The photo book I ordered from the QOOP flickr Photo Printer arrived today. I had chosen these photos and a few others from my flickr photostream to publish as a photo book. The short verdict for this service is that the cover and the binding of the book are nice, but the inner pages and print quality could be greatly improved.
The stock used for the inner pages is just too thin, and photos are visible through the opposite side. That’s all there is to say about that.
The print quality on the cover is decent because the cover is thick and glossy, like traditional photo paper, but the quality of the printing on the inner pages leaves a lot to be desired – I can get much better results even when printing on copier paper with my HP inkjet printer at home. For this photo service to be viable, this issue must be addressed before anything else. The color correction is horrible and all the photos are lackluster and almost look like they are printed at screen resolution in some cases.
I realize this service is in beta, but print quality of the photographs should really be their first priority. It’s a shame, because easy printing from flickr is a great idea and the web interface for the designing/ordering system was impressive. If they improved print quality of the final product, I would probably use them again, but not until then.
UPDATE: Check out the message that QOOP left in this post. I must say, this is very impressive. I believe I will give them another try when they switch over to the glossier stock, because the company is obviously trying hard to please its customers. I respect that.
Raising a family in Thailand // Documenting Issan food, culture, music, and people
C. Buddha ?
We are sorry that you are disappointed with your book.
We are looking at a thicker and glossier stock and will notify you when that happens (next few weeks) and give you a free book then (or credit your current purchase if you wish).
We print at 600 DPI and print on the highest end digital printer there is. And others seem pleased with the results ? perhaps we had a QC problem with your book and the printer?s settings were off?
We do printing for artists, wedding photographers and architects and have been able to make them happy customers ? we hope we can make you happy too.
Thank you for the comments and please email us at service@qoop.com with any other thoughts and what you would like us to do.
– Bill
– QOOP
Wow – the reaction of qoop is really impressing.
What kind of digital printing mashines does qoop use? nexpress, indigo or xerox?
my favorite one is nexpress.