12 May 2008

Where do you have photos printed?

I have had a terrible time getting photos printed at my local outlets. The colors are horrid and the pics are always grainy, dark and icky. Even SOOC shots are terrible and I KNOW 10 megapixels should be plenty to produce decent 4x6 prints.
SOOOO... if you take photographs and edit them in Photoshop or some other program, where do you get nice prints made? Online or brick-and-mortar, any recommendations?

4 comments:

April said...

In case anyone else is curious, my sister recommended mpix . I'll be checking them out in the next few days.

Marie {Make and Takes} said...

This is a good question. I use Costco Online. Then we pick them up at our local store all ready to go. Very convenient. We haven't had any photo blunders with them.

Maria Baker said...

April,
Do you have a flat screen monitor or one of those big tube monitors? The tube monitor tends to smooth out the pixelated parts of an image so you wouldn't see it until it was printed. If you have a flat screen, the tend to emphasize the pixels. Also, your monitor may be calibrated incorrectly or simply differently from the place you're taking your files. Dif places have dif methods to sync up the colors. Also, if you're tweaking images alot in photoshop, you can cause the pixelation and weird effects yourself. Photoshop is a very powerful weapon and in the wrong hands can be deadly to a photo. :)
Your goal in photoshop should be a nice smooth histogram.
This is all probably too much information, but uh, like, I do have a degree in photography. (Well, I will, in 12 days)
I have known people who used costco online with no troubles. FWIW.

Anonymous said...

Howdy!

I really like to take pictures, plus I fiddle around with that digi-scrap stuff through photoshop. So far, I am the happiest with Snapfish. I get good, clean prints. It surely helps that they are pretty cheap too, and that Snapfish gives me some free stuff from time to time because I order through them. My local photo shop wanted $0.25 per print at the desk, but I pay $0.09 per 4x6 print online.