Do you print your photos at home do you take them elsewhere ?

I use a Canon iP6000d, and it does fine for me. Canon's latest line has 1 picoliter droplets (last year's line had 2 picoliter droplets).

I've given up printing my own - at least for now. I either go to CostCo or submit files to a professional printing service.

I go to Sam's Club. At $0.18 per print, you can't really beat that with the price of photo ink cartridges.

I print all my own pictures at home. First, I can maintain quality but mostly it's because I never print a bunch of 4x6 etc. What I do is load a sheet of 13x19 into my printer and then use QImage to print multiple pictures in multiple sizes. QImage then arranges and lays them out on the 13x19 paper. This makes it easy to print pics for the wifes scapebooks.

I used to print everything at home, including Super B size, but I'm just starting now to get them printed at pro labs using a proper photographic process. I'll be selling my A3 printer soon and look forward to not having the running costs and to having nicer prints (and having my desk space back!). The cost per print is a bit more than if I were just paying for ink and paper at home, but not that much more. When you take into consideration the cost of the printer and the colour profiling, the pro lab is better value and a lot less hassle.

For trips away where I've got a nice collection of photos, I'll use Shutterfly or MyPublisher to make a proper book. I hate shifting through a pile of prints, but leafing through a book is much more satisfactory!

Another Sams club user here. Great pictures, just upload them and within an hour I can drive the minutes or catch them on the way home from work and be done.

The savings in a printer/paper/ink is, I'm sure great

I gave up on printing at home a while ago. Its just easier for me to outsource it.

Re: Do you print your photos at home do you take them elsewhere ?

The ink mfgs have this figured out. You have to print a lot or else your print heads dry out. So you buy ink if you print a lot and you have to buy new catridges if the head drys out. either way, you lose.

Re: Do you print your photos at home do you take them elsewhere ?

100% Costco

Re: Do you print your photos at home do you take them elsewhere ?

I use Walgreens.com (based on a recommendation by Consumer Reports). I could print at home, but when you need 100+ photos in a jiffy, I turn to the professionals (cheaper too).

Re: Do you print your photos at home do you take them elsewhere ?

I have been printing at home for 4x6 photos, but have sent out a couple of enlargements, since my printer will only print up to 8.5x11. I recently purchased a Canon Rebel XT dSLR, though, so I may start sending out those "keeper" photos from trips, etc. Right now, as I experiment with the new camera, it is still more convenient to print at home, since I want to be able to review some test shots immediately.

Re: Do you print your photos at home do you take them elsewhere ?

I also use Walgreens.com. I upload the files and can pick up my prints in about an hour at the Walgreens that is just about 6 blocks away I can't print this at home at the price of Walgreens and I have been impressed with their quality.

Re: Do you print your photos at home do you take them elsewhere ?

My wife and I are about 50/50 home-print and "pro"-print. Something we've recently discovered is Mpix. For certain pictures we use the metallic paper printing service. If you've never tried it, I highly recommend it. It's a little more expensive, but for certain pictures it's definitely worth it. The metallic prints really come out great.

Re: Do you print your photos at home do you take them elsewhere ?

Part Ofoto, part new Selphy photo printer we bought to use with my Canon A620.

Re: Do you print your photos at home do you take them elsewhere ?

I like my Canon prints at home, but I've seen prints from Walmart's Kodak center and they look wonderful. The only drawback is you're limited with versatility. I think they do 4x6's and that's it. If you don't post process them/crop them if you want, you have what you have.

The only other thing is I think they really, REALLY increase saturation. I'm not so sure that's a bad thing, because to the casual user the pictures really POP and it looks marvelous, but I've seen prints that don't look quite natural because of a lot of seeming color enhancement.

Regardless, it's worth the price and I was impressed with the photos in general. I just sold my 2mp Canon A40 to a co-worker. He took some shots of he and his buddy out fishing in the boat and had them done at Walmart. He showed me the results and I was impressed, so I'm sure he's more than happy.

In the end I enjoy doing them at home for three reasons. I like the results, I like the versatility and I like getting them printed when I was them printed (right away, if I want, or at midnight, if I can't sleep).

Re: Do you print your photos at home do you take them elsewhere ?

I have a couple of hundred pix to print, so uploading is out of the question. I am limited to B&M or online services which accept disks by regular mail. Almost exclusively 4 x 6, glossy prints.

1- Is the quality consistent between stores of the same name? Is a Walgreens a Walgreens a Walgreens?

2- Has anyone compared the quality of prints between stores? I guess I could do a test run otherwise myself, take a sample of pictures to Walmart, Walgreens and a couple of others to see which comes out best. But is whatever difference might exist between their processes worth the time and expense of a trial run?

4- I am guessing it is best to send the full resolution files?

