Digital prints from a lab?

Trenton · Oct 23, 2001

Maybe this day has arrived already, but can you take in your IBM Microdrive or CF card to your local lab and have them run you off a 4 x 6 print of all your "keepers"? (whether it be 12, 50, or 300) (and I'm not talking drugstore... I'm talking a pro camera shop)

As I consider making the jump to digital, (EOS digital) I'm just wondering if there's a way to effeciently make mass quantities of 4x6s or even 5x7s, etc... (example: you shoot a friend's child's birthday party, and they want prints)

For that one in a million shot you truly love, I can see taking your time and tweaking it in PS until it's perfect, then spending more time tweaking your 11x14, 13x19, etc. print on your printer at home. But what inevitably happens is that you show your stuff to friends/family/clients, and they want reprints. (and I don't mind sharing my work.. that part of the joy of photography) But I don't want to spend hours and hours of my time ganging and triming 12-up 4x6s all the time. Ya know?

I guess I should stop in and ask my local shop. Or would they laugh me out of the building.

Trenton

Karl Guttag · Oct 23, 2001

First, I would not pass around my microdrive or flash unless I was desperate. I suspect most drive failures happen swapping the drives in and out of camera's and drive readers.

While I think there are shops that will print from a CF car, would much rather write a CD (with banks that cost more like 25 cents). I would assume that if you have a D30 you probably have a writer (if you don't you should). I think that places that will take a CF card will also take a CD.

A perhaps better solution is a photo hosting site. These sites allow you to upload your pictures and anyone to look at them and get prints made. This can get you out of the printing loop all together. They work great if you have a reasonably fast internet connection. The turn around might be a bit longer.

Karl

Trenton said:
Maybe this day has arrived already, but can you take in your IBM
Microdrive or CF card to your local lab and have them run you off a
4 x 6 print of all your "keepers"? (whether it be 12, 50, or 300)
(and I'm not talking drugstore... I'm talking a pro camera shop)

As I consider making the jump to digital, (EOS digital) I'm just
wondering if there's a way to effeciently make mass quantities of
4x6s or even 5x7s, etc... (example: you shoot a friend's child's
birthday party, and they want prints)

For that one in a million shot you truly love, I can see taking
your time and tweaking it in PS until it's perfect, then spending
more time tweaking your 11x14, 13x19, etc. print on your printer at
home. But what inevitably happens is that you show your stuff to
friends/family/clients, and they want reprints. (and I don't mind
sharing my work.. that part of the joy of photography) But I don't
want to spend hours and hours of my time ganging and triming 12-up
4x6s all the time. Ya know?

I guess I should stop in and ask my local shop. Or would they
laugh me out of the building.

Trenton

RichW · Oct 23, 2001

Don't think that there is a Pro camera shop that would take your raw pictures and print them for you. They may actually laugh as you suggested. Drug stores, Walmart, etc. will allow you to print one at a time as you probably already know. No offense intended but it sounds as though you don't have a lot of digital experience and in particular no experience with the D30. I can't imagine taking your raw pictures on a Microdrive and paying someone to print them out without processing (if that's what you are suggesting). Makes no sense to me as D30 pics will almost always need some kind of computer processing (cropping, levels, USM, etc.). Processing them yourself before printing doesn't have to take a long time. It can be done in batches and can be automated. Good luck.

Rich

Trenton said:
Maybe this day has arrived already, but can you take in your IBM
Microdrive or CF card to your local lab and have them run you off a
4 x 6 print of all your "keepers"? (whether it be 12, 50, or 300)
(and I'm not talking drugstore... I'm talking a pro camera shop)

As I consider making the jump to digital, (EOS digital) I'm just
wondering if there's a way to effeciently make mass quantities of
4x6s or even 5x7s, etc... (example: you shoot a friend's child's
birthday party, and they want prints)

For that one in a million shot you truly love, I can see taking
your time and tweaking it in PS until it's perfect, then spending
more time tweaking your 11x14, 13x19, etc. print on your printer at
home. But what inevitably happens is that you show your stuff to
friends/family/clients, and they want reprints. (and I don't mind
sharing my work.. that part of the joy of photography) But I don't
want to spend hours and hours of my time ganging and triming 12-up
4x6s all the time. Ya know?

I guess I should stop in and ask my local shop. Or would they
laugh me out of the building.

Trenton

Mohit · Oct 23, 2001

My local Ritz camera as well as a new Walmart both have a Fuji Frontier; so they accept digital files on CD's as well as most digital camera media such as compact flash, smartmedia, etc. They'll print 4x6 up to 8x10 directly from your card. So this would accomplish what you're after.

However, as pointed out in this thread, you're better off running a batch process in Photoshop that applies at least some unsharp mask to the files (levels if necessary), convert the profile to sRGB (which works well with the Fuji Frontier), save them as JPG's and then burn a CD with the ones you want. Won't take too long, it's automated, and the output will be much better.

Another option is to upload the files, as pointed out. I've had excellent results from ePixel.com (which also uses a Fuji Frontier), and it's pretty cheap.

