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Turning Halo into ArtOn May 29, 2009, Bungie announced a new service being offered by a third party, with their help: haloscreenshots.com would print any screenshot on Bungie.net for you, on high-quality paper or canvas, and ship you the result. Immediately, the forums erupted with a cacaphony of opinions - both pro and con. "You can print your OWN screenshots, and save a ton of money!" "Those are gorgeous - what a perfect present!" "How come my name isn't inscribed on the screenshots I created?" and on and on. The only way to tell if the service was really worth the money they were charging, though, was to check out the final product. And in the interest of helping you, the Halo enthusiast, make up your OWN mind, we've decided to write up the experience. Four separate images, with four separate treatments, were ordered - and I have to say, the ordering process couldn't be simpler. If you have a particular image in mind for printing, you can simply find it on Bungie.net, then click the 'Buy Print' option shown in the File Actions section of the page. Boom - you're at the HSS website, with your picture in front of you, and you're guided through the process - pick a type (framed/unframed, print/canvas), pick a size, fill in your payment info, you're done. If you DON'T have a particular image in mind, never fear - the folks behind the website (a group that's been dealing with fine art for quite some time) has compiled what they consider to be the Best of the Best - a group of screenshots that on the whole are nothing less than spectacular. The collection has 870 images in it, so you shouldn't feel limited. As the service grows, they'll be adding more groupings for you - best-sellers, for example - which should make it easy to, say, find a great gift for that Halo lover on your Christmas list. The prices of the various products are pretty much in line with similar services; there are plenty of places that will blow up and frame a digital print, on paper or canvas, and a look around shows that you're not paying a premium for their ease of use - in fact, in a lot of cases, you're paying LESS than the other guy. So what happens after you've ordered? Well, that depends a little on where you live. If you're outside the US, you should prepare for a rather steep shipping cost (often considerably higher than the price of the product in the first place). If you're inside the US, though, things are better. Shipping is handled by FedEx ground, and it's pretty fast - an order placed on Monday arrived on Friday morning. The first thing I noticed was the quality of the packaging; they do a nice job of ensuring that your print gets to you undamaged. All four items arrived in pristine condition. The website says that unframed items are shipped rolled in tubes - but (probably because I'd ordered multiple items) mine came wrapped in brown paper, then pressed between a pair of cardboard sheets, and enclosed by a larger box. Framed items came wrapped in protective material, strapped to cardboard with reinforced corners. The printing is fantastic. I'm sure it would be possible to print your own - but I don't have access to printers that do this kind of work, and I CERTAINLY don't have the skills required to do it correctly. The framing/matting is top-notch, as well, with even the back being finished (something I see at higher-end frame shops, but certainly not across the board). An array of images below show off the final products - but don't really do them justice. (It's nearly impossible to take decent pictures of glass-covered images without much better equipment than I have...) All I can really say is, I'm very impressed with the quality of the shipped product. If you're looking to immortalize a moment of special gameplay, or adorn your walls with gorgeously finished Halo artwork, these are your go-to guys. Ease of use, reasonable pricing, and top-quality product add up to an experience that I can easily recommend. Now I just have to find enough wallspace to post them all...
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