digital photo prints

[suicidal_monkey]

whats the best way to get good prints of digital pictures? The colour laserjet at the uni did a pretty good job of a photo I am sending my gran, but it's not quite the same as a nice chunky-papered photograph. I saw a sign in boots proclaiming 50 prints for £5, and I know there are websites that must let you do it by email etc.

Was wondering if any of you lot have used any of those sorts of services?

 

[Cadaver]

Not used any of the online services myself.  However, this recent article in PCPro on 'home photo printing vs. using high st/online developers' gives an opinion.

Article is here.

General consensus is that it is cheaper to get digital camera shots developed by the pros, although the quality can fluctuate wildly between companies.  Due to the cost of consumables, PCPro conclude Home printing should be used for only the occasional photo, or if your a pro shutterbug wanting complete control over the final result.

[suicidal_monkey]

I'm not blowing money on a colour printer for home use when I can use the one at my university for 12p per A4 page. It's a chunky colour laser printer which produces pretty good results, unfortunately only on ordinary paper. But it'd be nice to have prints that are to all intents and purposes like a photo, printed professionally, and don't fade. I'm not looking to buy a printer for at least another 3 years. the university ones are free for B&W as a postgrad and the colour pages are only 12p each, not worth me buying a lower quality printer for use at home at all!


anyway, back to the point - anyone like to recommend a "professional" photo place for getting back good quality prints of digital pictures?

oh yeah, and what about places for poster-sized prints?  :dribble:

[Aga]

Couldn't you ask the Uni to print on proper photo paper that you supplied?

[suicidal_monkey]

the  colour laser printer I used the other day is in one of the main undergrad computing rooms and it has a great huge chain around it so that the scummy kids can't nick the paper!  <_< I believe one of the computer admin guys has a good bubblejet or something, so I could ask him I guess...

[Penfold]

Being an Advertising / PR agency we mainly get photographic images in digital format and then convert them to prints for press releases etc.

I would go with no other way than getting them professionally reproduced. It can be cheap. We pay something likfe 45p per print for a 7x5' or 25p for a 6x4' print which is pretty good. And for quality? Well they're good enough for National Magazines.........

Check out Jessops. If they have near you I know they'll reproduce them even cheaper than that.

FWIW I would tend to go to a proper repro house to get prints rather than someone like Boots who do it as a sideline. IMHO they produce far sharper images and more care is taken with colour correction etc. The other advantage is that they'll take pretty much any media you care to give it to them on. We've used zip disks, CD's, Emailed images and even smart cards and they're all fine.

I guess the most important thing to mention is the size of the digital image. A general guidline for mags is 300dpi A4.

I tend to produce mass contact sheets on my colour laser printer and from that choose the prints to get developed.

hth

PEN

[Gone_Away]

Shop around.. Burn a CD and go to Jessops. You can have many different sizes and as many copies as you like (even one).

I took some photos in and had 6x5's developed for 45p each. Quality is everything you'd expect from a slr jobby.

NF  :ph34r: