[Dave]

ProAm Imaging was established in 1987 & until recently has concentrated on film developing / printing for the Proffesional market. In the last couple of years they have added Digital services to their portfolio.

Website Score 3/5

ProAm Imaging professional photography prints is a straight forward site to use, giving you all the information required.

Offering Score 4/5

The service is offered at the pro market, so you won't find any upload to web function here to get shots printed. Instead, to stay competitive with prices, the company puts the onus on the photographer to prepare the shots for printing.
- Step 1. Download the printer profile to be applied to your shot
- Step 2. Resize your image to 402 DPI & correct size for print sizes
- Step 3. Apply printer profile
- Step 4. Save to CD in file structure as specified by site, to enable quick printing

All the above is a bit of a shock for someone used to just uploading shots on web for printing, but lets remember, this is marketed for professionals, so you would expect them to be used to an efficient work process for prints.

Prices Score 5/5

The above allows the company to be very competitive, with a 18" x 12" print costing £1. P&P starts at £4 for 1st class post, jumping to a service using ANC starting at £6 upwards

Turnaround of prints Score 2/5

My CD was with the company Monday morning. Printing was done overnight , so ready for next day. Even though paying for next day delivery, I did not get the prints until 4pm Thursday. For a company that supports professionals, a 4 day turnaround from recieving prints to the customer reciveing prints is dissapointing. They do offer a faster service at extra cost, but when you pay for next day delivery, you expect just that.

Quality of Prints Score 5/5

Mono prints at 18" x 12" were very impressive, with a tonal range form solid black through to some pure whites. The printer profile obviously makes a huge difference. A single colour print of same size was also of high quailty, although does show I need to claibrate my monitor correctly for brightness, as the shot was slightly darker than the image on my screen.

Customer Service Score 3/5

Upon contacting the firm on the Wednesday morning querying when the prints would arrive, they did contact the delivery firm & get back to within 30 mins to say they would be with me at 4pm. Upon not receiving prints until Thursday 4pm, their response to my email complaining about delays was " Delay caused by driver not able to find your property" . Not impressed.

Conclusion Overall Score 4/5

Very competitive priced service that produces excellent prints. If you want a quick turnaround of prints you may need to look elsewhere, based on the 4 day turnaround I experienced. Will I use them again ? Yes if I can afford the delay in getting prints. They come across as a small firm that is passionate about quality of prints, that is being let down by it's delivery service. If they get this sorted they would score 5/5.