Digital Photo Printing Services Get the best price and quality on digital prints!

There are a few areas that you want pay close attention to when you use any digital photo printing service. Price, quality of print, and delivery time. Most people use one or all as the deciding factor when order digital photo prints. Other possible considerations are quantity, special purpose (like photos printed on physical items like coffee cups), and sizes of prints.

We'll use the two most common sizes for our comparisons and baseline factors, 4 X 6 (snapshot) and 8 X 10 (common portrait size). The going cost for the snapshot 4 X 6 prints is around .09 to .12 each. The range for the portrait 8 X 10 prints is $2 to $4 each. Each price is subject to total number of prints and any special paper or process (like prints on canvas paper or perhaps multiples of one print).

Delivery time is the next biggest factor on price. If you want your prints in an hour (or less) at a local retail digital photo printing service, figure on a premium of up to 30% more. And if you want a special paper or size, printing in an hour might not be available. So those with a little patience usually save a few bucks on any digital photo printing order. 

Quality is a constant issue on multiple levels. In order to get the best prints, you need to have a photo that was exposed properly. Bad photos on your computer or camera screen may even look worse on a digital photo print. The screen shows photos at a lower DPI (usually around 72) and a photo print may use up to 300 DPI. The screen is much more forgiving than photo prints in many ways. So always review your photos on your computer and if necessary, make any adjustments to improve the look. You might also want to dump any obvious losers (like pictures of the floor or ceiling) since you don't want to pay for photos you don't want.

Quality control is a problem at local smaller locations since every run can be different (different operator, calibration, etc.). And your resolution settings on your camera can have an impact too. Here's a quick and dirty guide to amount of resolution and for each size of print. 

• 5 Megs = 2592 x 1944 pixels
  Up to 11 x 14 print

• 4 Megs = 2272 x 1704 pixels
  Up to 8 x 10 print

• 3 Megs = 2048 x 1536 pixels
  Up to 5 x 7 print

• 2 Megs = 1600 x 1200 pixels
  Up to 4 x 6 print

I usually recommend anyone who is planning on making digital photo prints to shoot at 5 megs if their camera has the ability. Unless you know you're going over the 11 X 14 print size, 5 megs will be fine for any smaller sizes and there's no good reason to waist space on your camera or hard drive for larger files.

The larger local and online digital photo printing services usually have good quality controls in place that help to provide the best possible print. Many also offer online sharing so that anyone you give the URL or login and password to can order their own digital photo prints. That's a big advantage on both the cost and convenience. These keeps you out of the middle of any costs or decisions, always a good thing.

OK, lets look at the different options based on your requirements. If you want fast delivery and good quality second, go with a local Walgreens or other digital photo printing services that provide the one hour service. If you can wait and want the best possible prices, go with SnapFish (owned by HP), they have good quality and every possible option (sharing, printing on items, any size, etc.). If you want the best possible quality, can wait a day, go to your local camera store (except Ritz - too many problems), they often offer the best print quality since they are in the camera and photo business.

If you want some specialty digital photo prints, need touch up work, or want the absolute best results, my pick is Canvas Press (canvaspress.com). These guys know photos and always delivery the best possible quality. I've ordered some large canvas prints and they were the best I've ever seen. You can call and talk to knowledgeable folks with any questions and they will take very good care of you and your photos.

We're going to do some articles on how to get the best photos on your camera and with popular photo editing software this spring. That will help you start with the best possible exposure. That's defintely more than half the battle of getting good digital photo prints. The other half is finding the right digital photo printing services. I think you'll find that our recommendations will help with the printing part.

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