Tutorial: Online printing services

No matter how beautiful your digital images are, you will want to get prints of at least some of them eventually. You can do make prints yourself at home with your inkjet printer or you can use one of the great services available for printing digital images.

There are many digital photo printing services available on the Internet and locally at various retailers. A few that we like to use include dotPhoto (www.dotphoto.com), Adorama (www.adorama.com), and Mpix (www.mpix.com) for prints by mail and Costco (www.costco.com) and Target (www.target.com) for prints that we can pick up locally.

All of these services allow you to upload your digital images using easy-to-use web interfaces. Retail stores like Target and Costco also let you carry your image into the store for printing on CD/DVD or memory cards in various forms.

After uploading your images through the print service website (or at the kiosk at the retail stores), you can buy prints in various sizes and forms. All of the standard print sizes are available, including wallets, 4" x 6", 5" x 7" and 8" x 10". Prints are not expensive - 4" x 6" prints are approximately $0.20-$0.30 each, 5" x 7" prints are approximately $1. You can also create cards, calendars, mouse pads, mugs, clothing, holiday ornaments and just about anything else you can imagine with your digital images.

These printing services produce high quality prints on normal photographic papers that have long lifetimes (not like the prints from inexpensive inkjet printers). They look and feel just like prints from film. Higher end services such as Mpix, dotPhoto and Adorama offer additional choices of paper type. In this regard, Mpix is the leader with a variety of high-end paper choices. The Kodak E-Surface and Metallic papers that Mpix offers are excellent. The few extra cents you pay per print for nice paper is definitely worthwhile!

Generally, the color management standards of these companies are good. Costco, Mpix and other printers provide color profiles for their printers or tell you the standard profiles that they expect. Making your computer color-profile aware and properly calibrated is not for the squeamish - many volumes have been written on color management. It is worthwhile to do if you want your prints to match more exactly what you see on your monitor.

Choosing between the mail order services and those available locally is a question of timing and order sizing. Both offer good quality and pricing. For a few prints, you may be better off working with a local printer; for more prints, you can get better quality at a similar total price from the mail order companies but you do have to wait a few days for your prints. We have never been disappointed by the mail order services - but there are times when you want the prints right away.

Most online printing services also allow you to share the photos that you upload with friends and family over the Internet. This is not a perfect solution, however. The images you can see on the website are small and are usually crowded with offers to sell prints of the displayed photos. If sharing is your goal, you are better off building DVD slide shows, using an online sharing service, or simply giving your friends and family copies of the digital images on CD or DVD.