We've been on the hunt for a good place with good prices for small prints. It's hard not only because balancing price with good quality but also trying to avoid getting prints with things printed on the back ;-; I've tried winkflash, which is 4~6 cents per print but quality is not so great. (Bad cropping and colors were a bit wonky. Filenames and winkflash are printed visibly on the back.) Then I moved on to iprintfromhome and snapfish, hoping for better results. If all else fails there's always Catprint, but it's on the priceyer side :/ We're also looking into Costco for small prints as well, if anyone has any experience with costco prints please share!
A quick comparision photo of a iprintfromhome print vs a snapfish print. I'm not print expert so I'm not too picky about colors. I think they both look good??
Image heavy under cut.
iprintfromhome 4x6 prints are 30 cents each. You can get your prints in Glossy, Matte or Lustre, there are other options too but they cost more. USPS first class shipping is $3 for any amount of prints, I believe. (You can get $10 account credit by creating a new account and entering "Tweet-Jae Chong" in the Referred By box! It also helps me out too, hehe.)
Color and cropping seem good! The image seems yellower than the original but it's not a problem, I think. Here's a crappy iphone pic of a print vs the original file.
The downside on the prints themselves are the backs. The prints have filenames and "kodak professional" printed lightly on the back.
If you're okay with 30 cents per print and need 50 or more prints, I would suggest going with Catprint instead tbh (especially if you're also needing large prints so you can combine shipping). Their large print quality is great and the backs are blank c:
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Snapfish 4x6 prints are 9 cents each. Prints are available in Glossy and Matte. Shipping varies based on how many prints you order, for 55 prints I paid $3.44. (You get 55 free prints when you make an account! Also they currently have a 99 prints for 99 cents deal going on until Sept 30.)
Color and cropping are good as well. The colors are less yellow than the iprintfromhome prints? Also they seem a bit more saturated.
These also do not have blank backs, which was expected.
Snapfish prints are better than I thought! I'd recommend getting their penny prints and 55 free prints, although 9 cents per print isn't bad at all.
We recently ordered a pack of 50 sheets of Grafix Inkjet Shrink Film for about $60 on amazon, since it's a better deal than buying $13 packs of 6 Shrinky Dink sheets. We were a bit hesitant because of the mixed reviews*, but I think overall it was a pretty good buy!
We use the shrink films to make charms, and here are some observations I made comparing the two brands. These are all using the same printer settings, image size, etc.
Grafix charms are larger and thinner than Shrinky Dink charms. I want to say the Grafix charms are about a quarter inch larger than Shrinky Dink charms. As for thickness, you can't really see the difference? But the Shrinky Dink charms feel heavier and more sturdy?
Here is a picture of the Grafix charms vs the Shrinky Dink charms. The Grafix film seems to shrink with a bit of a vertical bias to them, I don't know if it's just our batch or if this is a consistent thing.
Grafix charms have a large visible grain. I think you can see in the picture above (especially on Tadokoro), how the Shrinky Dink charms look p smooth compared to the Grafix charms. It doesn't really bother me, but I can see how it could be an issue to others.
Grafix charms are easier to get completely flat(??) I bake the charms starting at 250 degrees and slowly raise up to 350 until they seem to be done baking. Then I remove them from the oven and crush them flat with a heavy book. Sometimes, Shrinky Dink charms will just not uncurl enough to crush flat or have small dents even after crushing. I think this has to do with the Shrinky Dink film being denser(?) or I'm just unlucky? All of my Grafix charms have turned out nice and flat though.
The ink on Grafix charms runs when sealing with Mod Podge. This has never happened to me when working with Shrinky Dink film! The red ink spreads when sealing the Grafix charms with Mod Podge. I've had to put a few, otherwise perfect, charms into the bargain charm section because of this. I like mod podging the charms as it makes them waterproof(?) and makes the colors more vibrant! I'm looking into getting acrylic spray sealant to seal the ink first before mod podging? Any tips are appreciated!!
That's all I've got rn. Hope this helps people out!!
*Bad reviews include the film splitting while baking, fumes, shrinking with extreme bias, etc??? Terrifying tbh
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