Where do you get your pictures turned into prints? Please post more details - best online sites, stores, etc., pros and cons, photo printers you like, etc. Thanks!
I use a canon i9100 printer which is capable of prints up to 13x19 borderless. I have read that there are fading issues as compared to dye sub printers but I haven't had that problem so far after 2 1/2 yrs of use
a very few i do myself up to 8x10 on an epson 785ex, not bad but i have had an occasional fading to green issue, usually with wedding pics, particularly the groom's shoes if they are patent leather black, maybe the glossy black printed on high gloss paper? i used to get most i've mine done at a booth in the local bj's, but about 3 months ago it closed, tried walmart but results were not good, even with embedded color profile, used to get larger custom done in local photo shop, but they too closed up, i'm looking at a place in california right now named calypso, after mousefest if i have any done and i'm happy, i'll post the link, but not until after i see if i'm satisfied gary
i print my 8x10's on a kodak professional 1400 dye sub printer. the upside to dye-subs are generally the prints last longer and they have a fixed cost/print because when you buy paper, the ribbon comes with it. on the downside, dye-subs tend to have a bit less color response and can be expensive when you get into the bigger print sizes, but you dont have to replace 8 ink tanks every time one runs out. and....dust can be fatal to a print if any gets into the printer so you have to be careful. personally, i like the dye-sub product, but i have seen HW's 13x19 borderless prints and they are a beauty.
One word. Costco. I keep their price list next to my computer, in fact.. I can get a 12x18 for $3. Or 4x6s for fifteen cents a piece (a recent drop from nineteen cents). I don't have specific numbers to back this up, but I'm guessing that that ends up being cheaper than the equivalent cost from most home printers. I think that latest generation inkjet printers can actually produce better colors than the equipment they use at Costco, but for price and overall quality (no worrying about the usual inkjet issues like clogged nozzles) I like Costco a lot. I can even send my pictures in online and then pick them up the next day with no waiting. I had some trouble with my last batch of prints from them, but I just pointed it out and the operater whipped up a fresh batch for me and let me check them before accepting them. After talking to the operators I now know that they've turned off the autocorrect functions so I'm getting back exactly what I send in even without having to ask for special treatment. I can't comment on fading issues. I've never had any trouble, but I tend to protect everything from sunlight and in storing them they're normally kept in the dark in an envelope or something, so I don't know if I've ever really tested them. I've gotten addicted to printing large images. I really have no use for them, I did one 12x18 a while back and it's stayed in the envelope I got it in. I do have an idea involving sticking a collage of large prints on my wall as a panorama from Disney World. But they look so good. I did a bunch of 8x10 printing for the contest I entered this year, and I compared them to my screen to see how well I'd calibrated it. They're VERY close. Costco makes printer profiles available online, but they didn't change the images much, I think it's just a case of having gotten my screen well calibrated and the Costco printer being fairly neutral. Or accurate.. whatever you want to call it. They also have some mail order options for VERY large prints, but they get a lot more expensive. I mean if you work out the cost per square inch the 12x18s are a lot cheaper than their poster prints. That's why I'm working on seeing how practical it'd be to do a massive photo collage by manually stacking a series of prints side by side. The one downside to the Costco prints are that the printer isn't fantastic at aligning the paper right. I sometimes get a little uneven white border on one or more sides, although sometimes the operators trim them manually to clean them up. Basically I think I should get a trimmer of my own so I have the option of cleaning them up myself.
I use a Canon Selphy CP510 dye-sub printer. I generally only print 4x6 prints so this works great. Not to mention that it supports Pictbridge and has an optional battery pack you you can haul it family reunions etc. I've been very happy with it's performance. Plus as Tim stated; it's never a surprise if you run out of ink. The paper count matches the print count. No guess work required. I get 108 borderless 4x6 prints for $26.99.
i have one also and thought it was a great bargain at $99 when i got it. the problem lies in the dust vulnerability. if you're not very careful with where you put the printer and how clean you keep the area around it, your photos will come out looking like someone melted rainbow sherbert and flicked it on your print. no way to fix it 'cept to reprint. still, an awesome value...i've talked a few people into getting one.
I totally agree! I keep my "office" in my unfinished basement so dust is certainly a factor. I dust the printer just about every day with a swiffer and I keep the paper cartridge in a plastic bag. I've had the unit for about five months and so far no issues. Keeping my fingers crossed. On the other hand, I really like rainbow sherbert; but not on my prints.
You just talked me out of it! (Disneydame looks around her dusty office/playroom and imagines print after print of rainbow sherbert)
Today was my mom's birthday. I picked her up a Selphy 720 model and was impressed by the number of body design changes that were made since my 510. All of the door compartments have been minimalized to being only as big as the absolutely need to be to serve it's function. Therefore dust should be less of an intrusion as compared to older models. Unlike the 510, the 720 sports a 1.5" LCD with onboard edit features however lacks(as far as I can tell) the rear port for optional battery use for printing on the go. So far my mom really seems to like it and it's ease of use made it a "sure thing" gift for her.
Prints? What prints?! I bought my first SLR, a 35mm Canon Rebel G, in 1999. I used it on a bunch of Disney trips and loved it enough to resist buying a digital camera until 2003. But in 2003 I realized something important - I was scanning the prints of every roll of film I shot, putting the prints and negatives into an album, and never touching them again. Everything I did with my pics, from viewing to sharing to PhotoChopping, was done digitally. And since I don't have a high-res slide scanner to scan the negatives, I was scanning prints, which always leaves a lot to be desired in the quality of the image, even when you run cleanup utilities on them. So I went digital. In 2003 I bought my first digital camera, and since then I have printed only a handful of the thousands of pics I have shot. And of course a digital pic from a nice camera is far superior in resolution, sharpness, and noise to a scan of a paper print. I see my pics every day in my screen savers on my two PCs, and they mostly look great on-screen. Bit happens. Paper is so passe...
To which the replies of some folks will undoubtetly be, "Huh? Back-what?" The only photos I have ever lost were a single days worth that hadn't been backed up yet when I had a hard drive failure. I back up everything!
