Imperial Printing

Have had nothing but great experience using Imperial Printing on a variety of projects including 4-​color brochures, newsletters, invitations/​envelopes, fliers, etc. Their service is excellent – friendly, fast and high quality. And their prices are comparable to – in some cases less than – some of the huge online print sources I sometimes use. After reading through the one negative review I had to conclude there was a huge communications gap and the client should have gone someplace that specializes in photographic printing (especially since he wanted it on «photo paper»), not a shop with offset and digital presses. That’s my take, anyway.

I’m restoring some large format historic maps of our county that aren’t in the best shape… I’m a local history buff leading a gaggle (technical term) of local history projects in El Dorado Hills… Trying desperately to make this stuff meaningful to AP history students at Oak Ridge High school.
Until last week I was using an old version of photoshop. Took a motley collection of TIFF & jpg & BITMAPs in.
Wes was able to work with them all, while I stood there laying with his cat. But more importantly gave me great advice on how to clean up the originals better… Suggested I download new cloud-​based Photoshop trial version, which is light years beyond my version 7. The results have been amazing.
They were able to upsize the files on the printer. I subsequently learned Photoshop CC also does good upsizing.
And the prices are cheap. Like $ 6 for 3′ tall and 4′ wide in monochrome. All the tiny little place names are readable. Color is more but not that much. And I’m thinking of getting them laminated for classroom use: $ 12.

Shocked at my experience today. Went in to print pictures for Christmas cards, I got there just after 11AM, their close time on Saturday is 12PM. when I got their I emailed them the file, after a few tries they were unable to get it to the correct size because it was a JPG, not a PDF. So I used an app on my phone to convert it to a PDF and resent it to them. I would think it should have been simple; I just wanted it to be 5X5. The lady kept looking up percentages, and readjusting and reprinting it, first it was too big, then too big again, then still too big, then it was too small, finally after about 15 – 20 minutes, she finally got it close to the size that I wanted. I requested it to be printed on photo paper, but she printed it on just regular paper that was glossy. She printed the first copy (I was going to get 30) and showed it to me and it was very low quality, super pixilated and grainy. I asked her if that was the best quality she could get it and she said yes. The original JPG was about 2.5MB and should have been very sharp, so I assumed that quality must have been lost when I converted it to a PDF (however since I have checked and the file I sent as a PDF was still 2MB and very sharp), so I asked if it would be better if I put it on a flash drive and came back on Monday since they were about to close. Then, this is what shocked me, when I said I would come back on Monday with the file on a flash drive she said with a very straight face that I had to pay her «for her time» and for the practice prints she did. I was a little taken aback but figured she couldn’t be serious, so I tried to laugh, and she just looked at me with a straight face and said «I’m not joking». Then she went on to say that I took up her time, etc. I was just shocked; my jaw must have nearly been on the floor. When she realized how absurd I thought she was being she walked in the back (openly upset), and said «Okay, okay». I walked out the door, after about 30 – 40 minutes there, and she said I wasted her time. I will never be using them ever again.