I wonder what’s the best printing lab in the Philippines?

Where do you print your pictures?

What lab company do you prefer?
Which among those companies out there has the best quality with affordable price?
:)

Digiprint. Best service. Period. :)

Quality and products are also great for my needs right now so I'm not looking anywhere else.

Digiprint. Best service. Period. :)

Quality and products are also great for my needs right now so I'm not looking anywhere else.

+1 with what Lei said.

DIGIPRINT... the best so far. A++

Without a doubt, DIGIPRINT

Digiprint. Hands Down.
3 years and counting.

And their lab? It's filled with fujifilm frontiers. The best!

Some inputs...
Cheers!

I wonder what’s the best printing lab in the Philippines?

Where do you print your pictures?
At Digiprint and Fuji YKL Color labs

What lab company do you prefer?
Digiprint: commendable service and print quality, great discount/promos, many options on media/material (i.e. metallic print).

Fuji YKL Color labs: commendable print quality, good price schemes (specific at their Santo Domingo Head Office), great discount/promos

Which among those companies out there has the best quality with affordable price?
From a hobbyist personal experience, I'd pick Fuji YKL
Digiprint comes in very close

:)

>> D I G I P R I N T !!! :)

Digiprint for me.

digiprint in sm san lazaro have monitors that are not calibrated with their printers in their labs. large prints like 11x17 inches have to be printed at their labs and the people there are just guessing on how the final output would look like on paper. is this the same with other digiprint shops?

digiprint in sm san lazaro have monitors that are not calibrated with their printers in their labs. large prints like 11x17 inches have to be printed at their labs and the people there are just guessing on how the final output would look like on paper. is this the same with other digiprint shops?

AFAIK, the final adjustments are done at Digiprint's main lab in Pasay.

All their displays there have been calibrated and profiled.

Cheers!

Jo Avila

Thanks everyone for sharing good information. :) I guess, i would try digiprint next time I print my pictures. Thanks again.

digiprint in sm san lazaro have monitors that are not calibrated with their printers in their labs. large prints like 11x17 inches have to be printed at their labs and the people there are just guessing on how the final output would look like on paper. is this the same with other digiprint shops?

Here's the thing, you don't calibrate your monitors to your printer. You just calibrate your monitor and you calibrate your printer and use color management to do the rest. And it is also impossible to ever get a monitor to match a print because monitors emit light while a print reflects light.

You can do two things with a print shop like Digiprint. You can calibrate your own monitor to a standard, edit your own photos, and have them print it for you "AS IS". Or you can just turn over your file and let their lab technicians adjust the image as they see on their monitors. If you don't specify to leave the image alone, the technicians will touch the image, and that applies to every lab in the country and not just Digiprint.

Here's the thing, you don't calibrate your monitors to your printer. You just calibrate your monitor and you calibrate your printer and use color management to do the rest. And it is also impossible to ever get a monitor to match a print because monitors emit light while a print reflects light.

You can do two things with a print shop like Digiprint. You can calibrate your own monitor to a standard, edit your own photos, and have them print it for you "AS IS". Or you can just turn over your file and let their lab technicians adjust the image as they see on their monitors. If you don't specify to leave the image alone, the technicians will touch the image, and that applies to every lab in the country and not just Digiprint.

I agree. I always instruct Digiprint to make no adjustments to my pictures and they always come out the way I see them in my calibrated monitor.

I agree. I always instruct Digiprint to make no adjustments to my pictures and they always come out the way I see them in my calibrated monitor.

question... how can you accurately calibrate your monitor without using spyder or other softwares? Can we rely on adobe gamma alone?

hi guys! so far ive had best print outs from digiprin and fuji. just tell them that dont make corrections.

i do my printing at dpi, astoria. really happy with my prints.:)

Here's the thing, you don't calibrate your monitors to your printer. You just calibrate your monitor and you calibrate your printer and use color management to do the rest. And it is also impossible to ever get a monitor to match a print because monitors emit light while a print reflects light.

You can do two things with a print shop like Digiprint. You can calibrate your own monitor to a standard, edit your own photos, and have them print it for you "AS IS". Or you can just turn over your file and let their lab technicians adjust the image as they see on their monitors. If you don't specify to leave the image alone, the technicians will touch the image, and that applies to every lab in the country and not just Digiprint.


what I mean is that the monitor in digiprint lab have a different settings compared to their shop in sm san lazaro. the girl there tells me that the final output will be darker than what is shown in the monitor in the shop. the lab technician or operator will adjust the settings to "correct" the underexposure. that way, I don't have any idea how the final output is going to look like. but the good thing is the girl in the shop can adjust my photo and show me how the photo would look like(more or less) my problem is, this might produce inconsistent outputs. so I hope the monitor in digiprint's lab will have the same settings with their shops' monitors.

btw, we're talking about digiprint here. I know what we're talking about here applies to many, or every printing lab as you say, but I was hoping the digiprint manager could read this. peace :)

question... how can you accurately calibrate your monitor without using spyder or other softwares? Can we rely on adobe gamma alone?

