My-Picture.co.uk is a European printing service offering a range of printing solutions at competitive prices. Learn more about the service and the quality of printed products in this review of the service covering framed prints and acrylic prints in panoramic format.
Many photographers are guilty of never printing their images. And while most of us share and consume images online and through smartphone apps, nothing beats a physical print in a portfolio or hanging on the wall. And with professional printing services offering competitive prices on a wide range of printed products, it’s a great time to get your favourite photos printed.
Every photographer will have slightly different requirements when it comes to printed products, but nearly all will be interested in framed prints and other wall mountable options. This is why I’ve reviewed the Framed Print and Acrylic Print options from My-Picture.co.uk. The two products tested were a 64x44cm black framed print and a 80x40cm panoramic acrylic print.
Images used for the printing test
Here are the two images that were used for the review. The image of Glen Coe Pass in winter was used for the Acrylic Print, and the image of New Brighton Lighthouse was used for the traditional framed print.
Glen Coe Pass
New Brighton Lighthouse
My-Picture.co.uk review
The first test of any online printing service is the ordering process, and with My-Picture.co.uk it really couldn’t have been simpler. The website is simply designed and it takes just a few minutes to order products if you have your images saved as JPEGs beforehand ready to be uploaded. Other supported file types are DNG and GIF up to 60MB.
Once your image is uploaded for the relevant product the system automatically selects the largest size your file can produce, so if you’d like a smaller version make sure you change the size at this stage. You can also add a black & white effect if you wish to convert from colour, but if I was going to make a mono print I would always do the conversion manually myself in Photoshop or Lightroom.
From here it’s simply a case of checking your order before heading to the checkout where you can pay for you prints with debit card, Paypal or Amazon Pay – it really couldn’t be easier. So once the order has been made it takes roughly a week to receive your order, which ships from Germany, and is delivered by either UPS or Royal Mail. The latter is said to be used for smaller items.
Prints arrived well packaged to protect them from damage in transit, and the easy opening cardboard doesn’t require Herculean effort to open thanks to easy to access tear strips. Within the boxes, the prints themselves are wrapped in foam
Print and frame quality
Starting with the 64x44cm black framed print, the quality of the frame is fairly standard for this type of product at this price point. And at just £39.90, which really is a fantastic price, the frame looks good but what you will notice on close inspection is that while the corners are secure, the adjoining sections of the frame may not be perfectly flush. The window mount, however, is perfectly cut and looks great in the frame.
The selected finish was matt black, seemed to scratch easily. Just taking the frame out of the wrapping and handling it a few times resulted in some minor scratches which can be seen in the Image below. I think that the wood effect frames could be less susceptible to scratching based purely on the fact they would have a textured rather than a matt finish like the black frames.
The print itself is on lustre paper, which is ideal for framed photos displayed behind glass because gloss prints add another level of sheen that can inhibited viewing the image itself. The print is sharp with great detail, and while the colours are slightly more muted than when the image is viewed on a computer monitor, this is typical of prints because they’re not backlit like monitors. The colours look natural, and this is the most important thing here so that’s great.
The Acrylic Print I selected was an 80x40cm panoramic option that provides a 2:1 ratio. For panoramics with a 3:1 ratio, you’d need to opt for the Acrylic+Aluminium print. The quality of the product is impressive and although on close inspection you can see the dots that make up the image, detail appears sharp and from a normal viewing distance you can’t see those dots.
Colours and details in the Acrylic Print were good with no colour casts and a natural looking result that stayed true to the original image. The particular image I used for this product has much more subtle and subdued colours than the image used for the framed print, so it’s difficult to compare with this in mind and, of course, the different printing processes that were used for each product.
I chose the acrylic option that doesn’t include an aluminium backframe for hanging because, for me, the best way to hang this type of print is using Command Strips which give you a flush fixing to the wall that looks neat and tidy and doesn’t require drilling or hammering into the wall. If you’d prefer a more traditional hanging method the frame would be the best option for you.
With the Acrylic Print there was one small mark on the print in the sky just below and to the right of the centre of the image above. This must have been caused in transit because it’s not a dust spot in the original image. It is a very small spot, but as always with this type of thing it’s a case of does it bother you? And if it does, then you can always contact the print provider to discuss return and replacement.
Verdict
The overall service from My-Picture.co.uk has been excellent and the products tested exhibited great quality for the price. So the bottom line, would I use the printing service from My-Picture.co.uk again? Yes I would. While the overall quality isn’t gallery quality from a high-end lab costing 10 times more, the price point and quality of My-Picture.co.uk make their services a compelling option.
For a 15% discount on all canvas prints use the promo code JAMESAPHOTO at the checkout on the www.My-Picture.co.uk website.
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