Silicon Gallery in Philadelphia does beautiful work and the digital artists around here swear by them. (Not at them.)
Silicon Gallery in Philadelphia does beautiful work and the digital artists around here swear by them. (Not at them.)
It a shame all service bureaus are not like Silicon Gallery, but the fact is they're not. Does pointing that out upset you? Anybody who has eyes can go on the web and compare prices to see how greedy some service bureaus can be.
I wish they were all honest, but they're not.
Johnathan, your right, you can get some really blank stares from service bureuas when you press them for this information. The tend to know less than actual digital printers who do nothing but make ink jet prints. You almost have to dedicate 18 hrs a day to this craft as it seems issues are changing every day... hence the reason many people are printing on their own now...
When I would go to a lab for a photomechanical print, I would sometimes ask the individual taking my order, 'are you a photographer?,'when I was going to need some complex 'burning and dodging' and so forth. Most of the time these people would be forthright and suggest, 'hey..why don't I bring the printer out here', which all but guarenteed that there wasn't going to be any confusion about my print.
I've gone to service bureaus and asked the individual who's taking my order if they in fact do digital themselves, and in response I've many times gotten back this 'how dare you' look, and an emphatic No to my next question of 'then can I talk to the printer'. This scenario is quicksand.
When the above scenario happens, I just walk right out of the service bureau. In the past when I said ok and trusted the individual to interpret my instructions corredtly, the resulting digital print would many times be a mess and there would be a dispute, and they would have the nerve insist that I pay for the botched printed in addition to the corrected print('there was nothing wrong with the way the order was taken, it's your computer, and if you want us to fix it, you have to pay for another print.')
There is a 'one man shop' out here in California, the name right now escapes me, that does good work and there may be others that I'm unaware of, but many service bureaus as you say Bill, stick people on the front desk who have obviously been instructed to not let you talk to the technical people even if it will make the job go easier. I go less and less to service bureaus now because I'm tired of fighting through the maze. Hopefully Ted can find some easygoing folks who'll work with him.
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