Mohit

stormin61931 · Oct 23, 2001

Does Ritz Camera charge a lot for this service? What is their turn-around time? Is their quality good?

I agree that it's better to process your own images and burn them to a CD after you have edited them...

-stormin

Mohit said:
My local Ritz camera as well as a new Walmart both have a Fuji
Frontier; so they accept digital files on CD's as well as most
digital camera media such as compact flash, smartmedia, etc.
They'll print 4x6 up to 8x10 directly from your card. So this
would accomplish what you're after.

However, as pointed out in this thread, you're better off running a
batch process in Photoshop that applies at least some unsharp mask
to the files (levels if necessary), convert the profile to sRGB
(which works well with the Fuji Frontier), save them as JPG's and
then burn a CD with the ones you want. Won't take too long, it's
automated, and the output will be much better.

Another option is to upload the files, as pointed out. I've had
excellent results from ePixel.com (which also uses a Fuji
Frontier), and it's pretty cheap.

Mohit

Lee Rothman65376 · Oct 23, 2001

I just shot a wedding for a friend and am finishing the processing in PS6 as we speak. I am going to arrange them in folders and by time shot on a CD for him to decide which one's he wishes to distribute and where. Thanks for the advice on Ritz and WalMart as sources to print from CD's.

Bob29465 · Oct 23, 2001

Check out

http://www.ddisiftware.com/qimage

as a very inexpensive alternative to Photoshop. It allows you to quickly apply corrections, change contrast, adjust sharpness, etc. including rotating and cropping WITHOUT impacting your original image. You can export your corrections to a new corrected image file (e.g. on a CD-ROM). It also automatically sets up proof sheets much more effectively than Photoshop. I couldn't believe it when I got it but this is the easy way to turn out 4x5 4x6 3x4 etc. proofs without having to place them on each proof sheet and with any specific setting for quality.

I'm using this a lot since I got it a week ago. Leave Photoshop for when you have to burn in or dodge out portions of an image.

Trenton said:
Maybe this day has arrived already, but can you take in your IBM
Microdrive or CF card to your local lab and have them run you off a
4 x 6 print of all your "keepers"? (whether it be 12, 50, or 300)
(and I'm not talking drugstore... I'm talking a pro camera shop)

As I consider making the jump to digital, (EOS digital) I'm just
wondering if there's a way to effeciently make mass quantities of
4x6s or even 5x7s, etc... (example: you shoot a friend's child's
birthday party, and they want prints)

For that one in a million shot you truly love, I can see taking
your time and tweaking it in PS until it's perfect, then spending
more time tweaking your 11x14, 13x19, etc. print on your printer at
home. But what inevitably happens is that you show your stuff to
friends/family/clients, and they want reprints. (and I don't mind
sharing my work.. that part of the joy of photography) But I don't
want to spend hours and hours of my time ganging and triming 12-up
4x6s all the time. Ya know?

I guess I should stop in and ask my local shop. Or would they
laugh me out of the building.

Trenton

Bob29465 · Oct 23, 2001

It is:

http://www.ddisoftware.com/qimage

Trenton said:
Maybe this day has arrived already, but can you take in your IBM
Microdrive or CF card to your local lab and have them run you off a
4 x 6 print of all your "keepers"? (whether it be 12, 50, or 300)
(and I'm not talking drugstore... I'm talking a pro camera shop)

As I consider making the jump to digital, (EOS digital) I'm just
wondering if there's a way to effeciently make mass quantities of
4x6s or even 5x7s, etc... (example: you shoot a friend's child's
birthday party, and they want prints)

For that one in a million shot you truly love, I can see taking
your time and tweaking it in PS until it's perfect, then spending
more time tweaking your 11x14, 13x19, etc. print on your printer at
home. But what inevitably happens is that you show your stuff to
friends/family/clients, and they want reprints. (and I don't mind
sharing my work.. that part of the joy of photography) But I don't
want to spend hours and hours of my time ganging and triming 12-up
4x6s all the time. Ya know?

I guess I should stop in and ask my local shop. Or would they
laugh me out of the building.

Trenton

Trenton · Oct 24, 2001

Thanks for the advice guys. I forgot about the sharpening that needs to happen.

But batch processing and burning CDs I'm familiar with. (I'm a graphic designer by day)

Bob: Thanks for the link, but it looks like that program is for PCs - I'm on a Mac.

-Trenton

Mohit · Oct 24, 2001

stormin61931 said:
Does Ritz Camera charge a lot for this service? What is their
turn-around time? Is their quality good?

My local Ritz charges 60 cents or so (I forget exactly) for a 4x6; Walmart is only 29 cents for a 4x6. The quality is incredible - on Fuji Crystal Archive paper (I like the glossy better than the matte on the few tests I did). Turn-around is about the same as for regular film prints - about an hour at the Ritz. Try it out!

Mohit

Search

Digital prints from a lab?

Trenton

Forum Enthusiast

Karl Guttag

Veteran Member

RichW

Veteran Member

Mohit

Leading Member

stormin61931

Member

Lee Rothman65376

New member

Bob29465

Well-known member