Digital Prints

[Pippen]

I got a digital camera for Mother's Day and while I've taken a lot of pictures I have yet to have any prints made. I've enjoyed the camera a lot and appreciate the flexibility but had this been film I would have not been 7 months behind.

How are you handling making prints? If I do it by sending in a CD do I have to have only those prints I want on the CD or can I specify a folder? Will I get negatives back?

Any hints for someone not too savvy in the tech dept would be apprectiated.

 

[Thrasher]

Take your memory disk or the CD disk you put your photos on to the local drug store or walmart type store and put it in their self-serve photo machine. Select, edit, and print what you want. You can also upload them to different places (walmart.com) and pick them up the next day.

 

[BlueNinja]

I order online, which wouldn't be too great for dial-up users but it works for me.

It's a simple process, just select the pictures you want and hit "send".

I can usually pick them up the next day.

 

[troj]

I normally go Thrasher's route -- I walk up to the machine, stick in the memory card, select the pictures I want and submit them.

There are online services you can do the same way; my uncle does all his online and gets the prints mailed to him. The cool thing is that if he wants, he can email links to others so they can get prints made, if that want. That's cool, for instance, when he gets pictures of my cousins who I haven't seen in many years, and their children, who I've never seen.

Another option is to burn a CD of just the pictures you want printed, then take the CD in and ask that all the pictures be printed.

-Kevin

PS: I went digital because I'm horrible about getting prints; we got our camera a year ago, I have film that was undeveloped for over a year before we got the camera. And it's still undeveloped....

 

[m85476585]

You don't get negatives because negatives are the actual strips of film. There is (obviously) no film in Digital cameras, so there are no negatives. The files are the closest thing to negatives. (RAW files are even closer, but they take up a lot of space and not all cameras support RAW).

You could get a photo printer. I have a Canon i860 and it is great for everyday printing and nearly perfect photos. The only problem is that it works best on their super premium paper. I think it was like $0.80 per sheet for 4x6!!! Any newer Canon printer that says it is good for photos should be good. Just be sure to use their ink and paper. It is also good if you don't print often.
If you want to print more that a few pictures at a time, it is cheaper to go to a kiosk. I went to a Kinkos once and it was very good - easy to use and good quality.

 

[cjl]

My dad mostly prints his own (he has a Canon i9900) . However, when he needs a lot of prints, he simply goes to Costco with a CD-rom.

 

[JRThro]

I've used the online service Shutterfly with good results. Of course, you have to upload all of the pictures that you want to get prints of, and then they sent them by regular mail.

They are at https://www.shutterfly.com

 

[rbeckey]

If you have broadband go to WalMart.com and click on "Photo Center". You select the files to print from where ever you keep them (usually "My Photos" in the "My Documents" folder) and they upload to WalMart. I usually do One Hour In Store and pay 19 cents each. They can be picked up at your local WalMart, or at any WalMart you designate. I can send my Dad pictures by uploading them and designating that they should be picked up in Georgia at his local WalMart. He can get them an hour later. There are cheaper options also. I prefer to upload them because then I only make ONE trip to the store. If I take in a CDR, I have to go back and get them, plus wait in line to use the kiosk. I HATE waiting in line.

If you do not have broadband, you must go the CDR/memory device route. Digital images are very large files, and uploading thirty or forty of them can take a long time even with broadband.

 

[huxley]

We use our HP 950c printer. Pretty basic printer - not made for photo printing, but does quite nice on premium paper. I have a 8x10 that was taken by my Sony 2MP camera and you have to get 3 inches from it to see small pixels.

The paper makes a world of difference on our printer. Costly too! We use HP (IIRC) premium plus gloss (or something close)

We don't print much so this works well. The ink is a killer now-a-days - the printer was dirt cheap!

Enjoy!
Pat

 

[adrian]

Yes, that's the way the printer companies make their money. Especially HP, who make you buy a new print head with every ink cartridge.

I have a Canon i455, not the most upmarket printer but it does what I want. At work we have a couple of i865's, which have the advantage that each colour is in a separate cartridge, so if you run out of cyan, you don't need to throw out the unused magenta and yellow. The print heads are separate items, so cartridges are much cheaper - it worked out cheaper to buy the Canon printer to replace an HP than to keep feeding the HP!

