Photo Printing Recommendations

[Gooch]

Folks- a question. Have you used a photo printing place to make large (or small I suppose) prints of your underwater pix? If so, what would you recommend for best quality/price? I have some images taken on a trip we were on that I would like to make pretty large to frame and hang in the house. Many thanks for your input.

[enchantmentdivi]

Www.mpix.com. Metallic paper.

[renoun]

I have a friend who has been taking some really cool astronomy photos through his telescope. The large scale printing that Costco has done for him has been really good. I don't know if it is the best available but IMHO it is good enough for me and at a reasonable price.

[GRH]

Folks- a question. Have you used a photo printing place to make large (or small I suppose) prints of your underwater pix? If so, what would you recommend for best quality/price? I have some images taken on a trip we were on that I would like to make pretty large to frame and hang in the house. Many thanks for your input.

I print my own up to 16" wide and haven’t needed to use Costco but have heard good things about their quality for the price.

If you know your way around profiles, check out the Dry Creek Photo Costco Photo Profiles. If current, it lists the printers by location and you can request which one you want.

http://www.drycreekphoto.com/icc/Profil ... les.htm#WA

[boydski]

The large scale printing that Costco has done for him has been really good.

Most Costco photo centers have very good Noritsu Printers. They will produce excellent prints, typically up to 8x12" on site. However, to get the best out of your underwater images from them, the images should be color corrected using the specific Noritsu Printer Profile (available on their web site). You must also be very diligent about turning off the "autocorrect" or "autocolor" features when uploading images to their web site. They are on by default and will seriously mess up an underwater photo.

For larger prints (11x14" & 16x20"), I normally use Shutterfly, since there is no need to download a printer profile and adjust the colors. They will use whatever profile you have attached to the image to print the photo. If you have your monitor(s) calibrated, what you see on the screen is exactly what the print will look like. I've never had a complaint from a customer on an image printed by Shutterfly.

YMMV,

[Dusty2]

I have used Adorama camera with great results on large prints. You can upload them on line and their software is pretty easy to use. Kits camera used to do them on site but the one we had here is gone.

[inflex]

Any shop is going to be a complete crap shoot unless you get their printer color profile and adjust your image accordingly. If you get an image to look good, it's because your monitor's color profile just happened to match the shop's or the shop was able to make the correct adjustments to your image.

To really get a print that is exactly what you want, you need to match your color profile up with the print shop's printer.

To do that successfully, you need to get a monitor calibration tool (~$80 and up).
Subsequently, calibrate your monitor and then download the shop's printer profile as someone suggested earlier.
Using the shop's printer profile, adjust your images to your liking.
Request the shop turn off any image correction, and then proceed with printing.
Be wary of wide gamut vs standard RGB.

If that sounds like a can of worms, it is. A simpler thing to do is just pick any shop (Costco is excellent for the price) and leave the auto or expert color correction on. With a local place like Costco, you could even print a few small, very cheap copies, adjust, and re-print larger copies.