Home Forums Gear Photography Best place to have prints made

A family run camera shop on Main Street closed here six months ago after 42 years of operation. I had many thousands of frames of 35mm film processed there. Now I need a good, reliable place to print digital photos. I want to avoid Walmart at all costs but the only other business I tried was Snapfish (I think that was the one) and they were worse. Ideas? Thanks.

bay photo is excellent. MPix is okay. WHCC is top notch, but probably overkill for everyday use.

Thanks. I'll try those. Your two Antelope Valley galleries are incredible. Unearthly.

I have been using Bay Photo for prints. I have not had any metal prints or canvas wraps done by them though.

I have two photo printer's, 8.5 and a 13 wide. I've never had anyone do a digital for me. I don't know why more people don't do their own?

Doug, loved Bathed in Pink. Stud Horse Point could have been shot on my ranch.
Don, when I get serious about photography again -- was last serious when I quit newspaper work 30 years ago -- I'll get a printer. Right now it would be another piece of equipment to worry about.
I'm primarily a writer, but as such I have had the opportunity to work beside a couple amazing people including the late Richard Avedon and William Albert Allard. You couldn't find two people more different than those two.

Depending on the end use I"ve had great sucess with Costco. I use Photoshop to tweak my images and have my I{S monitor adjustto the local Costco printer and I alays check the "do not adjust my colore.

I shoot a D3s, usually with either a Nikon 70-200 f2.8 or the Nidon 200-400mm f4 and sell a lot of Costco prints starting a 4x6 and as large as 20x30.

Thanks, DB. At this point I am simply trying to keep the tradition of family photo albums alive. The rare times I shoot something for a magazine they accept the print electronically.

I've used Mpix for prints up to 19x24. They are quick to ship and all but one came out very nicely. The one was quickly replaced by them and on their dime. What I'm not crazy about is their size selection. They have many to choose from, but if I want to print something a little off size and I try to get it to fit one of their standard print sizes, their cropping process leaves a lot to be desired IMO. They have red lines that show you were the crop will be, but I've learned it's not the most accurate system. For anything standard, they are fine. For the time you need to crop in their system, cross your fingers. I'm ready to try some place new, but would have no qualms using Mpix for most everything else.

Costco is the cheapest I have used and very fast, though they have scratched my film. Best quality has been from a custom photo lab.

Usually I like to print my own, purchasing film processing, only; it's so convenient and I only need print the best of them. A decent printer is ~$250. But the consumables are expensive, even if you shop for deals.

"I have two photo printer's, 8.5 and a 13 wide. I've never had anyone do a digital for me. I don't know why more people don't do their own?"

That would be my question as well. The printers that I am aware of don't get much more resolution above 5 megs. So, I'm wondering if the commercial printers are simply better and can utilize some of the large resolution shots???

I have images printed on different papers depending on what they are and what "market" is buying my prints and I've found that trying to stock the different papers is expensive and a couple of prints that don't quite make it will really add to the costs.

I like the versatility of using different labs for different things - I like the fact that most labs will do some color correctuon for little or no cost - I like to be able to send images off for printing so I can be out taking more photos or playing with a new rifle or postol/

And the bottom line is these custom and pro labs know what they are doing.

If you go to Costco, be sure to find out how their computer works. I had a number of enlargements made for my mother. I sized them to exactly fit some frames of hers which are an odd size. I uploaded them to Costco's computer and it enlarged them all to fit their paper. They didn't have a 'print exact size' option on their computer. To get an exact size, you need to find out what size paper they will be using then put a blank border around the photo to fit.

Try us. Mention you are a member of the forum and any standard prints including enlargements we will give you 20% off. Just say you are picking up in the store and we can process that discount for you. Every image is corrected unlike a drug store or warehouse store that has a kid working there that really does not want to be there. Our lab operators have been in the business since well before digital and are well versed in color correcting, etc

Wow. I bet I've been on your site 200 times, Joel. Never even saw that you guys have that option till I saw your post just now. I'll have to send you some images to print...