Do you print your own photos at home?

We have an HP colour ink jet printer and I'm not loving it. I saw a colour laser printer at Costco the other day for under $400, don't know if it's worth it or not. I have hardly any photos printed as I don't like the quality of what I can do at home and the paper and inks are expensive.

The photos fade if left out in the light. In an album they are fine.

For those with digital photos, where do you get your photos printed and in what format do you bring it in? On a cd or your memory card? Do you email them anywhere?

By Dawnk777 on Friday, January 13, 2006 - 03:20 pm:

My DH likes to fuss with the pictures, before we print them, since he is picky. It's what he does at work, everyday. We burn a cd and take that to Walmart! It's just 19cents/print. We don't have an actual photo printer and we go through ink cartridges fast enough on the inkjet, without printing photographs, too.

When we had about 300 pictures from Niagara Falls, we burned a cd, took that to Walmart and came back later, for the prints! I can't imagine how many ink cartridges that would have all needed! I would rather use their ink, than mine!

You can order prints online from Walmart, but Walmart is less than a mile from here and it's easy enough just to drive there.

By Karen~moderator on Friday, January 13, 2006 - 03:32 pm:

I have printed numerous photos on my HP, and I haven't had a problem with fading so far, but I expect it.

Make sure you don't have to have a special photo paper for the laser printer. We have a Minolta Magicolor laser printer at the office, but you have to order photo paper from Minolta to print photos. I nearly ruined the machine trying to use Kodak paper in it.

For photos I want to keep or give to people to keep, I'm going to do what Dawn does.

By Reds9298 on Friday, January 13, 2006 - 04:32 pm:

I love my HP printer! It's a photosmart 7760, about 2 years old. The quality of my home-printed photos is excellent. I do ALL of my digital printing however at snapfish.com, an HP company. I doctor all of my photos with an editing program first, then upload them to snapfish.com for printing and a double storage. I LOVE snapfish quality and service, plus it's only .12/print and super easy. I had several photo gifts made there for Christmas as well and they all turned out really nicely.

Before we had cable internet however, I took my photo card to Walmart to have them printed there. Now it's much easier to it online/by mail.

I only print at home however when I just need a quick extra photo for scrapbooking, my parents are here and want an extra, we took a family one at Christmas and we printed one off for everybody here, something like that. It's too expensive to print all photos at home, we quickly learned that. So I always have a photo cartridge on hand just in case.

Plus, we take a ga-billion photos of our little one and it's just really easy to mangage and store them on snapfish. (I also store on CD, but snapfish is my double back-up, that's how ridiculous I am about it!)

By Debbie on Friday, January 13, 2006 - 05:08 pm:

I have a HP printer too. I print all my photos on it. I love it. I also have a small Cannon single printer that I can attach my camera too. The paper is expensive for it though, so I only use it if I just have 1 or 2 pictures to print.

By Marcia on Friday, January 13, 2006 - 07:20 pm:

I also have an HP7760, and the quality is excellent! I love the fact that I can print whatever size I want for my scrapbook pages. When I take them in to have them done, they all come back 4x6. While I like that for normal albums, I love choosing for scrapbooks. Sometimes I will print 2 sheets of wallets, all different pics of a birthday party, to make 2 cool pages. The cost is way less, and the whole party is displayed. Another page might just have an 8x10.
Still, if any photo shop has a great deal on price, I will go for it. I just ordered 100 prints at 12 cents each. Can't beat that price, and I'm going to make cards from them.

By Heaventree on Friday, January 13, 2006 - 07:28 pm:

Marcia, where did you get the 12 cent price? I checked out Walmart and Blacks. Walmart wants 24 cents and Blacks wants 35 cents.

My printer is the HP psc 2410 photosmart. What kind of paper are you using?

By Karen~moderator on Friday, January 13, 2006 - 07:57 pm:

Cori, we have the same printer! I am using Kodak Ultima Picture Paper, heaviest weight/high gloss. The photos I print look very nice.

By Karen~moderator on Friday, January 13, 2006 - 07:58 pm:

BTW, I have pictures I printed on this printer a couple years ago, on the walls all over my house, and they still look fine. Are yours exposed to direct sunlight?

By Heaventree on Friday, January 13, 2006 - 08:02 pm:

Karen, no they are not. I have some on the fridge and they fade quickly. I bought some Epson paper at Costco last time. I'll try the Kodak - thanks.

