My First-EVER RANT! So decide to give in, I buy myself a decent digital camera after telling everyone "I don't need a digital camera." The pictures are great, most if not all the people I show the pics on the PC and on some at-home prints say it's a cool camera and the pictures are great. So I decide, hey why not give Best Buy a shot at developing some of my best photos, just to see if I can notice the difference... they're 19 cents apiece and that doesn't seem expensive to me. I heard printing them allows you to show people without PCs how good your pics are and all. So I create an album online at doble-u-doble-u-doble-u-punto-bestbuy-punto-com, and I notice they say the following verbage: So I says to myself, hey why not. Three days pass. No photos at the Fry Rd. store. I wait 5 days. Nothing. I show up. I show my order. They call the "main office that delivers them." They say: "uhhh... it takes longer to deliver them sometimes, sir..." (pimple-faced kid from the Simpsons). What do I do? I speak to one of the customer service dudes, who was asking ME to do stuff he coud do there. Call some 1888 number, ask questions, etc. I say, "please tell me if you have a lab here or anywhere in Houston, so I can send it there so I don't waste my time waiting for a pickup time and I can pick it up in 2 days instead of 5 as the website claims." So the dude calls, his response: "I just spoke to the main main guys, and they said the only digital lab here in TEXAS is in ARLINGTON." :eekl: WTF? "So I would only get my pictures back in 2 days if I lived in the METROPLEX area???" That's freaked up. He says: "Yes, sir... that's why they take long, but it takes 1-2 days to process, and then the other 3 to 4 are for the delivery." Well isn't that abso-f*ck*ng-lutely marvelous? All I want to say to YOU DUDES is, * Unless you live in Arlington, Dallas, Fort Worth, Grand Prairie, Irving, or any other of those Cowgirl-loving cities, or * unless you don't care for waiting 5 days to a full week for your prints and don't need them the same month, DON'T SEND YOUR DIGITAL PICs TO WORST BUY. Can you dudes and dudettes (yes, akperez and rubytuesday and meggoleggo and isabel) recommend another service that can deliver the pictures back the same year or even in good quality??? I bought 2 $20 digital print cards for $10 each, so I saved a bunch... from Best Buy... I am not OUT of the money, I just think the turn-around time is ridiculous. That's my story. Please offer some suggestions. SHould I send a flaming message to the BestBuy executives who sit on their executive chairs executiving stuff all executivy... ??
I've had pretty good luck with Snapfish . I wouldn't say the quality is top notch though....good enough and cheap for sharing (my purpose for printing out digital pics). Ritz Camera might be a better choice if your going for high quality. Looks like you can even pick them up in an hour! I was thinking of trying them out next. Hope that helps.
If you want your pics right away, use the Kodak picture makers at CVS. 29 cents each. You wait as it prints out. Or do it online with Walmart at $0.24/ea and pick it up at the store.
You can get excellent results by getting your pictures developed at Walgreens. They have the same equipment as Ritz!
I'm so honored to be "one of the girls" now. I am a recent digital camera owner myself (March 2005) and I've only gone to one place-Ritz Camera. I like matte finish with the borders they do (no extra charge) and I can pick it up in an hour. My sister has done Ofoto and I don't know if it's because the pictures were no matte or not, but I didn't particularily like them. Good luck!
I forgot to add that I need some competitive prices and some competitive quality. I spoke to my bro, a REAL photographer (since I am a novice), and he agreed when I told him I would try to send the SAME PHOTOS to different labs and to compare their paper quality and finishing. My camera is Fuji, so I would prefer FujiFilm photoprocessing... it doesn't matter, but I just want to share these pictures with my family without computers. (yes those still exist) Here are some I am considering before ranting and being a crybaby about WorstBuy's turnaround time: Walgreens Digital: 14cents, fuji paper, my big bro says they're A.O.K. Wal-Mart Digital: 12 cents, don't know anything else or turnaround time SAMS: 12 cents, same as WM Here is a sample of my camera's capabilities: OR THIS:
while I'm not yet "one of the girls" I will still thow in my two cents.... I HATE Ofoto - quality is always pretty shotty. Snapfish is really good. You can share your pics and the quality is acceptable. Plus, they're mailed to you in a few days. I really like CVS and Walgreens bc you can see what you're getting right away. Best of luck!
just go to a walgreens or CVS, they have kiosks where you can bring a cd with pics, SD card, ect... it's pretty cheap and fast...no waiting
20 prints free and free shipping from www.snapfish.com until the 15th. Add the codeword: STARS . Funny... when I got out of SnapFish's site I got a small pop-up saying: Get it now. I will try this one right now. Thanks for the responses, y'all.
Costco, Sams, and Walmart have the best prices and pretty good service. Since they have the volume, they can afford to get the best equipment available. They are also fast. One hour in most cases. I know quite a few professional and semi-professional that use them. You can also get color profiles for their printers free of the net.
Whoa... hold on there... not so fast, Jimmy... let's explain to our non-photographically-inclined audience what a color profile is, shall we?
That is interesting. When I first started getting digital prints (2001 or so), all of the online photo printers offered 15 free prints. I tried four of them, and Snapfish was the worst. They had a "tint" to the pictures, and the paper was flimsy and would bend if you held it up by a corner. Ofoto had the best quality. Each 4x6 print cost 50 cents - and then Sams starting offering digital photo printing service. Their quality is pretty good, and the price is nice.
I, too, started with Ofoto - lately, however, every set of pictures I get are incredibly grainy or they forgot to send me some of my prints or some other random issue.
