I am breaking my Wordless Wednesday word fast to pick your brains.
Tonight’s topic is photography. Where do you get your digital pictures printed? Are you happy with their services?
I happen to have a vast graveyard of undeveloped photos stored on my hard drive. Sound familiar? The grandparents are going to love me, though, because I ordered—ahem—172 photos today!
I can be spur of the moment like that.
It was really easy, too! I love really easy! I went to my Flickr site and chose the “Prints and photo products” option which is under the “Organize and Create” tab at the top. The page looked like this:
I dragged the photos that I wanted into the box and clicked the “Get Prints” button on the left. This took me over to Snapfish, with whom I have an account. (I also order from Shutterfly, depending on my mood.) I placed the order this morning and picked it up this afternoon at Walgreen’s. Easy peasy rice & cheesy!
(It’s a bit more expensive that way but I needed the pix for my mom’s birthday on Sunday.)
(She hates sharing her birthday with Halloween, by the way.)
(But that’s another story.)
The second part of this photography bleg concerns the boxes of negatives stored in my closet(s). Do you save your negatives? Does anyone print photos from negatives anymore?
I want to just pitch them but I have…issues.
Thanks for your help in advance, everyone!
I absolutely save my negatives. I figure that if my children ever want to have the same copy of the picture the quality will be much better if printed from a negative than just copied in a picture copier.
We don't really print photo except occasionally a few via iPhoto to send to family.
Oh and Dom's birthday's on Halloween too.
i usually upload them to HEB's (our local grocery store)photo site and then pick them up when I go shopping.
If it is a good picture, then the print is just fine.
The only negatives I have are my wedding pictures.
Oh, also, if a child touches a picture with sticky fingers, you will never know if you copy it from the negatives, but you might never be able to properly get all the smudges off, and then it will show up in the copy. This isn't so much of an issue with glossy pictures, but I know that during the nineties my mother developed a lot of pictures with the matte finish instead of glossy and those won't be as easy to clean.
I own a photo printer but only print a few really good ones. I have been doing photo books instead. I'm not much of a scrapbooker, but these seem to work.
You can also have them printed at their local Walgreens to be picked up by grandparents. I think I'm going to go that route for my in-laws.
i love costco photo. the qaulity, price and convenience can't be beat.
I have my negatives . . . they'll be thrown out when I'm dead, I reckon. I can't part with them, but I don't know what to do with them either. Can they be converted to disc for the PC? Or? I'm technologically challenged as well. I need another lifetime to get it sorted.
We are similar in this regard … last time I ordered picks I was about 8 mos. pregnant with my middle child! I still have negatives & don't want to throw them, but can they still be used? Yes, there is this handy gadget (saw it in a Kohl's magazine) that will convert your negatives, old photos, and slides to digital. So, if I could get my negatives and my husband's slides into the digital world I would let go of my hard copies. Only because my hard drive is backed up by Carbonite do I feel secure enough to do this. But, I have to convert them first!!
My old negs are in a storage box at my parents house. That way, if the house burns down with all our photos in it, I have them safe somewhere else. Morbid, I know. But safe….
I use Shutterfly to print. I cannot STAND glossy prints. As a previous professional photographer, glossy just offends my eyes 😉
I have photos at google/picasa, shutterfly — and flickr. We recently bought a machine (have NO clue what it is called at the moment) – to make slides/negatives into digital images. It's is painstakingly boring to work on, so I don't know if I'll ever get through them all. We have BOXES and boxes of slides.
I would love an October birthday ~but, yeah I can see how having it the same day as Halloween could get old…Happy Birthday to your mom!
This is such an organizational challenge, isn't it? I store my photos on iPhoto, but they are not organized, except by date, which is good, I guess … I leave the backing up of the computer to my husband! When I do print, I usually do it from one of the sites you listed, depending on whether I have a discount or coupon from one of them. (That's when I tend to order pics, when there's a deal.) As for negatives, I have mine. I don't know if I will ever look through them just to find a particular photo, though. I've scrapbooked them by now anyway, so the photos are preserved. I like the suggestion of converting them to digital. I should look into that!
This is totally me. Printing in a panic (like the four graduations from high sachool we've had so far) – and looming over me are all the photos that are in cyberspace, yet to be printed.
My hubby occassionally helps me to feel more panicy about this, by reminding me that, with the older kids, we printed whenever the roll of film was completed! Now, our youngest can look at himself on the computer, but rarely in a book, like the other kids!
(-oh, and I have definitely saved all the negatives and organized them by date).
Believe it or not but I print at Wal-Mart. BUT not through the mail. There's a difference. I do the 1 hr in store and pick them up when I have a chance. I like them the best.
Good luck!
Ok, maybe it's just me, but my negatives have been scattered in storage bins only to be found by not-so-gentle little hands. So I have given up on them (I admire those of you that are so organized). I dabbled in scrapbooking (and no longer can find the time or space).
So right now, I get photo scrapbooks through Shutterfly and Mixbook (Mixbook allows more artistic freedom – you can actually add extra textboxes and move photos instead of being locked into a template!). Photo scrapbooks prevent the photos from being removed and misplaced or destroyed. And the older girls love the look and feel of a real book. The books are more compact than traditional photo albums or scrapbooks (leave empty spaces or pages for trinkets, if you want). You can write as much or as little as you want.
For photos, I use Clark Color Labs (because I used them with real film), Shutterfly (when they have sales) or Walgreens one hour photo service.
No more negatives, except from 4 years ago.
I always print at Wal-mart but will have to try our new Sam's club, it has a photo dept now. I've always been happy with them.
I do lots of enlargements too and they always come out beautiful. They are way, way more cheaper than anywhere else.
I get my pic printed asap and put in a book asap. My anal thang.
I use Walmart.target.walgreens.
I also love to print out 8x10s.
negatives I saved them.
Happy Birthday to your sweet mama!
My mom has one of those machines that scans slides and negatives to your PC. There are also services that do the work for you. Not sure of the price. I rarely print photos. My blog is my scrapbook. I have made photo albums through the different websites, but very rarely do I print individual photos. All my digital photos are backed up on an external drive.
Negatives: I went through all mine (which were usually with the corresponding photographs), scanned my fav. pics, and then tossed the negs. For my dig. negs, I just burn them to disk. I know they won't keep forever, but this should just motivate me to make photo books out of them. I like the ones online (I've only tried blurb, but have heard good things about shutterfly too). This way, the photo books should last a lifetime, b/c of the quality of the paper they are printed on. I hear. I guess I will never know because I probably won't live until 100.
For Christmas, I am getting my husband, another MN patent atty, one of those machines that convert negs to digital. He loves tedious work. I'm serious.
I like Walgreens for printing – we also have prepaid an order for a grandparent to pick up at their local store.