How would I find a good photo printing service?
It looks like there are a ton of options out there to get physical prints of digital photos - I’m seeing super cheap high volume websites, supermarket co-branded ones that look like a throwback to the old film development days, high price boutique services aimed at fine art photographers, and indie print shops attached to exhibition spaces. Problem is, I have no idea how to even begin differentiating between them!
I’m putting together an album of photos as a gift for someone, and right now everything’s digital (either originally or from scanned negatives). I need about 200 prints, so the price differences between the various options I’m seeing add up pretty quickly - I don’t mind spending on quality, but in my experience that doesn’t necessarily correlate to price anyway.
So, what hallmarks or hidden tells should I be looking out for that’ll help me find somewhere decent? Specific recommendations would also be great if anyone has suggestions that are in/ship to the UK!
Honestly, if you're not wanting the photos touched up or anything, a basic supermarket one will do. Paper selection makes a huge difference in how they look, but all printing places will have a good enough machine.
If you don't mind wasting some money, try the same photo at a couple places and compare?
I've printed photos at a photography shop and at dm (a supermarket chain) and they were the same.
That's definitely reassuring! I kind of hoped it would be the case that it's a more or less solved problem, to be honest, that makes my life easier. Any thoughts on paper, since you mentioned it specifically? I'll do some research on the options there myself, but if you happened to have a suggestion for one that's worked well it'd be good to know.
I meant more along the lines of glossy or matte finishes, I don't have much more information there, sorry
Only thing you're not gonna see right away (but could be determined with some research I'm sure) is how they degrade over time. I've got photos at home that initially looked pretty similar, but while some have become rather yellowish after a few years, others still look more or less the same. Not sure what exactly caused/prevented it though.
Having recently got into film photography when my dad gave me his camera from the 70s, I can tell you that photo chemistry for printing is also super complex with loads of factors at play.
There’s a chance you just ran into why lots of photo albums talk about “acid free” and “archival quality” but beyond vaguely knowing that stuff can age weirdly, I don’t have any specifics to point to. I’m just going to a fancy boutique film developer and asking for the cheapest print types, trusting that they know what they’re doing since whenever I ask questions, all the staff are visibly passionate about everything photography!
If you're a "fuck it I'll do it myself" kind of person, you could also look into maker spaces in your area. You may have to take a class and pay a small fee (and pay for supplies), but then you can go nuts experimenting and it'll still probably be quite a bit cheaper than the online services, and it'll turn out exactly the way you want.
I love this idea, and if I could I'd probably be running with it now that it's in my mind - but I pretty much need to get the prints turned around this week, and I need a fair number of them, so much as I'd like to I don't think learning to do a decent job of it myself is on the cards right now. I may well take this advice in future if I manage to get plans in place a bit more ahead of time, though!
They're basically the same in my experience. If there are any well-known companies in your area you can go to then just to be sure, but photo printing is not really a hard process and as long as they own a somewhat decent printer and paper it should be pretty much the same.
Btw there are also companies that directly print photo albums, so that's another option.
Very good to hear, that saves me obsessing about the options too much! I did think about potentially getting the whole set printed as a photo book, but I decided that individual prints stuck individually into a really nice handmade album I found from a local craftsperson is more the vibe I'm looking for on this one.
I used to print my own with the Canon Selphy dye sub printer which printed a layer of UV protection over the top. Sadly the printer failed eventually and I never replaced it. The prints were excellent though. I have some on my wall in my office that were printed 14, 15 years ago, and they still look as good as when they were printed, and there's a window in this room and they get sun every day.
These days I use the kiosks at Max Spielmann on the UK high street.
Edit: if I could find an equivalent quality modern printer that wasn't wracked with DRM and other terrible encumbrances, I'd buy it.
Whoa, a printer doing that overlay sounds very cool! I wonder if there's a way to use a laminator to gain a similar effect without making it hard to see the photo.
Yeah the selphy dye sub prints were really good. I miss that little machine
In my experience: yes. There are a several Photos printed with our home inject printer years ago, some were laminated afterwards, some weren't. The laminated ones have held up much better than the unmodified ones.
It will become a bit more reflective, but imo the photos look fine in most light conditions. At least indoors where I mostly look at these Photos its fine. Don't know if it would work for you.
