Comparing Online Photo Printing To Using Inkjet Printers At Home

Would you like to print your digital photos? There are a number of good options at your disposal. Many of them are quite convenient, although some are more convenient than others. The three main options for printing your digital photographs are printing at home on an inkjet photo printer, printing from a service bureau, and printing from an online gallery site or retail store.

The first option is printing at home using an inkjet photo printer. The quality is quite good and it's convenient as well. You hook up the printer to your computer, as you would any printer, and just print to it from whatever program you open your photographs in. These printers do, however, have several downsides. For one thing, although the print quality can be excellent, the durability of the prints leaves something to be desired. They are nowhere near as durable as regular photo prints, and are very susceptible to humidity and especially prone to fading when exposed to light. The prints take a fairly long time to come out of the printer, and if you let the printer sit too long without using it you risk having some of the ink dry and clog the little holes (jets) where the ink comes out. This will result in your having to run the time-consuming, ink-consuming automatic cleaning routine.

Another disadvantage of inkjet printers is that even though by computer standards they're pretty easy to set up and run, you do have to be fairly computer savvy to set up and run. Some may find using one tedious or frustrating, and even though the printers are inexpensive they still cost money, and aren't a great option if you print more text than photos.

The next option is using a service bureau. Professional photographers typically use these, so the quality will be impeccable. The service may be very fast too. The biggest disadvantages of this method are a) service bureaus tend to only exist in major cities, so if you're not in a major city this may not be an option, and b) they tend to be expensive. That said, if it's a special print, you won't get better quality than from a pro lab.

A cost-effective and convenient alternative is online photo printing from online galleries. The quality is impeccable with the better galleries offering online photo printing. The better online galleries use high-quality, Kodak photo paper, just like the kind of paper used for printing enlargements from film negatives optically. They use very good quality photo printers to get vibrant, clear, accurate color. Most services offer a variety of sizes to suit your printing needs as well. If you have a digital camera, all you need to do is upload the photos to take advantage of this service. If you have older photos, you can scan them or have a scanning service do it. As an added bonus, if you're in a hurry, the better online galleries will offer fast shipping.