alankuik said:
Dear guys,
i just walked past no.1 Color Centre in ParkWay yesterday and i saw absolutely ridiculous prices.
$0.20 for 4R (above a certain amount).
spoil market price, according to some other minilab owners i spoke to
I think I am familiar with the area at parkway parade. If I am not wrong, there are three main consumer level photo printing centres there: Standard Photo, Singapore Colour Centre and No.1 Colour Centre.
No. 1 Colour Centre: Not to offend, I find the quality of the printing at No.1 Colour Centre slightly unreliable. My relatives printed their family photographs there before and I realized that they use some kind of automatic enhancements which are at times uneffective and even destructive to the hue of the colours of the photograph (colour tints). They use Konica paper if I am not wrong. However overall, the prints are alright for the amount they charge.
Standard Photo: This photo printing shop was my favourite a few years ago before I switched to an "A" monitored lab. Paper media is Kodak Endura paper. It is resonably quite good in the colour accuracy though it can't be compared to the monitored lab I mentioned. Charges are 30 cents per [4R] size (minimum 10 photos). In my opinion, I would recommend this shop rather than the No.1 colour centre.
These 2 labs are sort of rivals. The fact is that they are just directly opposite facing each other. On weekends, both shops will be crowded with families queueing up to collect their photographs or send them in.
Singapore Colour Centre: I supposed it is run under the same company as standard photo. So I assume the prices and quality wouldn't differ much.
To conclude: I would advise you to choose standard photo if you want to be on the safe side (also if you have a little more spare cash). Wheareas if you want to save money to sacrifice for reliability, choose the no.1 colour centre.
I hoped I had explained myself clealy and accurately. All the best to your photos.