Where does everyone develop their pictures?

[MrKickalot]

I was just wondering, where does everyone develop the pictures taken with the digital camera? I'm not looking for expensive professional grade developing, just film quality(like 2 day service at Krogers or Walmart). I have used shutterfly.com and snapfish.com. I like shutterfly, but it has it's drawbacks, no matte finish under 11 x 14 and no panoramics, didn't like snapfish. I know there are others out there and I thought I would ask where is best!

Thanks!

[DonCoon]

I'm doing a lot through Wal-Mart @ $0.27 per 4x6 and soon at Sam's @ $0.20 per print.

Today I noticed our local Walgreens (as opposed to a 20 mile round trip to Walmart) has a Fuji system unlike the one at Wal-Mart and Sams. They charge $0.26 but the output is immediate. The input CRT station is identical to the one at Wal-Mart but the output is a smaller and directly connected device. It's also glossy rather than matt. I didn't have a card or disc with me so I couldn't test it. Hope it's not an inkjet or dye sublimation (sp?) printer but we'll see.

BTW, Walmart has also produced great 4x7s, 5x7s and 8x10s for me.

[tlveik]

Do any of those places do any alterations like color adjustments to the images or do they just print them as they get them?

Tom Veik

[justme_dc]

Costco. They are cheap and relatively fast. I downloaded the profile for their Noritsu Printer. I set up the images as I want them, Do all the color correction myself and give them instructions not to "Auto Correct" or "color correct". The output always matches my soft proofs perfectly. I couldn't get this kind of consistancy from my pro film lab that charged me $2.50 each for hand printed 4x6 prints.

[Vegas Poboy]

Sams Club, .18 cents for a 4x6, The local stores here in Vegas have the new frontier machines.

[DonCoon]

tlveik wrote:
Do any of those places do any alterations like color adjustments to the images or do they just print them as they get them?

Tom Veik

Wal-Mart supposedly doesn't do any adjustments* to digital images. My experience seems to confirm that. The matte paper they use does seem to make the images appear somewhat darker however. I thought this was unique to my local Wal-Mart but I had some printed in Cheyenne, WY during a trip west and they looked the same.

* The one "adjustment" they do make is cropping to print ratio if necessary and losing a few percent of pixels on the edges. I assume the edge issue is to make sure they don't leave a white border so don't have any essential image components within, say, 5% of the edges.