Mini-biographies

I have an at home printer for the Kodak EasyShare camera and it works fabulously. It also cost about $.50 a print to do ($24 for 40 4x6 sheets) but it's easy, fast and convenient. If I want to print mass quantities, I send them in.

But the fact remains that you have ink on paper - and that isn't very stable.

A few years from now you might be very sorry that you don't have nice prints.

And the cost of the paper isn't the only thing you have to calculate into it.

I don't want to get off on a rant but I am very anti-computer prints of photographs.

Look at it this way:

The consumer division of the lab I use prints 4x6s for 25 cents.

They use their own paper.

They print it like a photo, on quality photo paper so it has the sparkle you can only get from using real paper -- the silver content makes all the difference in the world. It will last forever.

I don't have the wear and tear on my own printer and I don't have to buy ink either.

They analyze each print for color/contrast/etc. What I see on my computer rarely translates perfectly to a computer print. That means that one print usually doesn't cut it - I have to rebalance the color to compensate for the printer, or make a thousand other adjustments.

I can download my photos, they print them the next day and, for a few bucks, mail them straight to my house so I have them in a couple of days.

I really don't understand why everybody doesn't do this.

Once you try it you get so hooked on the ease and quality that you will never settle for a computer print again. I swear it.

So boomer... if I am reading that right they are taking your digital image and processing it like a regular film negative? Light exposer as opposed to being printed on a printer?

It's actual photo paper.

Kodak

Uhhh...

I just want to clarify -- when I say "my" lab I mean the lab I use. I don't have any financial interest in the lab.

I'm just trying to educate the photo buying public to not settle for sub-standard anything.

Bella, if it doesn't have silver content - that's what makes the paper light sensitive - it isn't "real" photo paper. Just because Kodak makes it doesn't make it photo paper - it is computer paper; high quality computer paper, but nothing more than computer paper.

Yes, jpin, exactly. They print the digital image the same way that they would print from film. They expose the paper, put it through the chemical baths -- just exactly like you would from film.

The best way to think about it jpin - is that it is much like printing from a slide, positive to positive. The computer monitor acts as the enlarger, or projector.

That makes more sense to me and is something I did not realize they did.

Have you found that you can enlarge digital images in this manner as large as you could from film? I would imagine that at some point the pixels begin to become apparent.

I've enlarged to 30x40 without any problem. That's from a 4 megapixel camera too. (Albeit a high end 4 megapixel camera.)

My new camera is 6 megapixels but I haven't printed anything bigger than an 11x14 with it yet. Mostly because it is a pocket style camera that I use mostly for snapshots.

It looks exactly like the prints I get when I send them out to a lab.

Maybe it's not the same, but it looks the same.

I think one of the main things is how long they last. This was the main reason I didn't get a digital when I was in the market a few years ago -- that while the two may appear the same now, the computer-printed photos fade and distort over time, well before the lab-printed (film) photos do.

I didn't know, at the time, that you could have digital photos printed the same way as film photos.

I want a digital camera.

Thanks for all the info Boomer. It might help make the switch to digital photos a little easier for me.

These kind of prints were the ONLY reason I decided to switch. If I'd had to rely on ink on paper I would have never, ever changed.

I confess to being picky to the point of obsessive about print quality.

That one is kind of scary, shewolf.

Your hands look pointy... kind of like claws. And the fact that you covered up your own eyes makes it even more eery

Very powerful though.

( its not a picture of me. heheh)
but i liked the original for that reason.
i added some touches to it, and , yeah it came out scary.. sort of what i was going for.. but sort of not.

i like the end result.

thanks

Wow, shewolf. That's a tough one; very powerful, as jpin mentioned.

But having met your lovely self I have such a hard time imagining you seeing yourself like that. Knowing what you've been through and how you came out of it, I have a hard time imagining you seeing yourself like that.

But I think we all have days where we feel like that.

Shewolf, good thing you didn't do one on your positive aspects because then we wouldn't even see the picture.

The lobby of my building.

thanks for the info Boomerang - yes, I suspect that having the photos done in the US wouldn't be economically viable! There is a good professional photo lab here (NOT inexpensive but top quality) where I've had the odd thing done in the past from film. I'll make enquiries. I had no idea that you could have your prints done on real photo paper - so thanks again for the expert advice

I really like the idea of having good quality, archival prints. Just of the 'best' pictures.