Review of Backdrop Outlets Titanium Cloth

TL;DR; I do not recommend Backdrop Outlet due to printing quality and poor customer service.

I started using the Titanium Cloth backdrops from Backdrop Outlet about a year ago for a holiday photo shoot.  I ordered a light grey snowflake backdrop.  When it arrived the size I ordered was too small so I emailed back to request an exchange.  I didn’t hear anything back for three days (at which point I gave in and called them – I hate calling on the phone for these things), but finally they got the exchange processed and the new backdrop worked great.  It wasn’t 100% wrinkle free (but really, I don’t think any fabric is truly 100% wrinkle free) but it was definitely pretty good wrinkle wise.

Recently I needed another backdrop for The Gift of Golden Years photo series.  I wanted something with warm tones and picked one of the Titanium Old Master fabrics.  It looked a bit cooler than I wanted, but with some tweaking of white balance and added textures, overall it worked out great for the series.

The top is closer to what “auto WB” shot at.  The middle is SOOC after I changed the WB because I wanted more warmth, and the bottom is the final edited photo used in the series.

If you’ve read this far you might be wondering – why do I not recommend them then?  My third order was a bust!  Since it worked so well for my Mr Mo photo series, I decided to buy another one for my next photo series – a light solid grey. Unfortunately, it showed up with lines running through the backdrop and with a blue/pink tint to it.  I thought my white balance settings were all off until I finally bought a grey card to verify – and yep, correctly WB’ed and it shows up as blue/pinkish – not grey!

Here is proof of the white balance issue:

Now if Backdrop Outlet would have quickly responded and fixed the issue, letting me return this one in exchange for an accurate grey color without lines, then I might still be recommending their backdrops.  But it’s been three days and I haven’t heard a peep from them (over email – I haven’t called yet… did I mention I hate having to call?).

So I asked for recommendations for a different company in a photo group and someone sent me to Denny’s.  I quickly ordered up a package of neutral tones of the Poly Cloth when, just a few minutes after my order was placed, a photographer suggested their Freedom Cloth.  I replied to my confirmation asking if the order could be halted because I wanted to take a look at the freedom cloth.  They responded immediately, halted my order, and helped me find the right backdrops to order (which indeed turned out to be the poly cloths – apparently the same fabric as freedom cloths just with a different name for solid colors because wrinkles show up more).  After a 50% off sale due to cyber monday and the price couldn’t be beat – (5) 8 x 10 backdrops for around $250!!  (to give some perspective the one faulty grey backdrop above I purchased for $200 – also after a 50% off sale which seems to be one of those always on sale deals – all of the cloths above I got for 50% off).

Now I have yet to actually get my Denny backdrops so I can’t say for certain yet whether I recommend them… but things are definitely looking up customer service wise!  🙂