Photo printing services

[lasercomp]

Hi, does anyone know of any photo printing establishments whereas I can send my files to them via e-mail or their websites and they mail me the printed photo. I know of shutterfly but for some reason I wasnt happy with the prints. I have an Epson Photo 890 but as much as I tried, I cant replicate the image I see on my monitor to the printed photo. I am hoping if I edit my pic in Photoshop and then save it and then send to them, I can get a better print. So, if anyone has had good experiences with any good photo printing place, pelase let me know. Thanks

[dgoodfellow]

www.futurephoto.com

It is in canada, and they have done a great job with my prints. The prices are very good, and for you americans with a dollar worth nearly twice ours the prints would probably seam almost free. :-) Way cheaper than any of the US labs I've seen.

You get to store your images up on there server for online gallery viewing by your friends too.

[getg3]

I have tried Walmart. The result is pretty good, much better than Costco. If there is a Walmart near where you live, you can pick up your prints there and save the mailing cost. Another good thing is, once you upload your picture you can crop it the way you like by moving around the template.

[PacAce]

Yup, I use Walmart, too. Out of the about ten or eleven 8x10 prints I had made on 3 separate occassions, I've only had to return one to them because they "over developed" the print (don't know how they managed that! ) I've also had a couple of 4x6 prints made too. Prices are very reasonable compared to the other online services and labs I've see. Only downside is that 8x10 is the largest print you can have made :(

[Dana]

I've used www.ofoto.com a lot (now owned by Kodak) and have always had good results and quick service.

Dana

[PFlor]

I second that for Futurephoto. I don't know about the WalMarts in the US but the prints from the Walmarts in Canada (Toronto to be specific) are not very good.

[ThomasL]

I tried ofoto, shutterfly and photoaccess, and liked photoaccess the best because of their quality and the ability to do non-cropped 6" prints.

[ptejada]

I use Adorama.com. Very good prices (especially on enlargements), great software for uploading and unlike most places allows for both glossy and matte and with or without borders.

[DigPic]

I was surprised that WalMart did such a nice job.

[WallyBeavis]

I did several prints (4x6s, 5x7s, 8x10s) from the originals (no post-processing) at walmart and they came out okay, just a little darker than I expected. So I decided to spring for the $35 Sams Club member ship so I could get .20 prints. THAT was a debacle! My girlfriend did the post processing work on one set of the prints and I did minor cropping and image adjustments to another set.

We went to Sams to see if the $35 was really worth it, boy were we surprised to see the crap they spit out. Out of the 40+ pictures I submitted, only about 10 were usable. Out of the 40+ that she submitted (the processed pics) about 35-38 were usable. They still managed to screw up her pics!!!

Perfectly centered subjects had their feet, arms, elbows, heads cut off, subjects were enlarged then printed off center, it was ridiculous.

When taking it to a printing shop we always leave a little room on the photograph so the tech can "feel" useful. It also gives them a little room for error. I guess this is something I'll have to stop doing when using Sams.

In all fairness to Sams however, it was a Saturday - so I assume it must have been a busy day for the 1 hour guys. Which must have been why they were so rude to us, when we inquired why one of our pictures were still displayed on one of their monitors even after we had the prints in our hands. Also, this is only MY expirence at ONE Sams club, from what I've heard they're supposed to be fairly decent. I intended to get some baseball prints done at another Sams closer to my home next week (on a weekday:) ) and I'll let you guys know how it turns out.



cheers,
Wally

[Ebes]

I am a brand new G3 owner and have had a great time taking pics of my baby girl. She's about 19 months old... I'd love to share them with you all if I can figure out how to do it, I will do so soon.

I have not done any professional printing yet but came across this site also... it MAY be worth looking into?

http://www.photoaccess.com/index.jsp

Thanks!

Aa

[AndyWaits]

Hello All!

This is my first post to any board here. I've been a photographer of sorts for about 25 years, but just started digital photography this Spring. Borrowed a friend's Kodak DX4330 for a couple of months until I bought my G3 about a week ago.

NOW ABOUT PRINTING:
I bought a SanDisk 256 CF card at Best Buy, and it came with a free reader. It's really useful because it makes the card another drive on my computer, so I can download shots to the computer, manipulate them in PSP 7, then save 'em to the CF... for easy transport and printing.

Went to WalMart Friday to try printing my digital shots for the first time. They have a Kodak kiosk so I didn't have to leave my disk with them. With all the editing already done, it went smooth! And the pictures were of stunning quality! I was amazed that the paper captured the full color and subtleties in my shots. I printed 22 4x6 shots, and was only dissatisfied with one. The prints were 49 cents each.

Later today I plan to go back and try my first G3 print on the Kodak kiosk... an 8x10. That's a little more expensive... $4.50 I think. There's also another brand kiosk there, but I don't recall the brand. It's cheaper. I'll probably try it soon and report on the quality.

+ Andy

[WallyBeavis]

Hi Andy,
I've been using walmart for my prints for sometime now. I tried the Kodak(Yellow) machine and the Alladin(White Fujitsu?) kiosk. I've been satisfied with the Alladin kiosk prints, I did realize afte some test prints that minor post processing was needed before using tht machine. I use it for all my 4x6 prints, and when they come out too dark or over exposed I just return them, go home adjust it and re-print it.

A word of caution concerning using your CF card at these machines. I've never been able to establish what would happen if one of these machines destroyed my expensive CF cards. The walmart techs say the manufacturer is responsible, however I doubt that the manufacturer has a policy for something like that. I burn my images to a cheap CD-R ($0.05) rather than risk my CF.

Something else to watch out for, the kodak machine only recognizes CDs burned in the Kodak IMage CD method. So if you want to use a CD in the Kodak machine

1. All images must be jpeg (.jpg)
2. All images must be in a sub-directory called "PICTURES"
3. No data can be stored in the "PICTURES" sub-dir
4. CDs must be burned in CDROM or CDROM XA
5. I'm not sure if multisession CDs will work in a kodak machine
6. CD must be burned in ISO 9660 format


Just an FYI :)

[AndyWaits]

Thanks for the tips Wally!

From now on, I'll just use my 32 meg CF that came with my G3 to transfer pixels-fit-for-printing to my friendly neighborhood WalMart! That ought to be safer than risking the 256.

But if worst came to worst, I've always found WalMart to be most accommodating... if you talk to management personnel. It seems they would rather lose $80-ish on a new CF (which they write-off) than risk upsetting a valued customer in his prime acquisition years... who has access to Target and K-Mart!

+ Andy