Kurt L.
Good, true B&W prints, but could be better.
For years, we had gotten our True B&W prints from Mpix, but they stopped carrying that paper. I had to look for an alternative, if I could find one. For a quick background, I've been in digital image manipulation for over 45 years. At least 6 years before there was such a thing as Photoshop 1.0. And ran my own in-home business doing image work for both commercial businesses and the general public. In other words, I very much know how to color manage a system and use a high end monitor that has been properly calibrated and profiled. As a test, I sent in a handful of B&W images saved to Fromex's file requirements. I sent the same set of images to a competitor per their requirements. Both sets of prints came on the same true B&W, silver halide paper Mpix used to offer. The difference was, of course, the results. The competitor's efforts were half the price and matched my monitor almost exactly. The prints from Fromex, while nice, lacked the expected contrast and were more open in the midtones and three quarter tones than they should have been. The highlights and quarter tones were also rather flat. To be fair, most people probably wouldn't readily notice these differences if they weren't pointed out. I can't help noticing as dealing with high end clients for decades makes me push for the best possible results at all times. Final result? Fromex does pretty decent work, but it could be better, and shouldn't cost as much as it did.