What online photo printing services do you like the most and think is the best? I'm asking because I am considering starting an affiliate program with one in order to help support the website.
Some months ago on a vacation outside the country I ran into a professional photographer who told me that she uses Wall-Mart. She said she couldn't beat their prices, and the images were every bit as crisp as any one else's stuff. The trick is, she said to get your images exactly the way you want them and tell Wall-Mart not to alter them in any way.
When I was a boy of fourteen,
my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around.
But when I got to be twenty one, I was astonished
at how much he had learned in seven years."
Mark Twain
I'm suggesting that we pick a service which we can encourage members to use. Many of these businesses have a system which would pay caedes.net for doing this. As long as the service is good and reasonably priced this would be an easy way to help the website for people who would use the service anyway.
Just make sure that they offer die sublimation printing. It is a better printing method and is less apt to run or be damaged by elements. It's alittle more costly and it would be a great perk for the people who really want to print there work.
check out snapfish. They are rated the best overall in Apple magazine. If your not wanting an online service, i HIGHLY recommend Target, and no I'm not kidding. I have consistenly gotten back better prints there than from professional photography stores. Not only that but they are much cheaper, and will be done in under 2 hours, now can you beat that?
Try these site they may help. If not I know a few in my area and I'll ask around. If you need something local, let me know the area your in and I will ask for referals
yeah, i heard complaints about Snapfish too, but they were still rated the best... So that must mean that all the other online printing services are worse
Try These guys. They're a world better than snapfish, and though their prices are higher, the quality is immediately obvious. When you're printing your precious artwork, there is no reason to cut corners on quality unless there is a huge price difference, and here there isn't.
aaah, so many choices!! i really dont know... Ok, i am looking for very high quality - price doesn't matter, but not insane - will ship out.
I am working on a personal website where I am implimenting a photo purchasing system, where people can buy my images. But I really want to establish a printing service that i can confidently stick with....maybe even one that does framing, but i dont know if there are any...
update: also could someone list out the print sizes up to 40x60 that go hand-in-hand with a DSLR's proportion. Im sure i could figure it out, but my brain is not working right now..
update 2: When sending prints to be printed is it best to size them to the size it is going to be printed - or just leave them full size?
You will definitely want to crop them before sending them to a printing service. If you don't, they will be randomly cropped and you will probably not like the result.
iPhoto has a nice feature that comes in handy when getting a batch of photos printed. You can constrain them to say a 4x6, and go through each photo and drag it to the proper cropping.
If it's just one or two photos, I'd copy them into a new Photoshop (etc) document with the proper proportions.
The people I suggested have advised me that the best ratio for printing images is 1.25. That is 1" per 1.25" or 8x10. I usually have to crop and resize my images to get them into this format, but on the occaisions when they have cropped the images they have done a good job. Their printing website advises you if you're requesting they print an image that's not in a suitable ratio.
Wow! The 16x20 prints from snapfish came in (10 days), and they look just like professional posters. Awesome. My only problem is that the lettering looks fuzzy, but I guess that's because I used a freeware font. The paper doesn't seem like photographic paper, though. It's more like poster paper. Not too shabby.
Well I guess that could be good or bad depending on what you paid for the prints. I'm used to the quality from Deviant Art prints. Even though the prints are poster size, they are still on high quality profession photo paper and don't appear very poster like at all. Even if you used a free font the letters should not come out fuzzy. What what was the resolution of the file you sent them?
try shutterfly they are pretty good. I use snapfish for all of mine since I recieved my new camera and they gave me 50 free prints. They I think are the best so far. the paper is thin, but over all I think they are the best.
I think Costco has the best quality and their prices are the lowest...and they are done in ONE hour...so yu can shop and then pick them right up..you caN get a membership card or go as a guest...and even veterans cn get on there free....its kina kewl . I went there for years to get my 35mm developed and they did a fantastic job..Target? wow...interesting..aNd yes I've heard complaints about Snapfish too.