Photo printing suggestions?

I have had the most terrible past few weeks trying to get pictures printed off at the local Walmart. I first printed my son's Christmas pictures and they looked really good, my wife and I picked out the picture we wanted to send in the Christmas cards, so back to Walmart I go to get these printed off and sent out in the mail...but when I got there the girl at the photolab said they were out of the chemical needed to print the pictures and would have it in a week.
I emailed the picture into a Walmart on the other side of the country because a friend of ours who was travelling back two days later and could pick them up there and deliver the pictures to me. But when she arrived with the pictures they were extremely dark and were totally no good. The first pictures I had done here were a decent lighting.
So I waited for my local Walmrt to get the chemical in...
Last night I went back to the Walmart photolab and she explained to me that they got their chemical but now they are out of photo paper and had to fly some in the next morning...if they had no chemical to print photos...how the hell did they run out of photo paper???
FINALLY!! tonight I picked up my pictures!!! BUT...half of them had a really bright lime green tint to them and the other half were good. and the only green in the picture was the dark forest green color to the Christmas tree.... F@%king Walmart!!!

I already know what some of you may say...why are you going to Walmart to print photos? Because I live in the ******* of the world and there is no other place to print photos.

So I guess my next question is...if I want to print my own photos, what would you recomend buying for a photo printer?
I have seen Canon photo printers in stores, but never used them before...are they any good?

WHAT PRINTER??

Printing at home can be very rewarding and lots of fun. Canon's PIXMA printers do a very fine job printing images. You will need to ask yourself a few questions before deciding on a printer such as what size will the largest you want to print and how much are you willing to spend. Replacement ink and photo paper can get quite $$$.

Once you do have your printer you will start to fool around with it trying to make the prints just a little bit better and while doing so you'll notice that what you print are darker than what you see on your screen and some have a slight color cast. The more you try to make them perfect the more hair you'll loose. Then you will want to get your monitor calibrated so off to buy a Huey, Monkey or Spider! Ok now you're close but they are not quite the way you want them so now what? Ahh, custom ICC profiles, rendering intent, color space (sRGB, aRGB or PRO PHOTO...) and what bit depth is best? Or it can be rather simple buy shooting good .jpeg and print via Canon's pic bridge and you'll get mostly usable prints of the quality you normally see from the average econo lab. But we all know it doesn't stop there!

Jump in and get your feet wet, you'll learn allot and in the end you will make prints you can be very proud of.

MrAl wrote in post #11462483
Printing at home can be very rewarding and lots of fun. Canon's PIXMA printers do a very fine job printing images. You will need to ask yourself a few questions before deciding on a printer such as what size will the largest you want to print and how much are you willing to spend. Replacement ink and photo paper can get quite $$$.

Once you do have your printer you will start to fool around with it trying to make the prints just a little bit better and while doing so you'll notice that what you print are darker than what you see on your screen and some have a slight color cast. The more you try to make them perfect the more hair you'll loose. Then you will want to get your monitor calibrated so off to buy a Huey, Monkey or Spider! Ok now you're close but they are not quite the way you want them so now what? Ahh, custom ICC profiles, rendering intent, color space (sRGB, aRGB or PRO PHOTO...) and what bit depth is best? Or it can be rather simple buy shooting good .jpeg and print via Canon's pic bridge and you'll get mostly usable prints of the quality you normally see from the average econo lab. But we all know it doesn't stop there!

Jump in and get your feet wet, you'll learn allot and in the end you will make prints you can be very proud of.

A very realistic and comprehensive description.

Although, for me, it didn't take long to surpass the inconsistent output of my local labs.

As MrAl said, "You will need to ask yourself a few questions before deciding on a printer such as what size will the largest you want to print and how much are you willing to spend. Replacement ink and photo paper can get quite $$$."

Let me add that I've had what may be Canon's bottom-of-the-line printer ($30) and also their Pro9000MkII. They both make excellent prints. The ink cost of the $30 printer was astronomical because it had only 2 cartridges: black and color. (The color cartridge has 3 colors but as soon as one color is depleted you have to buy a new cartridge.) The Pro9000MkII is a lot more pricey but it has 8 ink cartridges so they last longer and it costs a lot less to replace one cartridge. Whatever printer you decide to get, get one with multiple color ink cartridges.