After being completely let down and ghosted by a much more expensive competitor, I found myself in a massive time crunch. I needed a high-quality photo book printed as a meaningful farewell gift for a leaving colleague, and I only had a couple of weeks left before their departure date.
Diamond Photo stepped in and completely saved the day.
They were great value - half the price of the other premium printing company I initially tried, which initially made me nervous about the quality—but the final product (for 2 out of 3 of the books i ordered) was more than acceptable.
Their customer service was outstanding - The contrast in communication was night and day. When I called to check if my files had successfully uploaded, a real person picked up immediately, confirmed they had the files in production, and gave me clear, honest, and professional timelines. No corporate scripts, no runarounds.
Despite my tight deadline and them being based in a different city to me, they processed, printed, and shipped the order with incredible efficiency, fulfilling it well within their promised 5 business day window.. including shipping!
Some software quirks:
Because I was in a rush, I experimented a bit with their software and ordered the exact same design across three different formats to test the differences: a 28x28 Premium Layflat Hard Cover, a 20x20 Standard Layflat Hard Cover, and a 20x20 Soft Cover Lite. If you are a designer preparing your own files, keep these in mind:
• Watch the aspect ratios & resizing: I built my layouts externally in Illustrator (with bleeds) and exported them as JPGs. When uploading to their software, the files didn't auto-resize quite as expected. One of the 20x20 formats fit perfectly, but the other two dimensions had some unexpected scaling issues that required me to manually tweak the layouts.
• Double-check your text borders: The software won't automatically flag safe zones or auto-correct scaling issues on their end. If you think the text might get sliced. It probably will be. One of my three finished books did end up with the text sliced slightly close to the edge.
Even with the software idiosyncracies, the results were incredibly impressive. If you are looking for a printing company that actually respects your time, answers their phones, and delivers beautiful, premium work without the inflated price tag, look no further. I will absolutely be using Diamond Photo for all my future projects - just remembering to give much larger text clearances on the borders next time!
