Pixum Acrylic Print Review

Features
Ordering
Performance
Verdict

Pixum are on online photo printer offering a variety of digital print services including prints and enlargements on paper, canvas and acrylic, along with a range of gift products including calendars, t-shirts, cards and mugs. In this review we're looking at their Acrylic service.

Pixum Acrylic Print Features

Pixum Acrylic prints are photos enlarged on premium paper that are then glued with a transparent film behind 5mm or 10mm thick acrylic plate. The prints range in size from 8x12 inch for £33 up to 42x59 inch for £340. Watch out for offers, at the time of writing Pixum have a voucher code giving an Easter discount of up to £15.

Pixum Acrylic Print Ordering

Ordering is easy. Just select the service you require from the drop down menu and click on "Create....". The first step is to choose the size of print. Then you click continue to go to the photo upload area. From here you either select existing photo that you uploaded earlier or click on "Start upload". All the Pixum action buttons are huge and orange so it's easy to find your way. Drag the photo into the middle and select how many copies you want.

A small quality indicator appears in the middle so you're sure that it's good enough to print to the size you've selected. If it's orange and sulking you need to resize. If it's green and smiling you're OK.

The photo in the center has tools to rotate, reposition and magnify. The mouse scroll wheel acts as a magnifier but not reducer so you'd need to click on rest icon if you accidentally adjusted the scroll.

When you've adjusted the photo so it looks correctly sized and positioned click Order Now and you go to the shopping cart page with details of cost including delivery. It's at this stage you can add a voucher code to receive a discount.

There's also another action "Activate Digital Photo Optimisation (DPO)" which we'll come to in performance.

Pixum Acrylic Print Performance

The order was placed on Tuesday at around 12:15 and an email order confirmation came through minutes later.

On Thursday at 12:30 I received an email informing me that the order had been dispatched and would take 1-3 working days. At 13:00 I got another email telling me the same, but laid out as an invoice, showing what I'd paid. On the following Tuesday evening around 17:15 a women from Hermes Couriers knocked at the door with my package, so the expected seven days was accurate.

The print is mailed in a large cardboard envelop. Inside, the Acrylic is wrapped well, with a card sheet on both sides, then an envelope of foam and finally thick foam protective edging.




The print comes with two aluminium mounting plates that you stick on with already positioned double sided adhesive tape. To keep the frame parallel to the wall when it's hung there are two thick pads that are the same depth as the bracket which you stick on the bottom two corners of the print.

The mounting plates had instructions on the back showing them being stuck so the bracket was vertical, which caused some initial confusion.

I was really pleased with the quality of acrylic and mounting, but the colours seemed overly bright, almost fluorescent. My original wasn't so vibrant, and there was more subtle detail in the whites of the petals.

I got in touch with customer services and they asked to see the original file and a photo of the image I'd sent through. A quick check revealed I had not turned off "Activate Digital Photo Optimisation (DPO)". This is an auto image adjust and is not recommended for advanced users who may have already optimised their photos in an image editing program. To be honest I hadn't even noticed this feature. And I can only put it down to the fact it's displayed on the shopping basket page. Surely such a feature should be on the edit page which is where those sort of things would be considered? And perhaps a preview of how it will look once optimised should appear so you can be sure you want to use the auto setting.

Pixum kindly reprinted and the second version was just as I'd hoped. The print is made on Kodak Professional Endura paper before being mounted on the acrylic.

Pixum Acrylic Print Verdict

The Pixum online ordering process is excellent and the various services are competitive, providing good value for money. Overall a quick and efficient service, but I was disappointed with the initial print quality due to the auto selection of DPO. The reprinted photo was excellent and the quality and finish of the acrylic and wall mounting is very good.

Pixum Acrylic Print Pros

Competitive prices
Easy to use website and ordering system
One week turnaround
Quality printing on Kodak Professional paper

 

Pixum Acrylic Print Cons

Digital Photo Optimisation to be avoided for experienced photographers
Mounting hooks instructions not clear

Pixum provide an excellent ordering process and excellent quality prints.

FEATURES
ORDERING
PERFORMANCE
VALUE FOR MONEY
VERDICT

You can order acrylic prints at Pixum's online page here: Pixum Acrylic Printing