You can't rely on a software product alone.

The solution offered by Spyder is a software and hardware solution.

I used Adobe Gamma for several years to "calibrate" my display monitor.

Nope. The results I got doesn't even come close to the accuracy I get from using the Spyder.

Cheers!

Jo Avila

You can't rely on a software product alone.

The solution offered by Spyder is a software and hardware solution.

I used Adobe Gamma for several years to "calibrate" my display monitor.

Nope. The results I got doesn't even come close to the accuracy I get from using the Spyder.

Cheers!

Jo Avila


agreeing with jo. adobe gamma is a lousy way of "calibrating" your monitor. it's not damn accurate. a "certified instructor" in photoshop was even teaching to load adobe rgb as your default monitor profile in the classes which just resulted to horrible prints.

digiprint works for me, i was even surprised the last time i transacted with them, they texted me just to check if i received it on time and in good condition :)

i remember the fuji lab at the back of Santo Domingo, they have good service as well, that's where we have our photos printed back when I was still in college, they have discounts for students too!

question... how can you accurately calibrate your monitor without using spyder or other softwares? Can we rely on adobe gamma alone?

I don't know of a way to do so Jon. I calibrate my monitor regularly using spyder. I also agree with the comments of Jo and Nino above. It may be good to purchase a calibration software like the spyder because you have to calibrate your monitor regularly as I was told that the settings of a computer monitor also change from time to time.

agreeing with jo. adobe gamma is a lousy way of "calibrating" your monitor. it's not damn accurate. a "certified instructor" in photoshop was even teaching to load adobe rgb as your default monitor profile in the classes which just resulted to horrible prints.

LOL! I had the opposite experience :D An instructor was teaching his students to load the display profile as the color workspace :D

Cheers!

Jo Avila

I don't know of a way to do so Jon. I calibrate my monitor regularly using spyder. I also agree with the comments of Jo and Nino above. It may be good to purchase a calibration software like the spyder because you have to calibrate your monitor regularly as I was told that the settings of a computer monitor also change from time to time.


Please remember that the Spyder is a hardware AND software solution.

Yes, calibration and profiling has to be done on a regular basis.

The analogy I like to use is the engine of the car.

You have to let the engine warm up before you can get optimum performance out of it.

It's the same thing with the display. You generally have to let it warm up before you do any color editing work (or calibration and profiling).

The engine of a car needs to undergo regular tune ups (i.e change oil, etc.) every so often so that you get the best performance out of it.

It's the same thing with the display. You have to regularly calibrate and profile it. :D

Cheers!

Jo Avila

Digiprint works for me. I have a calibrated monitor at home and the prints come out as close as possible to the monitor display. No surprises for me.

Digiprint works for me. I have a calibrated monitor at home and the prints come out as close as possible to the monitor display. No surprises for me.

For some of use that print our images, that's all that we are really after at the end of the day - no unwanted surprises between the display monitor and the print :D

Cheers!

Jo Avila

You can't rely on a software product alone.

The solution offered by Spyder is a software and hardware solution.

I used Adobe Gamma for several years to "calibrate" my display monitor.

Nope. The results I got doesn't even come close to the accuracy I get from using the Spyder.

Cheers!

Jo Avila

Thanks sir.. :)

Thanks sir.. :)

One great thing about the Spyder2 Express is that its price has dropped significantly.

The Spyder2 Express used to be sold by the local authorized distributor (a.k.a. Bella Luce or DPP :D) for P8.5k.

You can now purchase it from them for P5.5k.

My first Spyder was the Spyder2 Express - and I got terrific results from using it.

Cheers!

Jo Avila

One great thing about the Spyder2 Express is that its price has dropped significantly.

The Spyder2 Express used to be sold by the local authorized distributor (a.k.a. Bella Luce or DPP :D) for P8.5k.

You can now purchase it from them for P5.5k.

My first Spyder was the Spyder2 Express - and I got terrific results from using it.

Cheers!

Jo Avila

wow! i hope i could buy one soon.. :)

sir, can i just another question, if i am going to use adobe rgb as my colorspace in photoshop, does it affect the result of the image? should i save it as srgb or as adobe rgb?

wow! i hope i could buy one soon.. :)

sir, can i just another question, if i am going to use adobe rgb as my colorspace in photoshop, does it affect the result of the image? should i save it as srgb or as adobe rgb?

The digital images produced by your camera should have an embedded color profile.

You can specify this in your camera (it's usually either Adobe RGB or sRGB).

Or you can specify the color space for a RAW file during RAW conversion.

The color profile of the image and your color workspace do not have to match. :D

Cheers!

Jo Avila

That's for their inkjet printing, tell them to print at their lab. Use your own monitor and soft-proof with the digiprint profiles.