Walmart online digital print services

[fishfreek]

Just recently my wife demanded I have every digital photo of our child printed out. I told her she was insane as the ink and paper costs would be thru the roof but then I heard about wal-mart's service where you upload digital photos to their website and they print them for what I think is very affordable prices. $.19 for 1 hour service, $.15 for 2-3 day in store service and $.12 for mail at home service. (Prices based on 4X6 images). You can even pick different sizes and even photo packages. So far I have had them process close to 300 images over the last few weeks and every image has come out great.

Im amazed at the speed of service. To think I can upload 100+ images from home and submit my order and an hour later go to my local walmart store and pick them up is astonishing to me. What I like even more is the ability to pick what store I want to pick them up at. So if im at work i can use the closest store or at home, etc. If the grandparents want some images I can even put the order in and have it processed at their local store all from my pc. Isnt the internet great?

With a 4megapixel camera using one of the larger resolution settings I can even get 8X10's printed with film camera clairity.

If you havent tried this service yet I suggest doing a half dozen photos and checking it out. It wont even cost you a dollar to do 6 images. When christmas hits im sure to try their photo gifts where you can have all kinds of stuff customized with my digital photos.

 

[msamsonz28]

And to think ten years ago I didn't even know what the internet was!!

 

[Clown Monarch]

They'll also duplicate copyrighted wedding proofs. I hate copyright law. Kudos to Walmart!

 

[reefrunner69]

They'll also duplicate copyrighted wedding proofs. I hate copyright law.

That's cause your not a photographer who makes their living selling those photos. I wouldn't count on walmart always duplicating your wedding proofs.

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2005-06-16-digital-picture-problems_x.htm

I use whcc.com and mpix.com for my online printing. You can't go pick them up in an hour, but the print quality is much better and they are not that much more expensive. Downsides...with mpix.com you have to pay shipping and whcc.com there is no shipping charges....but there is a minimum order. The last prints I got from walmart I was totally disappointed with the print quality.

 

[Xena45]

I use www.kodakgallery.com (it used to be ofoto.com). I like it a lot. I think print quality is excellent. It's not quite as cheap as walmart (from what you all say), but they frequently have great sales that I take advantage of. I love that every photo that I've uploaded since I opened the account is still sitting there, so I can order reprints very easily. Additionally, I can share the images with others, so they can order prints too.

You can't pick the photos up anywhere, but shipping is really quick. I usually get all my photos in three days. I love the convenience of it.

I also use Shutterfly for my pro photo work. They do a pretty good job of consumer photo printing too.

One other thing about these services (Kodak and shutterfly) - you can specify that they will NOT crop your images to the print ratio of the paper (4x6, 5x7, 8x10 are all different print ratios). Many digicams don't shoot 2x3 images, so your 4x6 photos are automatically cropped by Walmart (I'll bet). This is a HUGE feature, if you want to have square or panoramic images, for example.

I love the internet!

X

 

[fishfreek]

Walmart had a copyright release form that must be presented to do copies of photos that have a copyright stamp or 'appear to be professional'.

The online tool you can pick how you want the image cropped or let them do it for you. They automaticly scale the image also so for example on some images I acutally cropped down to a smaller area of the orgional and their system automaticly scaled that area up to fill the 4x6 size. Of course there is a limit to how much they can scale before it becomes jagged. Thus the advantage of taking pics at the highest res your camera will support so you have more pixles to work with.

 

[reefrunner69]

This is great for your snapshot, but if you have something that is really special....either upres it yourself in photoshop (or other interpolation software, like qimage (has 30day free trial)) or use a lab that uses specialized software for that.

 

[lyquidphyre]

I used it around Mothers Day... its a really neat idea and not too expensive.

However, that means you have to go to Wal-mart when the photocenter is open... which means during the day... which means hysteria.

 

[Jermz79]

I actually just picked up some pictures that I had using this service, uploaded them to their website and went there and picked them up!I was actually disappointed with the way they came out ... very grainy and dull! I will have to say though that when you go in and use the machine by the register they come out 1 better!