digital photo printing

[amanda]

Thought I'd share the best digital printing deal I've found.

www.bigw.com.au

$0.38 per print (matt or glossy) - takes 4 working days and you pick up & pay at your local Big W.

This is heaps cheaper than anything on the web I've found (like www.bigphoto.com.au)

[AndyP]

Thanks amanda. I'll have to get around to printing some of these digital photos I have one of these days. :roll:

Is 6" x 4" the standard size for photos?

[amanda]

Yep - but apparently digicams take pictures in 4:3 ratio but prints are made in a different ratio.

The BigW program allows you to either 1) crop some of the picture (top & bottom for landscape, sides for portrait) or 2) shrink the whole print so that you have white edges on the sides. It works out ok.

Or you can try and organise the size (6"x4" = 10cm x 15cm) yourself - but I found the software on my PC that came with the camera doesn't do this so well.

[amanda]

Steer clear of Big W - I picked up the pictures and the quality and colour was awful - almost like there was a dark yellow/brown filter over everything.

After trying bigphoto.com.au, BigW and Kodak - I'm not happy with any of them.

Bought a Canon PIXMA iP3000 for $224 today (RRP $250 less Myer 10% discount) + USB printer cable ($20) + 50 4x6 glossy photo sheets ($20). The quality and colour is excellent - as sharp as anything off a traditional roll of film. The best thing is the colour - vibrant and just how everything looks on the screen.

It should cost me $0.51 for ink & paper to print a 4x6 - almost the same cost as the stores (cheaper than some) - I'll take the $250 printer cost as fixed & sunk!

[goughy]

You can also try some of the local quality photo labs in your area. Clikchic has usually used kodak online (whatever it is) but has recently had some done by our local photopro shop and they are great. She always used them for important stuff when she was shooting film in the past, especially black and white stuff when she was pregnant and couldn't use the chemicals.

Our printer does great photo's too, and it's not even that recent, but I think we'd still use a lab most of the time. Except for her digital scrapbooking which she's just got into. The pages she's been doing have been a4 prints.

If your 51cents is for the best photo paper (100 year lasting etc) and your using 8 ink tanks etc etc on a good printer then ok. But for about 50cents a print she gets them done at the lab all the professionals in town use. Her other suggestion is to never use the 1 hour processing. They don't put the effort in to get it right.

She also says to try finding somewhere where they have actual photographers on staff, rather than your usual teenagers. You can talk to them about what you want.

I also want to know why I bought her the new camera cause now she's into digital scrapbooking she's always on the computer. When I finally get to another ozgolf day I'll get her to make a scrapbook of the pictures.

[amanda]

The paper and dye combo we are using has a 50 yr guarantee - this is enough for me - I can't imagine my kids or grandkids ever looking at physical photos! We can buy more expensive paper with the 100 yr guarantee. The thing has 4 tanks. We looked at the Choice Magazine tests and the printer we purchased they recommended as it produced quality as good as the $900+ ones.

How much is Robyn paying at a photo lab? I've tried about 10 in my area for normal negative reprints and the colours of all of them are shocking (I don't think any are manned by photographers - only standard staff). I found 1 good one in the city - 1 week wait and $3.50 per reprint :shock:

Does she use a program for digital scrapbooking? And what does she print the results on - photo paper?

[goughy]

I think the only thing she had printed at the photolab so far was our xmas cards. She originally had them done by an online service (I think kodak) and the result was crap. She had a bit of a tussle with the printing company over getting her money back, but they eventually got the message that it was there fault.

Here is the link to the lab in toowoomba she uses. Looking at there website they may not be as cheap as she thought, but there results are outstanding.
http://www.photopro.net.au/index.php
The majority of wedding photographers in toowoomba use this lab for processing, printing and enlargements. And she used them exclusively for printing in the past. For digital she had always used an online service as local printing was quite dear. About 2 years ago I checked pricing; she was getting them for 50c online, but local pricing ranged from $2.50 (at kmart) up to $5.00 a print :shock: Funny enough at the same time the kmart at sunshine plaza at maroochydore was charging 80c a print. We're just an old fashioned town :oops:

She's using photoshop cs and is also mucking around with some scrapbooking software when she finds it. She's only been doing it for a few weeks. She's realized that she has a lot to learn about photoshop. So far she's only printed 3 pages, all on photo paper. Just a standard one I think.

[goughy]

Amanda, did you get the canon i560?? (just read the choice review) We've got the i550 and recently found it did pretty good pics.

[amanda]

I called Canon and apparently they no longer make the i560. However, they said the newer version of that was the PIXMA iP3000 - so we got that one.

Thanks for the developing & scrapbooking info. When we had our wedding photos done, we asked the photographer what lab he used as the photos were excellent - but he wouldn't tell us!