I was really happy with the prints I got from the Costco-Kodak site, but there isn’t a huge price savings over what you’ve found from iPhoto. I didn’t find a "bulk" price, and 5 x 7s are 89 cents each. I’m a Costco member, so I don’t know how the price varies if you just go to the Kodak site.
Ofoto does a good job, but they charge .99 as well. You might try Sam’s Club. I have had them do a few for me, and they do a pretty good job. I do all of the cropping and color correcting before I take the disk to them.
try adorama.com I believe they charge .69 for 5×7.
I have received my first order back from them and have placed a second order.
Thanks, everyone, for the feedback. I’ve got a bunch of leads–now it’s time to make a decision.
OK, I did an experiment locally.
There’s a photo shop chain here that will do 6×8’s for the same price as 5x7s. So I took a full-frame picture from my 3 megapixel camera, and I calculated this would be 180dpi when printed.
After tweaking it in Elements and saving it as a TIFF on a CD-R, I had it printed. Now I realize 180dpi is at the limit of what many people consider acceptable, but it looked very different compared to a printout from my HP DJ970 printer. The photo store version looked almost like my LCD screen–lots of teeny, but very square, pixels. The HP printout looks, well, smoother somehow.
This is no big deal because it just means that I need to design our Christmas cards at 300 dpi. But it’s odd that the photo store printout looks so different from my home printer. If anything, i thought it might look better. Is this generally true?
In case anyone’s curioius, I edited my images in Photoshop Elements, composed a 5×7 card in Illustrator, exported it at 300 dpi/ppi, tweaked it again in Elements, submitted it online to ofoto.com and . . .
it came out FABULOUS!
I’m glad to hear that Lou. I decided a while back that when I had photos to print that I wanted to last, I’d rather have them done by a commercial place. I like having choices, so I’ll add ofoto.com to the list of possibilities.
Oh, and I should mention that getting to ofoto.com was a long and winding path. Ah, the sad story begins like this:
After getting feedback here, I found this wonderful place down the street (oh my gosh–it wasn’t online!) that’s a division of Ritz Camera. They said they could do 6×8’s at the same price as 5×7’s. So I got a test print done (as described a few posts back) and it had this weird pixelated, LCD-like look to it, which I chalked up to my using a relatively low resolution (180 dpi/ppi). No problem, so my wife and I worked on a 300 dpi version.
After tweaking it to absolute perfection (well, I’m not all that creative, but it looked fine by me) I take it back to the store and find out that–oh, that price was for prints from *film*. Eh? Yes, sir, if you want prints from a digital image it’s about twice the price. <sigh>
OK, I’m the world’s worst procrastinator (it’s not unusual for me to send out holiday cards in, say, February) but I insist I’m not going to do that this year. So I resolve to print them at 5×7, even though they were designed for 6×8. I know I can do that from iPhoto.
So, I convert my PSD to a TIFF and a JPEG and import it into iPhoto. I’ve got 1-click enabled, so I click and . . . get an error. It starts to upload the file but errors out. OK, I’ve done this before, it must be something wrong on their end.
I will not send out cards in February, I will not send cards out in February. . .
So I come back to this thread and decide I’ll try Costco as Beth recommends. I have to be a member, but I’m not yet. What if I try to send the order and I’m not a member? What does it take to join? How long does it take to process? What if they get my order while they’re still processing my membership–will my order end up in never-never land, and be delivered in July? Ack! I couldn’t take the uncertainty this close to the holidays. Just bite the bullet and sacrifice the 10¢ per print and go to ofoto, I tell myself.
So I go to ofoto, but I’ve got to sign up for that, too. No membership fee or anything though. I’ve blown so much time on this now, I just need to get this finished.
I will not send out cards in February, I will not send out cards in February . . .
It was after all this that I finally got my cards back. Ofoto.com was very quick: I ordered 2nd day service, uploaded my image on Wednesday morning and had 50 copies by Friday afternoon delivered to my house. Not bad.
Next year, I think I’ll start working on my holiday cards in, oh, July. 🙂
Congratulations Lou! Ah, now you WILL get them addressed before February, wont’ you? 🙂
Here is another suggestion, when I bought PSE 2 last year, I got a coupon for Shutterfly. So I sent some pictures to them for prints. They came out very well, they did a beautiful job on them!
The prices were very good too, can’t remember, but they did have a volume discount. You have to use .jpg and you have to have them a size and resolution that they recommend. When you upload them, there is a chart below each picture which tells you if that picture is OK for which size.
Club Photo has a similar service and good pricing too. Both are very easy and not convoluted. Jane
(I also used Shutterfly to make my full size Holiday calendars. Very very pleased with them.) J
Jane: thanks for the suggestions. More choices for our arsenals.
Beth: Party pooper! 🙂 How did you know that was my next step in procrastination? You must be a victim yourself, or live with a victim. Or you’re talking to my wife.
I live with a guy like you – wouldn’t let him near the Christmas cards or we’d never get any out! Mine are going in the mail today; and yours? 🙂
Truth be told, I filled them out last night while sitting in front of the fireplace.
Now, about those stamps I need to buy . . . 🙂
Beth,
I shouldn’t have let my husband near the Christmas Cards … I wrote them and left them in heap on the table …. HE posted them !!!! (snag was it was only the 28th of November)
Men 🙂 🙂
I allowed my husband the privilege of putting rubber bands around them and taking them to the post office. They should have gotten there about an hour ago. 🙂
Just wanted to say i truly enjoyed reading this thread. Please Lou, keep telling stories…you’re great at it !
Thanks, Jodi. You’re the first person who’s ever told me that!
And, uh, the husband-bashing side thread was certainly an unintended consequence.
re; husband-bashing; ya, let’s not let that happen again. 😉 😉
