I Ordered Prints from Flickr, Here’s How They Turned Out

After learning about Flickr’s new printing service last week, I decided to check the cost of prints. I want to build a physical portfolio, and have been unhappy with the quality of prints from local shops—I expect to get what I paid for (not a ton) and even then have been disappointed. So I ordered two prints from Flickr, both 8×10″, both black and white.

I only did this because I can’t afford to print my entire (current) portfolio at once, and these two were the images I was most displeased with from local shops. Unfortunately, that means this post won’t give you and information about color quality.

I ordered one glossy print (I normally hate glossy, but wanted to see what it was like), and one “lustre” print. Here’s how it turned out.

The photos came in a decent rigid envelope:

The prints themselves were wrapped in cellophane and strengthened with a card back, which is good from a support perspective:

Here are the two prints side-by-side:

No damage or anything, which I’d expect to be the case. I’m a big fan of the “lustre” paper. Here are two images showing the texture:

As I expected, I can’t stand the gloss at all:

I can’t actually show you this, but the paper isn’t terribly heavy in terms of GSM. I don’t have a scale to quantify it. All I can say is that it’s light, but heavier than one of my local shops’ paper, and about the same as the other.

The prints cost £2.08 ($2.57) each and shipped to Ireland from the UK in just two days from the date of shipping, which was 4 days after I ordered them. Shipping was more expensive, at £7.20 ($8.89) total. Total cost including VAT was £11.35/€12.64/$13.96. So at about €6/$6.63 per print. I’m happy with the quality and will order a few more in lustre, particularly in color.

Hope this helps some of you in any way!

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