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Where is a good place to have digital photos printed?


Kathryn
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I will sheepishly admit that I've never done this before. With all the thousands and thousands if pictures we've taken of our kids, we've never had hard copies printed. So, I have no idea if there is a place that's better or worse quality, price, etc.

 

My OBGYN retired from OB in December, but got permission to see his current OB patients through to delivery. I was his last. He asked if we would take pictures of him with our baby for him. But, now I don't know where to get them printed. Help!

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We hardly print any either, but when we do it's just through Walgreen's (think we did Walmart once, but it's a longer drive for us to pick up). You can create a photo login at Walgreen's website, upload your files, choose what you want to order, make the order online, then go pick them up at your nearest store.

 

Erica in OR

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We just got four 5x7s printed at Walmart earlier today - total cost was $10 - and they look great.  We let their machines do their auto-enhance.  It sure beats when we used to try it manually...

 

I think most instant machines work similarly.  You can probably get nice prints wherever there's a machine close to you.

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Why can't you people agree!??!

 

We don't have a Costco. We do have the other stores mentioned. I could do online also. I don't go back for four more weeks, so I've got some time.

I can count on my right hand the number of times the hive agrees about anything!!

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I saw a magazine artlcle where a photographer had photos made at all the obvious choices listed above, plus some other online places I don't recall.  Snapfish was at the bottom of the list.

I usually print mine at Costco and am very happy with them.  I have done them at Walgreens and they are good too, and great about reprinting them the one time I was not happy with the exposure.  Costco is cheaper all the time, and even better when they have a coupon.

 

I am a scrapbooker and frequently have to go back and reprint photos that I have already put into a graduation album or wedding album to give to my kids and then want to make a yearly one for myself.   I digress.  When I put Snapfish and Costco side by side.......I really do not like the quality of the snapfish.  I like the digital size they print as they fit better on a page in my albums. 

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If I have time I go with Shutterfly or Snapfish.  If I'm in a hurry I go with Walgreens -- it's in walking distance from our house, and a few days ago I got 100 prints for $10 using an online coupon (what a deal!), plus they were all printed in about an hour.

 

 

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I've done Shutterfly, Snapfish and Costco (which I see isn't an option). Snapfish was absolutely horrible. The quality was truly awful. The pics were grainy & the color was off. Sent the same batch to Shutterfly & got really nice prints back. Now I just order from Shutterfly whenever they're having their "101 prints free" sale.

 

ETA: I've had Costco ship my prints to me & there was a quick turnaround time :) and the quality was very good.

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I use Shutterfly for prints, photo books, and Christmas cards and have been happy with them.  The few times an item was damaged in the mail or just didn't turn out how I expected, they replaced it quickly and free of charge.

 

I just went to their site, and it looks like they are offering 50 free 4x6 prints to new customers right now.

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Walgreen's color came out funky when we did online ordering.  The good thing about them, though, is they often have coupon codes for free prints.  (8 x 10s, 3 x 5s, etc.) 

 

I'm going to try Costco this week with some diy canvas prints dd and I are making. 

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My sister is a semi-professional photographer, she recommends Cosco, which I just noticed you said you don't have.

 

I've had very mixed results with Walgreens, you have to double check every single photo before it prints or it may be cropped strange. They do have good sales though.

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We use unitprints.com for internet orders, costco for things to pick up (which I see you don't have.)  Unit prints has been awesome - they were recommended to use by a photographer that did our family pics.  I was very happy with the quality, and they are very reasonably priced.  

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I think it depends on your location and people working at local photo printing places. My stepson's MIL works at a Walgreen's photo center and she does a great job. I'm not just saying that because she's sort of family. Several times a year she prints out photos of our shared grandson to give to us, and they come out beautifully. OTOH, the Walgreen's closest to me is awful. When I still had a film camera (was that really less than 10 years ago?) I went out of my way to not use them. 

 

I'm always a bit leery of online photo shops, but I used to have decent luck with Shutterfly. I never tried Snapfish.

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The photographer whose class I took said costco does the best job. Walgreens and others were lower ranked. But there are reasons for this.

 

If you choose a glossy finish you will have more desireable results. Reason: matte paper absorbs more ink and the pictures turn out muddier/darker. Glossy handless of a problem with this

 

If you do any post-processing yourself, you can actually go so far as to set the photos to be printed on specific types of paper. It is called "soft-proofing."

 

You can ask the vendor what processing they do to optimize for printing so you know what you should/should not do.

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For quick and reasonably priced, we use Costco. The quality is quite good and they reprint if you are not happy.  My daughter uses them for the prints she enters in photo contest and she has won quite a few awards, so the quality of their photos has never been the least bit detrimental.

  eta: If you do ANY color/contrast editing of your images make sure you check the box indicting you do NOT want the machine to autocorrect - no matter where you develop!!!

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It sounds like we are in the same boat. I have thousands of pictures from my iPhone, but haven't had pictures in print in too many years. Just last week Walgreens was running a special 10 cents per photo. Normally they are 20 cents a photo, so I think I got a good deal. The pics came out pretty good. I wound up printing 684 pictures this time around. I just uploaded them from my computer onto their website, ordered and picked them up at my local Walgreens. It was easy. I need to print a lot more just can't afford to do them all at once.

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I wouldn't do Walmart. I go to one of the drug stores in town. DS did a tree study this year that involved taking pictures of different trees on our property once a week to watch how they changed over the years. Walmart insists on looking at every picture you print out before they let you buy them. I asked them about their policy and apparently is to prevent people from printing out pornographic pictures there (why would anyone print that type of picture at Walmart?) but I felt it to be an invasion of privacy. I'm not the type that usually minds much, but it was so irritating and just felt demeaning that the clerk would flip through my 5 tree pictures each week to make sure they were ok. 

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Gosh, all these great reviews of walgreens has me wondering if it's just my store that stinks. They do have great deals, but I'm not sure if it's worth trying again

The Walgreens near us does a good job.  They are my go to for when I need the prints same day.  Our local CVS was absolutely horrible.  I will never print photos there again.  If I have time I use shutterfly and have had good experiences with them.

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My sister is a semi-professional photographer, she recommends Cosco, which I just noticed you said you don't have.

 

I've had very mixed results with Walgreens, you have to double check every single photo before it prints or it may be cropped strange. They do have good sales though.

The reason for the strange cropping has to do with how your photo was taken and whether you choose 'true digital' (I think that is what it is called).  That effects the way the photo is cropped.

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