How do you make 50 prints for clients/friends?

[sc21]

Here's a little dilemma. Just upgraded from an old EOS-1 to a 10D,

and it's working great. I get hired sometimes to do portraits of

children and pets, and the other morning went to a friend's farm and

photographed her new foal in various settings. Took over a hundred

pictures (love this digital world) and edited them down to about

fifty quality shots.

 

I cropped them in Elements to 4x6 at 300 dpi, and kept copies of the

three best at high resolution for 8x10s.

 

This must sound foolish, but what do I do with them now?

 

I used to just take prints into Walmart (Brunswick, Maine), and they

gave the best prints I've found in the area, but still, I'd sometimes

get frustrated in not having total control over the brightness,

color, cropping, and so on.

 

Now I have all that control, and I got the edited pictures on my

computer, but do I take them in to Walmart for digital prints (this

store isn't listed on Pop Photo's ICC profile page), or simply hand

the files to my friend on a CD?

 

My printer is an old HP Deskjet 712C, and I'm looking to upgrade to

an Epson, but even if you have a good printer, how cost and time

efficient is it to print up 50 4x6's?

 

Also, what of when I'm hired to do the same work for someone else?

Do you give them a proof sheet and ask how many prints of what sizes,

and print them yourself, or give them a CD and let them print the

shots where they will?

 

I love shooting and post-producing digital, but I'm stumbling on this

one, so any ideas would be of great help.

[p._neil_ralley]

For work which you are not getting paid for why not upload the files to one of the online print services like Shutterbug and let people order their own prints at fairly reasonable prices?

[root]

I charged the members of my daughter's pom squad a nominal

fee for CDs. I included uploadable jpegs, printable tifs, and a

powerpoint presentation which they had seen at the year end

banquet.

[michael_griffis]

Walmart might still be a good alternative. Visit

 

http://www.drycreekphoto.com/

 

for information on preparing your digital work to print on Walmart's equipment.

[eschrad]

I second the suggestion of uploading them to an online photo service and allowing

people to order (and pay for!) their own prints. Ofoto.com (Kodak), Shutterfly.com,

and Snapfish.com are the big ones. Printroom.com is also another good option for

creating a site where people can come and order prints (without you having to give

them your login to get to the photos in your albums). If you expect to to do this kind

of thing often, Printroom may be your best bet.

[Ken Katz]

Try Adorama's digital printing service (see PN's homepage). Decent quality on Kodak Royal paper and good service.

[emaxxman]

Walmart wouldn't have a standard profile for printing out on their digital printers because not all Walmarts have that service available. What you need to do is determine the type of machine that your Walmart is using and then find the appropriate profile for that machine. The service people can help you with this.

 

I'll have to go along with the online printing service recommendation though. Unless this is family that you can see all at once, it's much easier to have each person/family order what they want and handle the cost and shipping logistics themselves.

[jorge]

I managed to print 36 4x6 photos (previously scanned from a roll) in one Sunday morning. 4x6's take about 2 minutes on my 2200 after I click on [Print] and they used to go under 4 minutes on my 1270, including page setup. The Photoshop pre-print prep can be anything from less than one minute per image if you are consistent with your exposure and automate adjustments by means of a recorded action.

 

If you are getting paid for photography then it's a must to get yourself a decent printer. 1270's are routinely sold through ebay for less than $200 some with extra ink. If you are positive that you won't need prints larger than letter size, then some of the new photo printers by Epson are very reasonably priced; still, I would go looking for a used 1270 or 1280, definitely the printer that output the most beautiful prints on glossy paper. If you want matte prints, save for a 2200.

 

A pro friend recently printed nearly 300 photo packages from a prom, shot with a Nikon D100 on an Epson 2200, in three work days.

 

I hope this helps with the decisions.

[sc21]

Thanks for all the input. I had checked out Dry Creek, and printed up their information just before posting, but haven't dug through it all yet. Now I just gotta give Shutterfly a try, get over to Walmart with some test prints, and get myself a good printer (looking at the Epson 960 since I think I'd get lost in the 2200's color management).

 

BTW, I hadn't even posted my question for 6 minutes before I got my first reply. I didn't get this kind of support on another forum, and since this site in itself is an endless source of information, opinions, attitude, art, and hard-earned experience, I'll be sticking around for a while.

 

See you on the boards,

 

Steve

[angel_cuevas]

Why not try the new Adorama service listed on the home page of photo.net? I tried it already and was very happy with the results. You can even download their profiles for the printer.

[sk_arts]

Steven - In Camden there is a service provider called High Resolution Inc. I

used them, or I think it was them, when i was in college. Regular prices were

200$ for a a 34x40" sheet of Somerset watercolor at the time, you can fit as

many images on the sheet as you can, they may request that you prepair the

images on a 34x40" canvas with 2x2 pixel dots in each corner as a tick-mark

where to cut.

 

Rockport Blueprint, also in Camden, had large format printers, and their

quality may have improved over the years.

 

IRIS prints are AMAZING and I would HIGHLY recomend getting into it! They

are very sharp with dense pure blacks, but do not have a photographic feel.

They do not have an inkjet look or any inkjet trademarks, though they are

basicly inkjet printers.

 

I love them so much, I think of them as the Platinum of color, only a lot

cheaper! All of John Paul Caponigro's (son of Paul Caponigro) color prints

are made with an IRIS. They are also archival with lots of third-party research

to back this claim up.

 

They ARE water soluable, and this may be a deciding factor if you go with

IRIS. Spray fix may help to some degree, but it is best to keep IRIS prints

behind glass or in an album, One raindrop will ruin an IRIS print entirely.

 

IRIS printers new are over $100,000.

 

Either way, I think ganging up images and outputting them to a high-quality

wide format printer will likely be your least expensive option, though I have

never really looked into Wal-Mart because my prints are usually over 11x17.

One of my portfolios include 30x30" IRIS prints.

 

High Resolution is not on the internet, but their phone number is 207-236-

3777. Rockport Blueprints phone number is 236-2696.

[jwink3101]

Why not use the adorama service which has great paper a quality. Plus you can do it and benifit photo.net!