.

I wanted to give an update an update on my seminar yesterday. But first, a few news updates. The big one? My taking Strobist’s April Fool’s joke hook, line and sinker. Overclocking your strobe isn’t as possible as his post made it sound (at least without some serious electrical knowledge and the courage to crack open the case of your light)- very nice . Check out his update – the fact that he put effort into it makes me feel a little better for falling for it (I blame it all on the humidity in Orlando – it fogs the brain).

Secondly, and much more importantly, at least 3 different folks are reporting that Lightroom 2 Beta will be formally announced at the Photoshop Keynote this morning. This is GREAT news! I’m very excited to see what will happen. In the meantime, check out some of the new features over at the Lightroom Journal.

In short, the seminar was great and just what I expected. It was Joe McNally (author of the Moment it Clicks) and Moose Peterson providing brain dumps to the 50-person class. We started in the classroom for a few hours with Moose talking lenses and wildlife/landscape and Joe talking flash. After some trouble with the buses and weather, we were able to get out on location and do some shooting in a beautfil garden behind a local art museum (we had full access to the garden and 4 models that came along for the ride). The location was plenty large (several acres) and gorgeous.

I won’t go into all the details now, but it was amazing to shoot the grounds and the models with two of the greatest photographers around. It felt like we were on assignment with them.

We spent nearly 4 hours following them around/self guiding ourselves around the garden. When they were instructing, they would wait for some light (good or bad), adjust for it, shoot it, all the while explaining what they were doing and why. Then, they’d change the scene, the light would change and it would all start again.

I’ll provide a more detailed post about what I learned in the next day or two. I planned on doing it now, but I want to go play around with Lightroom 2 Beta before this morning’s Keynote starts!

After a few days off, I’m back online! I took the days off to prepare for my trip to Orlando, FL for Photoshop World. I’m here now and ready to go. I know that I’m missing one important post from Workflow Week on Lightroom – it is a culminating post and I’d like to spend a little more time on it. Look for it later this week.

In the meantime, check out the following link and some photos.

The link comes from Strobist and is very, very cool. At my heart, I’m still a technical guy, so the article on how to trick one of your Nikon or Canon Speelite flashes into outputting way more power than normal is very enticing. Check out the well-explained story at Strobist here. [Update: Okay, I definately fell for it - didn't even check the calendar and notice the date of April 1. Check out my crow-eating acknowledgement here.]

Now to the photos – it is, after all, Photo of the Week day. This week’s shots come from my beach sight seeing yesterday (there aren’t many good views of the ocean in the Rocky Mountains, so I needed to take in the scenery).

Well, I’m off to my first day of classes. Today is a pre-con; I’m going on a field shoot with Joe McNally, Moose Peterson and about 60 other photographers. Of all the sessions this week, this has been the one I’ve most looked forward to. Moose and Joe are both amazing photographers and effective teachers. It should be great – I’ll post some info on it later tonight or early tomorrow.

Yesterday, we covered photo and folder naming. It seemed to me that it was worth covering an important topic about the photos themselves – the format I choose to use. I won’t make you read to the end – I prefer DNG. I shoot in RAW and convert all of my RAW files to DNG right upon import to Lightroom (yip, I don’t have any RAW files on my computer, just DNGs). Read on for more information.

Digital SLR cameras can shoot JPEGs. The downside is that they don’t carry all the original information – they become slightly compressed and are only 8 bit. Luckily, digital SLR cameras can also shoot in RAW, a format that stores the photo uncompressed and in 16 bit. While the photos aren’t necessarily twice as good as JPEGs, they do carry important details in highlights, shadows and other areas. That allows potential recovery of all white or ‘blown out’ areas and generally more flexibility in post-processing. (For a more extensive look at JPEG vs RAW, you can go to http://digital-photography-school.com/blog/raw-vs-jpeg/).

RAW Drawbacks

Shooting RAW does come with a few drawbacks, though. One is that each camera has its own RAW format. Personally, that frightens me a little bit. I don’t like thinking that all the pictures I took are stored in a format that only the particular manufacturer (Canon in my case) is privy to.

Second, the files can end up quite a bit larger than a RAW counterpart. When taken with a 10MP camera, a typical JPEG is 3-4 MB and a RAW file is 10MB.

Lastly, non-destructive editing and other metadata can’t be stored directly in a RAW file – they require something called a sidecar file. So, for every RAW file processed with a program like Lightroom or Camera RAW, a second file is created that contains nothing but information about the changes made. If those changes need to be saved, that file always has to be toted around with the RAW file. It can get quite annoying.

Why DNG Rocks

Enter DNG. DNG is a RAW archival format created by Adobe. Adobe created it to address the outbreak of RAW formats, allowing a common, documented format that has a higher chance of being documented for years to come. Don’t forget that Adobe also created PDF and a few other long-lasting file formats. They have a history of getting this sort of thing right more often than most others. For me, benefits of equal size include:

• Smaller File Size: They use a compression that doesn’t sacrifice quality, allowing 50% decrease in file size in some cases.
• Data Stored in the File: Non destructive editing and metadata are stored in the file itself, eliminating the need for sidecar files.

Image Format Comparison

See the following for a summarized comparison of JPEGs, RAW and DNG. Overall, I prefer DNG. It keeps file sizes down, is open format, doesn’t need a sidecar and maintains all the original data. In certain circumstances, JPEG can come in handy. Having sharpening and other settings automatic can reduce processing time.

For complete information on DNG, straight from the source, check out the Adobe page on it here.

I haven’t had a chance for a while to post some news updates and interesting/informative posts I’ve come across recently. Enjoy and have a great weekend!

• Like that popular Dave Hill look? I posted a bit on it several weeks back. He’s received a lot of attention from others as well. Scott Kelby wrote several great posts on trying to recreate his look. Check them out here, here and here. And the Strobist posted an interview with him here.
• If you haven’t seen Joe McNally’s new blog, you should definately check it out. His combination of humor and great tips make it to the top of every photographer’s list. Visit his site here.
• Nik Software recently released a new Photoshop plugin called Viveza. It allows you to control the colors, brightness, saturations and contrast throughout areas in an image. The best thing is that it does it with about the simplest, most elegant user interface I’ve ever seen (I’d say it competes with and beats a lot of Apple’s interfaces, which is quite an accomplishment). You can read more about the plugin here.
• Recently, I’ve been doing some research on DSLR sensor cleaning approaches. I’ve found that while there are lots of reviews out there, I haven’t found as many reviews or thoughts from the folks/sites I really trust. With that in mind, I did find a pretty simple, well described solution from Moose Peterson. Moose is a world-renowned wildlife photographer. If it works for someone who spends that much time in the field, it’s good enough for me to try. Read more about his tools and technique here.
• Curious about how well the new Canon Rebel XSi is peforming? Check out some sample pictures here.