SHOULD YOU PRINT YOUR DIGITAL PHOTOS AT HOME OR USE A PHOTO PRINTING SERVICE? by Valerie Goettsch

SHOULD YOU PRINT YOUR DIGITAL PHOTOS AT HOME OR USE A PHOTO PRINTING SERVICE? by Valerie Goettsch

There are lots of options available for getting your digital photos printed, but which method is the best and most economical choice for you? Let's look at some of the options and the pros and cons of each.

PRINTING YOUR DIGITAL PHOTOS AT HOME
Convenience and instant gratification are two popular reasons for printing your digital photos at home. Depending on your printer, you can print directly from your camera or from your memory card in most cases. Or if you want to touch up your photos first you can copy them to your computer, use your photo editing software (I like Photoshop Elements 3.0) to enhance your images, and then print right from your graphics program. You don't have to make an extra stop to drop off your photo memory card at the photofinisher or drugstore and then return to pick up your prints, and you save the shipping fees the online photo services charge.

However, printing your photos on your home printer may be more expensive than you realized. The per-print price can approach $1 per picture when you factor in the cost of buying a photo printer, high quality photo paper and lots of color ink cartridges. If you print a lot of photos you'll go through ink cartridges and paper rather quickly, which gets expensive, especially if you make mistakes and have to reprint. If you use inexpensive or off-brand paper, you will likely find that your photos may start to fade or discolor within a few months. According to industry experts, if you print at home, use the same brand name paper as your printer manufacturer (i.e. if you have a Canon printer, use Canon photo paper). Your prints will be better quality and last longer.

USING AN ONLINE DIGITAL PHOTOFINISHER
Online digital photofinishers like Ofoto and the new PhotoWorks make the process of printing your photos very easy. You can edit your photos either using your own photo editing software or download free software from the online line printing service to crop, fix red-eye, and add special effects or borders to your images. Then simply select the images you want to print, click to upload to the photo site, and you will receive your order, printed on high quality photo paper, in your mailbox in approx. 2-5 days. In addition to prints you can order customized photo calendars, photo cards, photo books, mugs, and other photo items. With some online services, like Shutterfly, you can even try out and order frames for your photos.

The downside: you do pay a shipping charge, so you may want to wait and order a number of photos or photo products at one time to make it more economical. Print costs for 4x6 inch photos range from about 19 cents to 29 cents, depending on the company.

Wal-Mart.com's prints are inexpensive and the bonus is you can upload your photos to their website and then pick them up at your local store and avoid shipping charges. Photo stores like RitzCamera.com or WolfCamera.com are also good options because you can either upload your photos to their website and pick them up at a local store in as little as an hour, or you can drop off your memory card at the store and pick up your prints later.

PRINT YOUR PHOTOS AT THE DRUGSTORE
Digital printing is now available at drugstore chains such as Walgreens and Longs. You can bring in your memory stick and use their photo kiosk to crop and edit your images and then print them. The cost is about the same as an online printing service, but you have to stand there at the kiosk and edit/upload your photos. Not something I really want to do, nor do I want to wait in line while someone else finishes their photo order. The good news is these drugstores also offer online photo services so you can upload your photos to their website and you can pick up your prints at their store usually the next day.

The other option is you can drop off your memory card or CD at the drugstore's photo department and pick up your prints anywhere from an hour later to a day later, depending on the service selected, just like the "old days" of 35mm film. The print cost is about the same as full service online photo finishers (less the shipping fee). There are frequent sales, so the per-print cost can be relatively low if you hit a sale, but you don't have the option of cropping or enhancing your images unless you edit your photos then burn them to a CD first.

My suggestion is to experiment with several methods and find the best one that works for you. Whatever you do, don't just let all those digital photos pile up in your memory card or on your computer, get them printed so you can show them off. Of course you can also share them online with family and friends, but that's another article.

About the Author
Valerie Goettsch publishes the digital photography website http://www.digitalphotos101.com featuring reviews of photo editing and album software and digital photo printing services.

iPhoto 5 Magnified by Jelaine Macaraig

iPhoto 5 Magnified by Jelaine Macaraig

Want a user-friendly, efficient and versatile digital imaging software that allows you to be creative and produce professional projects? Then youll definitely love iPhoto 5.

It has the standard functions one can expect from an image editing applicationthe Red-Eye button for well, red eyes, the Retouch Brush for removing blemishes and other unwanted dirt, freehand Crop Tool to capture only the best elements of your photo in one frame, the Straighten tool to level horizons using the handy-dandy grid, and the Advanced Editing Dashboard for precise adjustment of black and white points using the Levels tool, adjustment of exposure and color saturation, modification of color temperature and for fine-tuning tint, as well as brightness and contrast. While editing a photo, iPhoto 5 even allows you to compare it with the original image simply by holding down the Control key. You can also reset all the adjustments youve done with the different sliders using a single button. Yup, iPhoto 5 has all these and so much more.

It supports not only the oh-so famous JPEG file format, but even the RAW file format, which has become a favorite among professional photographers and higher-end enthusiasts who wish to preserve the maximum image quality. It also supports the MPEG-4 file format for video clips and if youre concerned about file size, dont worryiPhoto 5 imports them just as fast and easy as it would JPEGs and from almost any data source too. With a USB cable, simply plug in your gadget to your Mac, whether its your digital camera or your memory card reader or your iPod and iPhoto would automatically launch. It would then give you a dialog box where you can put in information about your images like name, subject, keywords and other metadata, which you can later on use for fast and easy search of photos, albums or digital roll. You can also import images stored in CDs or your hard drive in two wayseither you select and add your image folders to the library from the File menu or simply drag the folder into the iPhoto window.

Lastly, one of the many features that iPhoto 5 prides itself of is the intelligent and advanced slideshow feature. First off, the slideshows are separate from the albums. Therefore, you can modify the contents of one slideshow, like maybe add a few images from another album, without affecting the albums themselves. And since iPhoto 5 supports MPEG-4, you can create slideshows consisting of both still images and video clips. It also has a lot of fantastic transitions, which you can control the speed and direction of, and even allows you to adjust the slide duration on a per-image basis. You might be thinking, a good soundtrack would be lovely toobut setting the perfect timing may be difficult to achieve. With iPhoto 5, you wouldnt have to worry about that as it has a tight integration with iTunes. Simply select a song or an entire playlist from your iTunes library and iPhoto will do the math for you and synchronize your music with your slideshow! Now hows that for a total viewing experience? Your family and friends might think that you had a professional do all these creative work for you!

About the Author
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