Printing

There are many options, with varying quality, of where to get an image printed. Generally with prints, you "get what you paid for," meaning the cheaper the print, the lower the quality of the print. That being said, there are still very affordable, reliable labs.

Sites such as flickr, shutterfly, or snapfish, will allow you to upload your image (you will have to set up a free account) and either have it mailed to your home or go to a 3rd party vendor such as Target or Wal Mart to pick up your prints. I have found that the prints from shutterfly's or snapfish's in house lab (that get mailed to you) tend to look better than those that get sent off to a 3rd party vendor. You can also upload your image straight to Wal Mart's or Target's website and order from there, check prices to see what's cheaper. Local pharmacies and copy shops also tend to print photos, you bring in your jump drive or a burned CD of your image and upload it to their printer. Just make sure they are printing on photo paper and it's not just on some color copy paper. Of course when planning to print, there is always the question of time, you may not have days to wait for an order to get mailed to you and will need to go where it is most convenient and/or quickest for you.

If possible try out a few different places, so when you turn in your final project you will know where you want your prints to come from and can plan your workflow to allow plenty of time to get the prints made from your chosen spot.


Remember, you may want to make your file in Photoshop to be an 8x10 to try and avoid any cropping of the image. Also, very important to remember to make sure your image resolution is at 300 ppi!