 

[Rocketmaniac]

Originally posted by huxley
The ink is a killer now-a-days - the printer was dirt cheap!

You got that one right!!!!!

I have a HP Photosmart 7960. It was around $180 (If my memory serves me right) I figure that it cost me about $2.50 (top quality paper and ink) to print a FULL sheet of color. How does that price compare to walmart.com etc?

 

[rbeckey]

I have an HP printer also, and it prints very good photos. However, the ink is not waterproof and it does fade. I never figured the price per photo page, but if it is $2.50 a sheet, and 4x6 prints are 19 cents each, I am WAAAYYY ahead buying them at WalMart. There are only three 4x6 per page in my printer options. Even if a full sheet is equivalent to four 4x6, I'm still ahead.

 

[Pippen]

Thank you all for the information and your experiences. I think what I'm going to is since I have 7 months backlog of photos to print is to go with Kodak's 15 cent per print special (images must be on CD and picked up at a local store). I'll check into uploading them to a site after that.

I'm a little confused on the negatives because it was one of the concerns I expressed to my husband when I was considering going to digital. When I was doing genealogy a few years back there was still some skepticism as to how well images stored on CD would preserve for the future. While negatives are fragile, when they are well cared for they preserve well for future generations.

There was also a healthy dose of skepticism about the longevity of ink printed on home printers.

I think I'm going to continue using this camera because it is fun and convenient but also am going to shoot a roll of regular film now and then. Remember those early Polaroid photos? My parents had one of those cameras and the images can barely be seen anymore.


Thanks again for all the good help.

 

[fdeane]

Like others have said walmart is the best option for digital prints if you have alot of them. I usually use my Epson 2200 for pictures.
I was just at a friends house though and tried the new epson PictureMate photo printer ($200 for the deluxe at circuit city) and it does an excellent job. Epson inks are water resistant and long lasting. ( up to 200 years according to epson. ) The refill packs are $30 at circuit city, but my friend buys them on ebay for around $12, the packs have an ink cartridge and 100 sheets of 4x6 photo paper. I think I am going to have to get one.

 

[fdeane]

Originally posted by Pippen
I think I'm going to continue using this camera because it is fun and convenient but also am going to shoot a roll of regular film now and then. Remember those early Polaroid photos? My parents had one of those cameras and the images can barely be seen anymore.

I feel the same, my digital still hasn't totally replaced my 35mm.

 

[huxley]

I'm a little confused on the negatives

Just make sure you back up often to CD-ROM! I usually leave all my pictures on the camera until it gets quite full, then upload to my PC, then cut a CD-ROM of the most recent pics (every pic is on multiple CDs), then delete the pictures off the camera!

I then take my CD to work and copy the pics to my work PC for an off-site backup copy!

I think the CD players will go out of use, before the CDs go bad - timewise. When CDs go away, I'll probably copy all pics to DVD or the next new technology!?

I love my digital, because I can take extra shots (for free) to get the one good shot (except launches! :Þ ), and most pics do not need to be printed, but are taken to show ya'll or to keep for the future (and to print them if wanted!)

Enjoy!
Pat

 

[troj]

Originally posted by m85476585
You could get a photo printer. I have a Canon i860 and it is great for everyday printing and nearly perfect photos. The only problem is that it works best on their super premium paper. I think it was like $0.80 per sheet for 4x6!!! Any newer Canon printer that says it is good for photos should be good. Just be sure to use their ink and paper.

For any brand of inkjet, buy small packs of different brands of paper and see what works best in your printer. Every manufacturer has different inks, and inks can vary across models within a brand.

For any given printer, you can often find a quality paper that works well and costs less than the manufacturer's premium paper.

You can also vary paper quality based on the print quality you need, depending on what you're using it for.

-Kevin

 

[Fore Check]

I use an Olympus P-400 dye-sublimation photo printer for homemade prints.

However, after doing plenty of research, I've found that printing them at Wal-Mart is the most economical method (when factoring in the costs of film, paper, etc.)