Friday, December 22, 2006

Awesome Pictage Prints!


Cool timing on this!

Every once in awhile I have somebody request proofs so they can see the actual pictures before deciding on the final prints and so I had a client who's wedding I shot at the Four Seasons in Chicago ask for proofs and so we ordered them from Pictage on Monday and they were on my doorstep on Wednesday! How's that for delivery time the week before Christmas... and they are AMAZING!

Since I so rarely get to see my work in physical form I tore open the box and it's pretty cool because they package'em all in these nice little black boxes so you can send'em right to the client and the prints are incredible! Pictage's proof prints are better than the final prints I used to get from my local lab here in SB!

These pictures are just random shots from the wedding - not even shots that I edited up for my favorite's folder.

Gotta admit I'm impressed!

26 comments:

amynave said...

Ya, I ordered some proof prints a while ago, and I agree I was totally impressed with the packaging and quality:)

Very Nice

P.S. Have you left the house yet. LOL

Rodolfo Arpia said...

I love Pictage's prints too but I've never received anything back from them in 2 days... more like 2 weeks.

Daniel J. Watkins said...

Man I wish we could all get that level of service!! They have overcharged my credit card for the last 3 months and I can't get ANYONE to return my calls.

Next time I'm leaving my name as "David Jay calling from St. Louis" (with MY phone number). LOL

Brad Person said...

That wedding looks familiar :)
Are those Pictage-generated borders or did you run them ShowItBorders prior to print? If Pictage, which border selections yield these results? Thanks and Merry Christmas!!!
-BP

Anonymous said...

Dan,

Give me a call and I'll take a look at your statments with you. You can reach me at 877.742.8243 press 1 at the first prompt and 3 at the second and ask for Susan. ;)

Michael Norwood said...

Who would have thought that the way to get someone's attention at Pictage is to leave a comment on David Jay's Blog? What were you thinking calling them Dan?

haha.

Anonymous said...

Yeah I wanna know to DJ, did you put the borders on or did you have it added from pictage?

- Brian Khang

|| davidjay || said...

Dan - In 2007 we will work on your Ninja skillz b/c if you were to call Pictage and say that you were me they would instantly know that you were an imposter because I don't call anybody. :D

Those are Pictage's borders so I didn't have to reupload or do anything.

:)

Anonymous said...

so i'm curious. how much did pictage have to pay you off to make this post?

|| davidjay || said...

$0 - Pictage has never paid me for anything I've done for them.

Anonymous said...

awesome, thats good to hear. i used to be with pictage and am not any longer because of the poor print quality issues. i'm glad things seem to be improving in that area.

Anonymous said...

Hey,

Mr. (or Mrs.) anonymous. Grow a pair and add your name to your rude little posts. If you're going to challenge someone's integrity, you could at least be less of a weasel about it. That's annoying.

Daniel J. Watkins said...

Susan is taking care of me! Yay!

Seriously DJ...I've WANTED things to work out with Pictage and honestly, YOU are one of the reasons I stuck with them for so long.

I hate that I have to use a forum to get some attention (as I'm sure some of the individuals who were with Skooks probably also felt), but sometimes you just gotta go with what works.

I will give props to Susan...she seems like she'll get me taken care of.

Maybe someday I'll return to Pictage...I really, really, really would like to experience the DJ treatment rather than the DJW treatment.

Pictage should really thank their lucky stars they have someone like you as a raving customer -- you have TONS of influence in this industry and I'm quite sure that shows in the Pictage P&L. I think we'd all like to be raving customers of something. Right now, for me, that just happens to be another lab.

Thanks again, Susan, for being very responsive to my issue.

Daniel J. Watkins said...

DJ -- just turn off the "allow anonymous posts" setting. That way we won't have to bridle Shane to keep him from calling people eunuchs. LOL

|| davidjay || said...

Rock on man! Stoked you're getting that taken care of!

Cheers,
DJ

Anonymous said...

David,

We order 2- hard proofs from all of our engagement and baby sessions... and I drool all over them every time!

The proofs do look WAY better than what we get out of our local lab for final prints!

I don't think there really is a DJ treatment... our stuff is hit or miss as to how quickly it gets here.. .but very often I am thrilled by how they exceed my expectation in that department!!

a

Daniel J. Watkins said...

