Print your own photographs?

I have a favorite local pro lab that is the ONLY Kodak cetified quality C 41 lab in Illinois. Thet do work from a few amateurs such as myself who brought them wedding photographer customers. Amateurs never see the business as it is tucked away in an office park.

Their specialty is wedding and event photography.

Send the files to them via a file transfer program such as file transfer explorer or use the free one provided at the bottom of the page.

Photoshop your images and duplicate the image in a folder for final printing. Drag and drop with the file transfer program. Then send them a E-mail instructing them to find that file in their server and make the prints. They need to be in JPEG format. In order to keep instructions simple, I would use one folder for 8x10, one for 5x7, one for 4x6.

Title the folders similar to Steve Studio-Johnson wedding 6-12-07 8x10

Prints will ship back UPS or mail.

If you worry about lost mail, have the package put on will call at a local UPS distribution point or or have it sent to a UPS Store locally. You need to make separate arrangements with a local UPS Store a they are independently owned. I use one for all expensive items or camera repairs as I do not want my cameras left on the porch.

In short, don`t waste your time printing. They do a fine job faster and cheaper and you get to do the fun part. Do more weddings and let someone who is set up do the photoprints.

http://www.aiprolab.com/pages/home.html

hi Stephen, I also have the R2400, but I use a pro lab for most of my printing. It is cheaper, the prints are better than my R2400 and it saves time. Just shoot sRGB and keep things simple. Almost any pro lab will do a top notch job. Most of them use some sort of ROES order entry system where you simply choose the size you want and enter the order. As for color, most labs give you a choice to print with or without color correction. If you go without color correction and have a properly calibrated monitor, what you see is what you get.

I print everything myself ... Epson 2400.

I flag the album choices first in Bridge, then start tweaking them in PS.

With enough RAM the printer works in the background as I continue correcting the images in PS ... sending each album select to the printer as I go.

When I am done correcting images, the prints are also done.

I have standard album mat sizes like 7X10, 8X10, 7X7 and use the INFO dialog box to see the crop dimensions as I'm doing them.

We don't even own a printer...Can't compete > even with the best calibration/spider setup...hard to make a 4X6 ~ for 17c.

I print emergency prints. I made a mistake and didn't order something and the client is on the way to pick up. Otherwise the cost is not very comprable to a lab. My time is worth more photographing than minding a printer. Brooke

Time = money. If you have lots of spare hours to print and print, then you should be OK. But if printer maintenance is needed, supplies are not kept current....a lab is the way to go. (Which may be quicker: 250 wedding proofs by the lab, or done one at-a-time on your printer?)

But printing is only part of the job Marc - what about cutting to size? Don't you find that slow and tedious?

And where do you get your albums?

I also thought about using my own printer. I'm a quality control freak you see ;). I found out about a Lab called HH Color (www.hhcolorlab.com) and decided to use them for effiency.

I use a free verision of labprints that you can download from their site to order online and they ship everything to your door using Fed-ex. They bake the shipping into all their prices.

To order you upload the edited but uncropped (Tiff or Jpeg) pictures from a shoot into Lapprint's software, order all sorts of sizes and crop in the program. You can set-up your studio prices there and use this program with your client beside you. Saving you the extra time of ordering after they leave. Also that way you don't have the extra step of cropping 200+ images and saving them on your harddrive.

Also you can pay to set up with lapprints to do online ordering as well as they have wedding album software. I've tried the online ordering and like it so far. Don't know much about the wedding album software.

HH color does not have a color printer profile, which is the only thing I wish they had. However, if I color correct stuff myself it comes back consistent and looking good. They will do a test run with you; so you'll be able to see how your images will look. They also offer, for a price, to do color correction for you. This also is consistent and looks good. I was impressed! Still I wish they had a printer profile. :(

They have excellent customer service too which is nice!

