Printed pictures

[12noon]

What do you do about getting your pictures printed ?

Do you print them on your own computer printer. Do you have one of thoses printers that you just put your camera memory card in and print your pictures. Or do you go to a photo shop and have them do the printing for you ?

Are some shops better than others at making the prints for you ? If so why ?

[SensoVision]

What do you do about getting your pictures printed ?

I like this idea, I barely remember that when I was a child my father render photos in a darkroom and it was really fascinating process, process of printing isn't so complicated and fascinated but in the end you can still get your picture on the paper and probably even with better quality than in old times

Do you print them on your own computer printer. Do you have one of thoses printers that you just put your camera memory card in and print your pictures. Or do you go to a photo shop and have them do the printing for you ?

Yes I prefer printing on my own printer, even taking into account that they wouldn't be waterproof and not last as long as those pictures from shop. I prefer this method as like to have full control over printing process and how picture looks. I had a printer with built-in cardreader and monitor to preview and select picture (Epson Stylus Photo R300). I specially invest in buying this printer as my previous one wasn't able to do quality printouts on my old printer.

Are some shops better than others at making the prints for you ? If so why ?

I've seen pictures made by me printed in the shop and I should say that was impressed with a picture, unfortunately there is only one shop which is doing digital printouts at our city so I have no chance to compare with others.(also shops here only print 10x15 size nothing else... so if you need A4 size you need printer).

Also I should say that I only print about 1% of all photos I've made, most of them are filtered and goes to DVD disks for storage, and only some selected ones goes printed for album.

Hope this info help you.

[12noon]

Thanks Denis.
 
I was asking because i still don't own a printer yet and when i did have a printer, the cost of the ink and the cost of the paper would have cost just as much as it would be to go to a photo shop.

Anyway i've just had a look around the internet and found that i can upload photos (i haven't done this yet) and get them to print the photos for me and posted to my door. The cost doesn't look that bad either. I can have T-shirts and cups and things made with my photos on them. Has anyone else tried one of these upload shops ?

[Andy]

To print your own photos at home you need very expensive paper and risk messing up. I prefer the idea of using shops or online services. If they produced inadequeate results they would soon go out of business, I would go with them.

I am only printing out on cheapish semi glossy A4 paper for fun (~5p per sheet from CostCo) and posting pictures to the web. I like to show people my pictures on the laptop screen. I suspect most people with digital cameras do the same kind of thing. With the Cannon it has a really great piece of software called the "Zoom Browser" that makes it easy to show people your pics, zoom in and pan around.

Most color printers will be pretty good these days. My one is a Brother inkjet that has a scanner, copier, network card and fax built in. The prints to paper look good enough to me. It does photo-quality prints but I haven't got the paper to try it.

[Jeanne]

Acutally I always sent my photos via Internet to online shop and after 3 days I get them delivered to my home.I guess one picture 9x13 costs around 0,09  euro cents.But they have many more opitions.
I very rarely print pictures on my printer because ink is rather expensive.
As I know the color of photos printed by ink-printers is fading away after a while..

[12noon]

I think i might try the online option once i get some photos worth printing.
 

[gsulvaney]

For my "everyday" pics for which I want or need a quick hardcopy for posting on my home and office bulletin boards / refrigerator door / etc., I print them from my computer on a Canon PIXMA MP780 4-in-1 color printer (copier, printer, scanner, fax).  It's a fabulous printer!  And when printing photos using the highest quality setting on photo glossy paper, the prints are simply outstanding!  It's easy to use and the on-screen wizard for selecting shots to print and entering printer settings makes printing fast and easy.

For more important shots, e.g. portraits of the kids, etc., we send the pics out (errr, upload them) to our online photo processor of choice: ShutterFly.  We recently had them create a poster-sized print of our two boys which my wife and I shot (see paragraph below) using a Kodak 5 megapixel digital... WOW - even at that size, it's amazing!  Quick service and quality shipping too (the print arrived in pristine shape).

By the way, we used to have our kids' milestone portraits done commercially, e.g. Sears, but we now do them ourselves at home with our digital camera, "fake" set, etc.  Most people think we still have them done commercially - the quality is such that they can't believe we do it ourselves!  Gotta love modern technology!  Saves us a ton of time and money, AND we get to take as many shots as we want, when we want.

Gary Sulvaney

[rosie]

Nooner, I print my own pictures and they come out beautiful. Paper is not nearly as expensive as having them printed professionally. I don't buy the top quality paper but good quality and it is about $12.00 USD for 100 sheets. It's nice to be able top pop out  an 8 by 11 picture that cost hardly nothing to produce! I still have not replaced my printer since it died(after only less than 2 years), but just want to warn you not to buy an HP printer.

[12noon]

Don't think i'm going to buy a printer just yet. If i get any good photos i need printing i will take them down the photo shop for now.
 
Will think about the printer later.

[StephanieD]

I think theres advantages to both. Obviously you've already made your decision but I thought I'd still share my two cents  . The print shops can do a good job, but I feel that with my digital camera picture printer its cheaper. Like someone mentioned its very cheap for 100 pretty good quality photo paper sheets. I guess I'm just super attached to my photo printer