Prints!

[compleks]

Hey!

I would like to start getting some of my photos printed, so I can keep hard copies of some work.
I was curious where everyone here gets their prints done?
In store or online?
What size?
How much does it cost?

Do you do it yourself? (what printer, ink, cost etc...)

I live in Melbourne, Australia. I was thinking it would be easiest to order online. But I don't know any sites, or if they are any good. So I was hoping to get some recommendations.
If the savings are worth while I would be willing to probably print my own.

These would mostly be A4 prints I guess, unless there was something special I wanted larger.


Thanks for any input.
Cheers

[dcclark]

I use mpix and adoramapix to print online.

Size is your choice. There are standard sizes -- such as 4x6, 5x7, 8x10, 8x12, 20x24, etc. Each of these has a "ratio" -- the ratio of the length of the shorter side of the image to the longer side. Common ratios are 2:3 (most DSLRs shoot images at this ratio), and 4:5 (the ratio for the ever-popular 8x10 photo).

Adoramapix will let you print images in ratios which they images themselves don't fit -- for example, an image shot at 2:3 can be printed at 8x10 at adoramapix, with a white border in the empty space. Mpix does not let you do this -- you must crop your images (but then again, this is probably the right choice!).

I live in the US, so I don't know about international shipping.

[m.c.adams]

I don't know about international shipping, but myself, I use Mpix. They do a nice job and very quick shipping.

[FrankLamont]

It depends what you do.

Pro vs amateur.

For Pro, labs in Melbourne... pro labs are LabX and a few others, but LabX is most notable. 50c per 6x4 is about the standard price around here. Interstate, DigiLab is good, they ship to here too. They're in Brisbane, so you can't pick it up of course. But reasonably cheap (about same price). RGB Lab is okay, too.

Quite a few in Australia, but for pro work, I go with BayPhoto in the US. Expensive shipping and there is conversion, but I don't mind, for pro stuff the selection of items is normally what I tend to offer so it works.

MPIX, Miller's, WHCC are a few other US labs that are good.

Amateur, you can go with pro labs or Harvey Norman, BigWPhoto, etc. They aren't great, in terms of colour reproduction and all... definitely no colour correction, but sometimes for personal use I go to them. The good thing is that they print on Fuji Crystal Archive.

[Quo Fan]

We print our own. We have an Epson 1400 printer that prints up to 13"X19". It has 6 ink cartridges. there are better printers, but for us, this is a good fit.

We generally print on "standard" glossy photo paper (read as inexpensive).

[compleks]

Thanks for the replies.