By Kaye on Friday, January 13, 2006 - 08:43 pm:

I don't print at home, the pictures just don't look right. I can spot a printed out picture in an album in less than a second. The colors are layered and they have a funny sheen. I take mine to walgreens, sometimes I take my memory stick, sometimes I just do it online. I never pay more than 19cents, I don't print often.

In general the life expectancy is much less with home printed photos, plus they won't hold up well if something (water damage) were to occur. If regular pictures were to get wet you can soak them and save most of them. Home printed pictures cannot handle that.

So no, I don't think that printer is worth it!

By Reds9298 on Friday, January 13, 2006 - 10:19 pm:

I only use Kodak paper and my prints are on the fridge near a window and still look really good.

12 cents a print at snapfish.com, but I think 19 or 24 at Walmart??? You get 20 free prints at snapfish the first time you use them. I just thought what the heck and tried it one time and I've been hooked ever since. If I had dial-up though I probably would still go to Walmart just because it would take DAYS to upload them!

Kaye- I honestly can't see the difference between my printed at home photos and my snapfish ones. I'm always surprised, too! I think the kind of printer you have really makes all the difference in the world.

By Kate on Friday, January 13, 2006 - 10:45 pm:

Kaye, can you explain about soaking water damaged pics?? I've never heard of that and I'm not sure what you mean!

Do you think it's safe uploading pics from home to store sites and having them print them? I've held off for that reason. I know when you take film to be developed the picture people have access to your negatives and can make pics of their own if they want, but they can't duplicate negatives so you do at least get those back and hopefully any stolen photos will get lost or they won't reproduce well. So what do you think about putting those pics up in cyberspace where you have no clue where they will go? I so worry about pics of the kids and internet pornography and such. Thoughts? If you do the memory stick or burn a cd, do you avoid that problem entirely? I am utterly clueless about all of this!

By Marcia on Friday, January 13, 2006 - 11:57 pm:

I use Kodak premium paper. Costco has it on sale quite often. I just bought 100 sheets of 8x10 for 16.99. I have tried the Staples brand, but it was crap!
I ordered online from photolab.com, which covers The Great Canadian Superstore, Zehrs, Loblaws, etc. It was a buy one, get one half price sale. They often have sales. I've also found great deals at shoppers.ca, and Costco has good prices. Still, I print most at home.
I printed some 8x10's of Sonja just after she died. I was using my 2mp camera and my old printer, but the same paper. They have been in my very bright living room for 2 years, and still look great!

By Reds9298 on Saturday, January 14, 2006 - 08:02 am:

Kate- To answer your question about ordering and storing online...yes, I guess that's a possibility, but my account does have a user name and password that I have to use to log in. I suppose the person actually printing the photos could do something with them, but when you do digitals at Walmart or wherever, that could also be a possibility because there's no negatives with that route either.

I use the memory card in my camera for taking photos, then I transfer them to my computer, doctor them up if necessary, then I copy them to a cd at the end of each month. I delete my digital card once I've copied them to my computer or snapfish. Then once a cd is full, I store a copy in a lock box at the bank and one at home. (Yes I'm organized and very OCD about this particular task!!) You can also take your card to Walmart (for example), insert it into their machine and upload your photos, them they develop them for you and you pick them just like regular film. Does that help?

By Kaye on Saturday, January 14, 2006 - 10:27 am:

soaking photos (first make note that I live south of houston, think hurricanes*S*). My cousin recently had her home flooded, including several photo albums were "ruined". Anyway, some of the photos were irreplaceable and she contacted a specialist. She was told to soak the album in water (indiv pages). And sure enough most of them came right off and the pictures were as good as new. It has to do with how pictures are processed. Photo paper is designed to be soaked, that is how you develop the pictures (new comp technology has changed a lot of that). But with home printer the color doesn't chemically alter the paper, it lays color on top, if you soak one of those photos it will smear.

I am all about photos for preserving memories. My mother died 8 years ago and every photo I have of her is less that a shoe box. I realized at that time that you never know what is going to happen and it is worth doing it right, because you just can't get photos back. So I scrapbook only with name brand stuff, only use professional printing, and take my pictures very seriously (i am a bit OCD about this).