I also use MPIX from time to time. Thier user interface is horrible and everything takes me much longer to do there. But they offer studio color corrected color/sepia prints for .19 each and print on the same paper that I pay $1.70 for at HH color. So I'll use them for proofing to save $$$. Thier larger sizes end up costing me about the same as hh color.

Hope this helps! Michelle

I'm a quality control freak you see ;). Me too! That's why the thought of converting to jpeg and also getting incorrect colours bothers me.

Yes the lab info mentioned in this thread is helpful - keep 'em coming.

I'm in the UK btw - not that matters much in these days of the internet.

You should be able to find a lab that will print Tiffs.

HH does. Mpix doesn't.

I know Labprints partners with many labs around the US and Canada. Perhaps they may know of some in the UK to reccommend? Just a thought.

Good luck my friend!

There are alternative ways of doing things these days folks. It IS the digital age.

We don't make 4X6 proofs and haven't done any for 5 years. Instead we do large contact sheets which is a fully automated process in PS that includes the file number below it ... which is faster and about the same cost or less. Plus, it keeps the whole wedding flow in order with each image easy to cross reference to the DVD's matching number. IMHO, with digital imagery on DVDs and CD ROMs, site uploads and automated contact sheets, 4X6 proofs are an antiquated throwback to the film only days.

I don't understand the need to trim album prints? The 2400 print driver allows you to set any sized paper including custom sizes. 8X10 prints can be done on letter sized inkjet paper, and most albums accept these standard sizes. IMO, 8X10 is also an antiquated size in itself. Most digital cameras produce a 7"X10.5" and 7X10 album openings are common... which minimizes wasted image and makes in viewfinder composition easier ... what you see is what you get.

If trimming IS necessary, a rolling trimmer does a whole album's worth in minutes. The printer dialog box even has a option to place crop marks if you need them (which I don't).

I agree that time = money. In the time it takes to drive to the lab, place your order, and drive back, I've printed the album ... because it isn't a separate function, it's one done simultaneously while correcting images in PS. Just set your preferences in the print dialog box and go.

Anything you set your mind to do in PS can be standardized and automated until it's virtually no effort at all.

The comments about maintaining printers has not been my experience. My 2400 is humming along after 3 full wedding seasons and countless other projects in between ... where I see the results immediately, not when the lab is done. And my prints match what I see on the screen because it's a closed loop system with sync'ed color profiling of all system elements.

I completely understand using labs and making 4X6 proofs for those who shoot film. But IMO it's slow thus expensive in terms of time for digital photography.

"I completely understand using labs and making 4X6 proofs for those who shoot film. But IMO it's slow thus expensive in terms of time for digital photography."

Can't disagree more Marc. I print all 4x6, 5x7, & 8x10 on my lab's Frontier which yields better results (on better/more archival paper mind you) using their printer profile. I use my Epson for large/custom prints on fine art paper - not something cost effective or even practical for 4x6, 5x7, & 8x10 (which makes up most prints/pictures).

Bogdan

Oh yeah, 4x6, 5x7, & 8x10 are not "antiquated", since that's what most frames & albums hold.

Bogdan

After a season with the R2400, I found that it was easier to order prints through whcc.com. The R2400 is a very nice printer, but the prints were more expensive to produce per unit than whcc. But the real distinction was that R2400 prints show bronzing on premium lustre, frontier prints do not.

As I said Bogdan, I don't make 4X6s or 5X7s ... thus the "IMO".

And I fully know what effort it requires to work with a lab, as I still shoot film and use them for that.

I buy my letter sized ink-jet paper in bulk, and inks at a discount ... I pay less than $2.25 per print including figuring in printer replacement every three years. My local lab charges $3.00 each for an uncorrected 8X10 laser print.

This doesn't take into account all the work preping to get it to the lab, and picking it up/ inspecting when it's done. As I said when I am done correcting in PS, so are the prints ... and I know they are to the level of quality I want then, not later.

Not one of my clients have had a problem with the quality of the prints.

But as usual, to each his or her own.

So Ronald, does that local lab do more tweaking with your files? Or do they just straight print what you send them?