Crimson

Crimson is a professional photo lab and digital print shop in Hägersten, Stockholm, founded in 1971, that prints photographs, fine art prints, framed and mounted pictures, direct prints on board, canvases and photobooks. Alongside its consumer lab, it runs a print on demand dropshipping service for photographers and creators who sell their own photo art: the seller takes the order, and Crimson prints the piece and ships it to the buyer as if it came from the seller. The whole operation, production included, sits in one building in Hägersten, and its pages describe shipping within Sweden.

What the lab produces

Crimson's range is wide. On paper it offers small-format prints, photo posters and fine art prints, with a paper list that includes Hahnemühle Fine Art Studio Enhanced, Studio Lustre, Hemp, Photo Rag, Baryta, watercolor paper and canvas, plus Canson Arches, Platine Fibre Rag, PhotoGloss Premium RC and PhotoSatin Premium RC, as well as metallic and ultramatt photo papers and backlit prints. The dropship page says all its true photo papers come from Fuji: the standard matte and gloss paper is Fujicolor Crystal Archive Supreme HD up to 30×45 cm, and Fujicolor Crystal Archive Digital Paper Type DPII above that size and for free formats. The company calls its paper range the largest in Scandinavia.

Framing and mounting come from its own frame workshop and mounting studio. Frames are sold as named styles (Oslo, Stockholm, Amsterdam, Berlin, Paris, Milano and a London shadowbox), and mounting options include foam board, card, plexiglass, matte plexiglass, aluminum, Forex, Dibond and glass. Canvases are offered too.

Direct print is a separate line. The homepage explains it as a UV printing technique that puts photos onto almost any board material, with inks that adhere well and resist weather. Standard materials include Swedboard, plywood, plexiglass, aluminum, Dibond, Forex, MDF, glass and sign plastic, and Crimson also takes manual orders on a customer's own material. Direct prints go up to 200×300 cm or fully custom sizes. Sublimation printing on metal is listed as well.

The rest of the catalog is consumer photo products: photobooks in A5, A4, 20×20 cm and 28×28 cm with several themes, photo cards, business cards and postcards, a range of photo calendars, and newer "creative products" such as photo posters with text and photo collages from 30×30 to 50×70 cm, photo magnets, 10×13 cm retro prints with a white border, and photo strips. The lab also scans negatives, slides, prints and artwork and develops analog film.

What it costs

Crimson prints its starting prices on the homepage. Small-format prints (up to 24x30 cm) start at 3.00 kr, photo posters (up to 70x100 cm) from 63.00 kr, photo collages from 83.00 kr, photo magnets from 219.00 kr, Hahnemühle Fine Art Studio Enhanced prints from 181.00 kr, a self-designed photobook from 252.00 kr, the Oslo frame from 476.00 kr and the Stockholm frame from 717.00 kr. The homepage adds that its fixed-format print ordering alone offers 35 sizes on different papers, and that there is no minimum quantity or minimum order value.

For dropshipping, the FAQ is direct: "De priser som gäller är våra ordinarie listpriser som finns på hemsidan och i vår e-handel" (the prices that apply are the ordinary list prices on the website and in the web shop), and "Vi tar inte ut några extra avgifter för print on-demand" (no extra fees for print on demand). The margin a photographer adds for the end customer is entirely up to them.

How dropshipping works

Crimson offers two routes, sized by volume.

Smaller volume, by alternative address. The seller logs in or creates a Crimson account in their own or their company's name, builds the product in one of the lab's order tools (Poster or Galleri, for example), uploads the image and picks format and options, then pays with Klarna or Svea and enters the end customer's address as an alternative delivery address. The dropship page says the packing slip carries no price information and shows the seller's name as the sender.

Larger volume, by REST API. The seller first sends a request to sell through Crimson print on demand, ideally with a full description of the e-commerce solution they use and how their order flow works. Once approved, they get a unique API key. The seller runs their own shop, from cart to checkout and payment, and sends orders to Crimson's backend over the REST API; the API gives access to the whole range of photo products, sizes and frames, so the seller can build their own catalog from it. Documentation is published in two forms, Redocs and API Docs. When an end customer orders, the order is created automatically and passed to Crimson for production and delivery. For integrated sellers, Crimson sends a monthly collective invoice for all orders placed through the service.

In both cases the delivery is branded to the seller: "Ingen information om Crimson syns på produkten eller förpackningen" (no information about Crimson appears on the product or packaging). Crimson does not handle communication with the end customer; that stays with the seller.

Shipping and turnaround

The homepage says that, thanks to an automated workflow, "skickas de flesta ordrarna inom 1-2 arbetsdagar" (most orders ship within 1-2 working days), and that the lab ships to all of Sweden. The dropship FAQ lists shipping within Sweden by PostNord, first-class letter mail and MyPack. Every order ships with a tracking number, and the FAQ describes packaging chosen by product type and size to protect the artwork in transit. Customers in Stockholm can also collect orders at the lab or at two partner shops, Kameradoktorn and Gunnar Olssons Foto.

Quality and environment

Crimson says it uses the same ICC standard across all its image production, with daily calibration, and offers free test prints so a customer can compare their monitor with the chosen paper. The homepage claims Crimson is "det enda fotolabbet i Sverige som följer den strängaste miljölagstiftningen" (the only photo lab in Sweden that follows the strictest environmental legislation), which it says means its own treatment plant, special chemical handling and producer responsibility for packaging and recycling, and that no chemicals from development or digital printing go into the drains. These are the company's own claims.

Support

Customer service is run by the lab's own staff, "inget callcenter," as the homepage puts it. Opening hours are Monday to Thursday 09:00-18:00 and Friday 09:00-17:00, closed on weekends, and there is a showroom in Fruängen, Stockholm. The site and its dropship pages are in Swedish.

Who it suits

Crimson fits Swedish photographers and artists who sell prints through their own website and want a lab-grade partner: a very wide paper list, in-house framing and mounting, big direct prints, published list prices and no dropship surcharge. The alternative-address route works for occasional sales with no technical setup, and the REST API suits a seller with enough volume to automate. It suits less a seller whose buyers are mostly outside Sweden, because the pages describe shipping within Sweden only, and anyone who needs a ready-made app for a hosted store platform, since the integration is a custom API build.