3- Are the internet services better? Which ones?

Thanks.

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H

Re: Do you print your photos at home do you take them elsewhere ?

On a somewhat related note, I have a Pentax Optio and a Panasonic Lumix camera. In all this time, I have never been able to figure out how to make the date print on the photo from either camera, whether I take it to Costco, WalMart, etc. or print it at home. I have the date set correctly, and I go into the camera settings to select DPOF data for the photos. It has never printed a date for me. Is there a step I'm missing, or more to it? If I do it correctly, would I see the date show up when viewing the photos on the computer?

My last few pictures, I had to play with the Paint program to individually add the dates on the corners of each picture. It took a long time for me to figure out placement, font size, etc.

Re: Do you print your photos at home do you take them elsewhere ?

*Gotta subscribe to a photography forum. Too dang slow in here*

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H

Re: Do you print your photos at home do you take them elsewhere ?

A photo forum might be a good idea, but sometimes the ego tripping is insane in those places. That's why I like it here - nice and quiet .

1- Is the quality consistent between stores of the same name? Is a Walgreens a Walgreens a Walgreens?

IME consistency is usually the main issue in any chain (i.e. the person operating the machine). I think it's all rather automated, but when there's a problematic image it's handy to have a technician who knows what's what. But the best thing is to just try a place.

2- Has anyone compared the quality of prints between stores? I guess I could do a test run otherwise myself, take a sample of pictures to Walmart, Walgreens and a couple of others to see which comes out best. But is whatever difference might exist between their processes worth the time and expense of a trial run?

I've used several different places - Costco, an online service catering to professionals, Kodak/Ofoto, etc. I finally gave up on Costco because of poor consistency. I took some to a regional "one stop shop" chain out of convenience and was very pleased. More expensive than Costco but saves me a drive. So yes, there can be great differences between places, so it's worth it to test them out. This was true even in the film days.

4- I am guessing it is best to send the full resolution files?

You'll have differing opinions here. Most of the chains will only take JPEGs, so if you do any post processing (which you should always do in lossless) you won't be giving the place "full res" anyway. Personally I follow the export requirements of the online service I've used (WHCC) - 300 ppi, Level 10 JPG. I know some people have balked at this, but I've been pleased with the results.

3- Are the internet services better? Which ones?

I can't say I've found an internet service I've been entirely happy with. WHCC is the closest, but there's more of a process with them to get set up. Not really a place for the casual shooter. So currently I'm just going with the local chain for the everyday kind of stuff.

Re: Do you print your photos at home do you take them elsewhere ?

I have not tried any of the local chains for prints, since I've been printing my own 4x6 photos. However, I have used a couple of online places for enlargements. Ofoto was pretty decent -- although there was a cropping error on a 16x20 enlargement I had done recently, but I'm not certain if it was their mistake or mine.

I've heard good things about mpix.com, and may try them next.


I know what you mean. I lurk at a few sites to do research on equipment, but I don't have the courage to post. Some of the members at those sites can be brutal.

Re: Do you print your photos at home do you take them elsewhere ?

"1- Is the quality consistent between stores of the same name? Is a Walgreens a Walgreens a Walgreens?"

I work for Walgreens. We literally have windows based pc's plugged into printers. Granted, we use Multi thousand dollar Kodak color thermal printers, or most of the stores do. The company started getting into the Digital print thing about 3 years ago with all Fuji equipment but had serious reliability issues. We then switched to the same Kodak setups that Walmart uses and while the different in print quality is negligible the ease of use and reliability is vastly improved. We usually have a piece of hardware fail about once a month per store. Still better than the Fuji equipment which would erase peoples photos and lose orders everytime the printer ran out of paper.

Re: Do you print your photos at home do you take them elsewhere ?

Cool! An insider! I was curious why WHCC switched to Kodak from Fuji and perhaps this is why.

Re: Do you print your photos at home do you take them elsewhere ?

Thanks Cameron (and others). I will running a few test prints today at Sam's Club. We will see that goes.

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H

Re: Do you print your photos at home do you take them elsewhere ?

Matte or Glossy? :b

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H

Re: Do you print your photos at home do you take them elsewhere ?

I tend to prefer glossy.

Re: Do you print your photos at home do you take them elsewhere ?

I prefer glossy, also -- especially for smaller prints.

Re: Do you print your photos at home do you take them elsewhere ?

I also only have my stuff printed on glossy. IMO, matte finishes makes the print more muted.

Re: Do you print your photos at home do you take them elsewhere ?

I've yet to print glossy from Sam's Club (it takes a day or two), but I've been stunned by the quality of the matte prints I made there, espcially compared to the local Walmart (not as much pop) and Walgreens (hideous green tint).

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H