If you want something printed but have questions, you can always go into your equivalent of an Office Depot / Office Max / Staples, or anywhere that has a "print center." Employees there have a pretty good idea of what they're doing as they don't just push buttons, but also have to print on different mediums and sizes (some even do flags and weatherproof advertising banners). They're happy to help you out as long as you aren't one of those people trying to rush them.
I believe shipping providers have print centers in some of their stores too (UPS and FedEx here [FedEx absorbed Kinkos ages ago]) but I haven't tried using theirs.
Or if you want to go the cheapest possible, while still locally printed route, drug stores like Walgreens and CVS do regular sized photos. They often have deals online where prints are insanely cheap, things like 25 photo prints for $2.50. But usually those deals require ordering online and picking up at the store (but they do print them in-store).
And for online, not sure about worldwide shipping, but VistaPrint has been pretty good quality for a few things we've had done.
This is from US experience, but I'd imagine there's similar equals to all of these in the UK.
EDIT: A more specific answer for your scenario - there's online services that let you make photo books that they will print. The (incorrect) margins provided by Shutterfly the one time I did this resulted in a crappy alignment I wasn't happy with. If you're trying to get 200 individual (different photo) prints, I would get estimates from the print centers I mentioned and then compare to see if it would be cheaper to buy a personal inkjet printer, ink, and photo paper. In the US, our libraries often have printers, but I believe they're typically laser copiers and not something that would make good quality photos. But that could also be worth investigating.
Much appreciate the suggestions! I'm aiming for a more hand assembled look either way, so thankfully I won't need to worry about photo book templates or anything along those lines. Finding somewhere I can just have a chat with the employees about the options is a good shout - like you say, they're running this stuff all day, so they've probably got some decent insight. Honestly I'm so used to generic web storefronts and chatbot "support" that I sometimes forget how useful it is when you can actually talk to the people doing the job.
Home printer is an interesting thought. I'm definitely not averse to it, but my assumption had been that paying per print on whatever six-figure industrial thing the big guys use will get better output than a device that I can buy for a reasonable cost - but I should take the time to do a bit more reading and check that assumption, I don't know if it's actually the case.
While I can't speak with certainty on the price of their machines, I doubt what they use to print anything on standard paper sizes or lower to be that expensive. I've worked around plotters and other large print machines, and just knowing about the service plans for those things, that's when you're getting into six figures.
Inkjet printers have pretty impressive fidelity for photo printing. Even just a ~$75 USD HP or Canon does a good job. Just do your best to estimate how many photo prints you can get out of a set of ink cartridges. For 200 photos, I wouldn't be surprised if you're in the realm of 4-5 ink cartridges. You can get the cost down a bit if you're able to buy third-party ink cartridges, but that's somewhat of a rabbit hole with how some printer manufacturers are doing lock-in so only their branded ones will work.
As an aside, photo or detailed color prints are the only time I'd ever recommend an inkjet printer. They consume a ton of ink for so little output, and just about any other print type would be fine with a laser printer.
Photobox.co.uk is where I've been getting prints I care about done for at least the last twenty years. Prints I don't care about I use the self service machines at the local supermarket - they're cheaper and same day, but they use lower quality paper in lower quality printers. I have prints from photobox which are old enough to legally drink and they still look great, I'm not sure if the supermarket photo printers will stand up so well.
For large batches I’ll use an online store, whatever has the best promo at the time.
I really like photo books. Easier to manage, handle and you can get much more dynamic with photo arrangements. Once again, check for promos.
I wouldn’t stress about quality. For digital photos everyone is using inkjet printers. Archivable paper is the non-yellowing variety if you want to get extra about anything.
For GOOD photos I usually go to the local old guys. I have one larger photo that I had printed at a drug store vs the small local old guys' shop. I think part of it was the paper selection, but I just looked at it again right now... basically its like the drug store photo has less dynamic range; the highlights aren't as bright and the shadows aren't as dark. As a result the image looks less contrasty while having significantly less detail in the shadows. This was also a black and white large format film photo so its probably not comparable to what you're looking to do.
For a project where you're going 200 photos I would just go the cheap route. For one off large prints I'd pay the extra money every time.
The scanning process is where you're going to see a bigger difference in quality than you would between different printing options. IMO at least.