LightSource

Lightsource was recommended to me by an experienced art gallery owner here in San Francisco. As a professional artist, I use Lightsource for archival inkjet printing and high quality scanning. Sam and his crew are very professional, meet promised timelines, and I have been extremely happy with the work that they’ve done for me. If you want high quality art prints and scans, I highly recommend them.

Everyone at LS are consummate professionals with an eye for quality. A surprising number of working artists, myself included, choose lightsource because they get it, they keep the bar high and look out for your best interest. If you want cheap, go to costco, but for quality and expertise, go to Lightsource (drop microphone here).

I had a signed, 35-​year-​old famous cartoon by the well-​known political cartoonist of the day, Hugh Haynie. The original 20“x14″ was yellowing and fading. I wanted to copy before it further deteriorated. The crew at LightSource did a great job. They color-​corrected the piece back to its original white and even eliminated imperceptible finger prints on it. It looks like the day I got it.

I thought each person I dealt with — from Steve and Cassi to Dylan — had to be the owner. Actually, none was. It’s a rare firm that fosters that brand of exceptional knowledge, skill, quality commitment and customer-​centric style among the whole team. Sam must be a great leader-​manager.
I was a one-​time professional photographer. Guess who’s going to do my prints going forward?

Love these guys!!!
My husband and I recently took a trip to Utah and Arizona and shot some great pictures of the Antelope Canyon, Zion, etc. Upon returning, we had the photography bug and wanted them printed and in our home right away! We did our research and visited a few places in the area, but LightSource was the most knowledgeable and had the exact mounting style that we were looking for — ¼ inch plexi mount with aluminum back.
JP was very attentive and helped us decide on which photos would look best with this mount, gave us cropping suggestions, adjusted the photos to perfection, and even stacked our photos from horseshoe bend — making them look better than we could have imagined!
We got our pictures within 2 weeks and we honestly can’t stop staring at them. JP had suggested we use the ¼ inch thick plexi — as it would make the photo pop, and he was right. it feels like we are back in Antelope Canyon. The pictures are absolutely perfect — worth every penny!
Thank you to the guys at LightSource, we are your newest loyal customers!

Sam, JP and Cassi, I cannot thank you enough for such a wonderful experience with my canvas printing. They look way better than I could have ever imagined. This is an excellent place to have real high quality canvas prints made.

Absolutely the best — professional, cost-​conscious, fast turnaround, responsive. The output of our recent print exceeded expectations. They really are as good as I could ever hope for and I will send them all of my work in the future.

I’ve worked with LightSource on a per-​project basis for a few years now and they are terrific; super responsive and helpful with questions (I’m an interior designer not a photographer). I’ve primarily worked with Cassi and she’s always service oriented and honest (read: great about managing expectations). The clients that I’ve referred to Cassi and LightSource also say the same thing. I’ve used Blow Up lab and a few other labs in the city but these guys are the best to work with attitude wise. Many thanks for a great experience each and every time I work with you guys, LightSource!

We worked with Lightsource to print several large and small fine art prints for art gallery shows, and for sale on our website. We usually print at home on epson velvet fine art paper, and were reluctant to outsource the printing to a vendor, because we’ve never had much luck with color matching, paper quality, etc. Not the case at Lightsource! Their incredibly knowledgeable staff– JP and Sam specifically– took painstaking time insuring that their prints matched our home-​printed ones almost exactly, with color, quality, and paper. They worked fast, and gave us a very competitive price for the job. We sourced the job around online, and found cheap, low quality-​controlled vendors, but really preferred to stay with a local business, so we could be on-​press with proofs and corrections, etc. LIGHTSOURCE was the best! We will surely use them again in the future, and you should too!

I have a wide experience working with professional labs, not only in the US but also in Europe. I have to say that LightSource had exceed my expectations.
Sam is not only very responsive and kind, but he goes beyond to keep you happy and help you with your business as much as he can. The customer service is excellent and all the deliverables are incredible good.
With them I don’t need to look further, they have all I was looking for in a professional lab.

100 stars for lightsource! 1 million for JP!

In a word, incredible. I keep going back and they keep kicking ass. Sam and his team love and know their art and it shows. Thank you for being there!

My first experience at LightSource…
Super responsive, processed my request in a rush and in timely fashion.
Great looking prints.
Sam and his staff are very friendly, professional and all around great to work with

Sam and his crew finished scanning a very large set of 4×5 chromes on their drum scanner and the results are amazing! Super professional and with great care and expertise, they completed the job on time and the client was thrilled!

First of all, thank you to Unilocal for helping me find LightSource. Second of all: THANK YOU LIGHTSOURCE!
Thank you for helping me bring my San Francisco punk rock photography from the early 1980s to life in 2012. Even the prints that had to be scanned and enlarged from old prints due to my inability to locate the negatives… AMAZING.
Thank you for being so respectful of my work, and for your enthusiasm, care, and skill. Cassi, JP and Sam, you are all very special and talented people. The best.

I’ve been printing both my commercial and fine art work with LightSource for over 3 years and they’ve become the only lab I print with. 1. Knowledgeable, 2. friendly, 3. willing to work with me on pricing, and to top it all off they even 4. bring my print orders across the GG Bridge (I moved from SF to Marin) free of charge!
Sam and staff combine custom boutique service with prices low enough to compete with web-​only businesses (that can’t match LightSource’s hands-​on, eyes-​on service and choice of papers). Try them once and you’ll keep coming back.

Every time I go to LightSource JP has been very friendly and helpful. The last time I had prints, there were very small blemishes, and Sam was generous enough to have it printed and reprinted 3 times to get it right, at no extra charge!
Very knowledgable staff. Not cheap, but you get what you pay for, and what you get is top notch!

Sam Hoffman went above and beyond the call of duty in printing large posters for a big event at our studio (4^th Street Studios) last night. In addition to having a website chock full of excellent tips on how to get the most out of your digital file, LightSource makes exquisite prints and not only printed properly, and mounted properly. He patiently answered all my questions about uploading files and called me to let me know when the upload failed due to my error, not theirs.
LightSource really cares about nurturing artists and supporting the greater community, not just their paying customers.
I’ve worked with a lot of pro labs in my career, and LightSource deserves TEN stars, if Unilocal would only let me!

I have now purchased 2 canvas prints from lightsource. I am not a photographer and this is a very professional place. With that said, Sam and Cassi were very helpful even though I don’t know much about photography. They helped me understand how I could make my photos look their absolute best on canvas. They even gave me a few tips on how I should be taking future photos.
The 2 canvas prints look great in my living room. I think its amazing that a my photos are now art.

Sam and crew at Light Source have a long history of serving the professional photography and printing communities in the San Francisco bay area.
My latest project with them was printing and mounting a 10-​foot long panoramic photograph. The job was exquisite. The service excellent. It was great to have everything done locally.
I recommend them highly.

I found out about this fine art print shop through my photography club. Although located in a hard to find remote area (inside a warehouse, 2^nd floor, walk to the end of the hallway), the service and print quality are excellent. Sam, Brad and JP are very helpful and knowledgeable.