Printing your EOS digital photos

[alfred_schleunes]

Now that I am getting into this, what do you do about printing your

digital photos.

Does home printing make sense? Are the pictures comparable and what

about the cost? Ink Jet printer or dye sublimation?

The lab did it all when we had our studio McKenna Lab in Phoenix so

now with my new D300 what do I do now?

I have an Epson Stylus Photo 870 which is an ink hog to say the least.

Used it to print from my P&S Olympus

[PuppyDigs]

I tweak my favs in PS, save on CD and print them at Costco. An 12 x 18 print is only $2.99 and a 8 x 12 is $1.99. They don't adjust so make sure you prep (levels, color, USM) your photos and they'll be exactly as you submit them. If I'm in a rush I print at any shop with a Fuji Digital Frontier machine (more $).

[christopher_bibbs]

I'll second PF's suggestion for Costco if you have one near you. You can't print a 12x18 at home for less money and get prints nearly as good. Get a cheap color management system for your monitor and download the profile for you local shop from Drycreek. You'll break even on the membership and color management after 30 prints or so.

[dogbert]

I print my 4x6's at Ritz for 29c. For cheap prints their quality on digital is pretty good, but seems to vary from shop to shop sometimes. (Results with print film are variable and often poor depending on the operator.)

 

My favourites I tweak in PS and print at home on a $150 HP inkject printer, which will print up to 8x14. The quality is great but the ink gets expensive if you print a lot.

 

Glad you asked this question as it was news to me you could get 12x18s for $2.99 at Costco.

[anthony_m1]

Alfred,<P>I use Adorama's print service. You download their software called printwizard. When your images are ready to print, you just drag those images to their software and follow the directions. You can specify matte or glossy, borders, size, etc. You basically send them a digital file. Pricing is pretty competitive and they do not edit your file. The prints come back exactly as I saved them in PS. The only downside I encounter is the time it takes to get them to my door. <P>I am curious about mpix.com. They seem to get a lot of high praise on these boards.

[anthony_m1]

Here are the links if you want to check them out:<P>

<a href="http://www.mpix.com/">mpix</a> and

 

<a href="http://www.adoramapix.com/?sid=10961256372705183">Adorama</a>

[alfred_schleunes]

Was there life on earth before Costco?

I'm not sure how we survived.

My wife used them all the time with her P&S Nikon.

Her workplace is about a ptch shot from Costco so now with her new EOS outfit, sounds like the way to go

[witolda_maruszewska]

For one-offs in A4 and A5 size, I print on Ilford Classic Pearl paper with a Canon S900 inkjet.

 

Otherwise, for other sizes up to 30x20, for large volume prints and for customers (I am a motorsport freelance) I use Photobox (www.photobox.co.uk) as I've found it to be the best in terms of output and value here in the UK. All these prints are printed by a Frontier on Fuji Crystal Archive paper.

[jespdj]

If you're looking at the cost, printing at home is (almost) always more expensive than using a printing service.

 

In my opinion, the main advantage of printing at home is that you have complete control over the process.

[christopher_bibbs]

Geoff,

 

Costco does 4x6 prints for $0.19 a piece. The trick to getting consitent results, though, is to give them a CD and have them load it onto the machine directly and turn off all the automatic adjustments. The kiosks often have built in routines to second guess your images.

[bob_bell]

My advice is to crop your images to the size printing otherwise something will get chopped off.

 

About a year ago, myself and a few friends were on AIM trying to figure a way to print 4x6 and 8x10 from home cheaper than going to those big box places and we could never get close. The only advantage might be in 13x19 or bigger but you need to decide. Remember with photo printing you need to buy the printer, the chrome ink, the paper. So maybe you can find a deal, but there are so many easy ways to print now as long as you prep right.

[dogbert]

Cost and control are not the only issues. Time is a factor too.

The other advantage of home printing is not having to go somewhere

to drop of your image files and pick up your prints later on. I print enough 4x6s to make it worthwhile to visit a Ritz. I do few enough enlargements for it to be convenient to do this at home.

 

If you have a broadband internet connection already, then online might be a better way to go.

 

Christopher, thanks for you answer but my biggest problem with Ritz (and every other retail place) is really with their prints from colour negative. These tend to be all over the shop.

[w_t1]

interesting about Costco, I've never considered getting digital printed there, will bring a CD the next time I'm there buying $300 worth of diapers, diaper wipes, pasta and rice...

 

i just checked their website, go to photo center, when you enter it gives you an option of "amateur" or "professional" photographer, with printer profiles, etc. Says you can upload and pick them up in store next day

 

tom in seattle (i shop at the original costco, by the way...)

[paul -]

All of the Costco references in various threads have always bugged me, as there are no Costcos anywhere near my area. That changes this week. They quietly snuck into town, and are opening on Thursday.<p>I <i>really</i> look forward to a $3 12x18 print. My genuine Epson inks and papers, which have been my "affordable" alternative, probably cost twice that.

[beauh44]

Hi Alfred, I've been very impressed by Mpix.com. You just copy your images up to their server, crop them online according to the paper size you like, and in a few days the prints show up at your door. Many times it's actually cheaper to do it this way. Trust me - your Epson 870 sips ink compared to the HP 7960. Good luck!

[beauh44]

PS - Maybe these great Costco and other online print service prices just might bring the cost of inkjet consumables down. It's highway robbery I tell ya! ;-)

[www.philwinterphotography.]

I upload images to dotphoto.com or digiprintstore.com, depending on who has the best prices at the time. An 11x14 from digiprintstore is $6.00, which isn't as good as Costco, so I'll have to check them out.

Anyway, my digiprintstore prints are printed locally and I get them in 3 days. For me, it's not worth the hassle and cost of printing myself.

 

Phil

[brent andersen]

I really like Mpix. I also use the Epson R800, but like many others here I'm finding that it is cheaper and even easier to just send digital files to Mpix. When my Epson is working it is really very good, but it gives me color problems from time to time. I use a calibrated monitor and a custom profile for the Epson and the Mpix colors are very, very close.

[tom.s]

I dont suppose you have Booths Chemists over in the States,they do a good Fuji service where you can bring card or CD for several sizes,4x6,5x7 and 7x9 farly cheap.The more you want printed the cheaper it gets,I printed 134 snaps at 5x7 for a little over 20 euro,which works out at 15c per print.Bigger that 7x9 goes into the 2-3 euro range per print.Very good quality too.

[theoldmoose]

The Costco online photo center is only available in about five select states (not in Michigan, yet). Also, the nearest Costco to me is about 30 miles away, BUT, it happens to be on my way to work, which is 37.5 miles away 8-).

 

I find that Drycreek Photo (http://www.drycreekphoto.com) has a ton of information about how to get photos done at Costco, so it looks like even the relatively uninitiated (like me) can expect to get decent results.

 

I'd like to try it out, for some larger prints (13 x 19, say) than I can handle on my home machine, which is the typical HP inkjet, with an 8 1/2 x 11 max page size.

 

I've never bothered with a Costco membership before, mainly because they weren't in my neighborhood, and I found that in spite of what appears to be good deals on various items, they have a rather small selection of stuff. I've been in a couple of times on lunchtime forays as a guest with someone from work, and was generally unimpressed with the selection. I do recall, though, thinking that they had what looked like a rather large photo printing area, dominated by an impressive looking machine that must have been one of those Noritsu printers.