In today’s digital age, many people have opted for a digital camera. And in turn, only print photos when needed. Thirty years ago, it was a process–get film, load film in camera, take photos, remove film cartridge safely, take cartridge to a professional photo printing lab, wait for what seemed like an eternity for photos to be developed and then go pick up photos and store the negatives. Wow, that gets me tired just writing that! And as the years moved on, so did the process. Now it’s quicker and easier to have you film or even disc of photos printed in a professional photo printing lab. For the most part, your photos are ready the next day (less than 24 hours in most cases) and sometimes you can get them back in as quick as an hour!
The question that those who want actual hard copy photos to share with family and friends is whether to print them at home or have a real brick and mortar, professional photo printing lab print them for you. And that answer depends on individual needs.
Consumer printers can be obtained fairly economically and if you are only printing a few photos a month on average, printing at home could meet your needs quite well; however, when considering the amount of photos you would like print along with the cost of ink, it could be more economical to have a professional photo printing lab, do the job for you.
Professional photo printing labs are also able to do more photo processing for you and thus provide more quality photo printing. For example, a professional photo lab can do minor color correction such as remove red eyes, removing background items, smoothing skin and removing blemishes along with many others services.
Another thing to consider when choosing a professional photo printing lab is whether you want to use a self-service type kiosk from a large department store/department store or a professional photo lab. Department stores, drug stores and self-service kiosks are often limited on photo sizes and photo paper types. A professional photo printing lab has more choices and they offer different printing packages when many prints are desired such as in the case of a wedding, a graduation, a family reunion or other type of special event or holiday. Professional labs also leave you with full control of the image and generally offer more printing and mounting options as well as various shipping options. And while department store photo departments are very good for shipping finished items, professional photo printing labs do have a protocol in their perimeter in how much care and effort that is put into their packaging when shipping items.
So in general, it all depends on what your photo needs are as to what to recommend. The bottom line is that a professional photo printing lab can give you a good quality photo printing no matter if the job is big or small; they do it all. In a lot of cases a department store or drug store lab will suffice for most jobs; however a professional photo printing lab will give you more quality photo printing options as well as shipping options.