And I would be remiss if I didn't thank DJ for posting this comment in the first place, for, without it, I would still be paining for my chump change membership fees refund. But even chump change is $ I could be spending more wisely...like on Brilliant stuff! \o/

Blue Mountain Photo Works said...

Dan, Pictage finally called me after I posted complaints about them here. At least they are taking notice, being assertive and trying to attack the problem. David is working with me on the print quality problem. Hopefully we can get that sorted out.

If DJ says Pictage does not pay him, well then Pictage does not pay him. For someone to come on here and leave anonymous negative comments, well, your just a coward. I am willing to complain out in the open. Most everyone here either knows me or knows of me. So when I make negative comments (which is EXTREMELY rare by the way, I take full responsibility for my words and actions. Please don't be a coward.

|| davidjay || said...

I'm glad they're getting those things sorted out for you guys and I don't blame you one bit being bothered by it.

Pictage is definitely working to improve our experience with them and I encourage you guys to let me know how that experience is. I was fortunate b/c I really built my business around their structure and so I have very few problems but I know that their forward thinking and fast pace left more than a few loose ends over the past couple of years so everyone knows they need to be tied up and they're getting the structure in place and doing that.

Susan :) Thanks for hopping on and helping out! You're great!

Blue Mountain Photo Works said...

DJ, yea, it's very important for Pictage to take care of these issues for us. I uploaded a sample portrait shoot tonight to test the new "Free Color Correction" option. I uploaded files that were pretty much straight out of the camera. I could see a difference but it still just wasn't good enough for me to use at this point. I think I will try to edit in Lightroom and Photoshop to get the color I like and then have them wysiwyg everything for me. I'm not anywhere near as good of a photographer as some of the folks that are posting in the comments section on this post but I like for my images to have a certain look to them. Working with Pictage I hope to achieve what I'm going for. Becker's color has been a huge inspiration for me. That's kinda the type of look that i'm going for. (I'm not trying to copy you [b] but you do inspire me.) So the standard color correction is not enough for me. Hopefully this will all work out in the end. I will keep you posted.

Jim Davis Hicks said...

recently jason kiefer, the president of pictage sent out a great email addressing a number of the complaints that have been brought up here and in other forums etc. and it was seemingy crazy sincere, very serious, detailed in their plan of attack and encouraging to me as a 6 year client. If your with pictage or not be on the look out for some really great improvements in billing, customer service, turn around times, print quality and more!

Anonymous said...

Blue> Quick note on the new FREE color correction service we offer for all uploads... its FREE! :) And, its only applicable to online viewing and proof prints, so we would still give your final prints the human CC from the original image. And, did I mention its FREE?

Seriously, I absolutely get your desire to not lose any of your "signature" corrections, though - that's a big deal for quite of few of our high-end partners. Would it help if you could upload everything for online viewing, then re-upload the images selected by your client after you've done your thing to them, and prior to final print?

Daniel> Refunds are always our last choice, sorry it didn't work out. Keep an open mind and we'll win you back.

Jim> Jason (and all of us) meant EVERY word. 2007 is gonna be awesome for us and our partners. Thanks for your loyalty, we'll continue to strive to deserve it.

jeff

Blue Mountain Photo Works said...

Jeff, I think im just going to make sure that all of my corrections are done before I do my initial upload and not choose the Free color correction option. Lightroom is going to make this process much easier for us.

I do appreciate you guys offering this color correction for free. I think it will help with a lot of photographers. David is going to be working with me on getting this stuff fixed. I have faith that he will. It will probably all be on a wysiwyg basis for me though. Thanks for all you help.

Anonymous said...

Luke just ordered a bunch of proof prints for his clients. He ordered two different sets and I was there when they both came in and I wasn't all that impressed. I thought they were dull and flat looking and I know Luke isn't THAT bad of a photographer. :)

Maybe they were something different than what DJ ordered.

|| davidjay || said...

I get the Premium Proof prints that cost 40 cents and Pictage does color and density correction on them.

I'm guessing that either Luke went with a different option or there is an issue with the way he is processing his files.

These pictures are great and certainly anything but flat and dull and I'm not that GOOD of a photographer!

:)
DJ

Anonymous said...

Yeah, I don't think it was the Preimum proof prints.