Picture Developing

[eeyoreland]

Hi everyone. So sorry if this has been covered and please feel free to point me in the right direction if it has. I'm wondering where everyone likes to have their photos developed. I normally send mine to the local Walgreens, but I've been thinking more and more about the need for online storage in case my computer crashes. Yes, Walgreens will do that, but just curious if there are better options. Also, do you think one company does a better job printing than another, or is it all in the photo itself. Sorry for this being a bit long.

 

[annnewjerz]

Myself and LOADS of others here like mpix for their prints. Zenfolio uses them as their printing company and if you wanted to sign up for a membership for photo storage, check with someone on here (like Mickey88 or Jann) for a discount code that you can use.

That being said, if I am just getting 4x6 glossy prints to use in a little album or scrapbook, I'm still fine printing at Target, Walgreens or whatever other local place that has a 1 hour photo.

 

[Suburbanmom]

I get most everything printed at www.mpix.com. They do a fabulous job and their service is tops.

 

[MICKEY88]

Zenfolio is great for photo storage/sharing, and as mentioned they us MPIX as their lab,

you can use my discount code to save 5 dollars off your first year's membership, XE1-C1X-2JF

that being said, online storage is not the best way to back up your pictures..

I personally use extra hard drives, many people us external drives,,I buy internal drives because I can get larger drives for less money, and I use a dock, which is like a giant card reader, for hard drives..

backing up to cd or dvd is also a good idea, if you back up to cd or dvd, it's a good idea to make 2 copies and keep one copy off site...

I plan on buying a waterproof/fireproof safe to store my hard drives in..

you also could install a second drive in your pc, for photo storage, but for the volume of photos I do per month , it's too much hassle to always have to open my case to swap out drives..

 

[jfinke]

I just got a poster print done at Costco. I was very happy with it.

 

[Chikabowa]

I always direct people to mpix.com for their online print fulfillment. It is the consumer side of a great pro lab and they do a really nice job.

For in-person print fulfillment, I think Costco does one of the better jobs out there.

 

[MarkBarbieri]

FYI...you are talking about "printing" and not "developing." Developing is what you do to film before you print it.

 

[eeyoreland]

Zenfolio is great for photo storage/sharing, and as mentioned they us MPIX as their lab,

you can use my discount code to save 5 dollars off your first year's membership, XE1-C1X-2JF

that being said, online storage is not the best way to back up your pictures..

I personally use extra hard drives, many people us external drives,,I buy internal drives because I can get larger drives for less money, and I use a dock, which is like a giant card reader, for hard drives..

backing up to cd or dvd is also a good idea, if you back up to cd or dvd, it's a good idea to make 2 copies and keep one copy off site...

I plan on buying a waterproof/fireproof safe to store my hard drives in..

you also could install a second drive in your pc, for photo storage, but for the volume of photos I do per month , it's too much hassle to always have to open my case to swap out drives..

Why do you say that online photo storage is not the best way to back up pictures?

 

[jfinke]

Why do you say that online photo storage is not the best way to back up pictures?

I had two immediate concerns with online storage.
1. Businesses can go belly up and you have no recourse.
2. Bandwidth.


When my HDs get here tomorrow, my Media PC will be my backup machine. All of my computers will back up their "sensitive" areas to it to an internal drive. Than I will have an external drive which will sync to the internal drive. I can then either move that offsite or store in a fireproof safe.

However, I am lucky in the sense that I am a technical person, so what is an acceptable method for me may not be for others.

 

[seashoreCM]

It is a good idea to have more than one backup.

Some people may find that on line backup is easier to use. So they may use that for routine purposes but still have a hard drive with a complete backup just in case something goes wrong on line.

Other people may find that having another hard drive is easier to use. So they may use that for routine purposes but still have on line backup just in case something goes wrong with the hard drive.

Both with film developing and printing and with digital printing, if you dropped off the pictures then a technician used some educated guesswork. He would adjust things to make each print look good to him if he thought the picture was taken too dark or too light to begin with. The technician's judgment may or may not be the same as yours.

 

[Kies99]

We started using Ritz.com. Only six cents a print on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. We've been pretty happy.

 

[MICKEY88]

Why do you say that online photo storage is not the best way to back up pictures?

1. as jfinke stated, online storage companies can go out of business
2. some sites resize your files
3. I shoot raw, and most sites require jpegs for uploading and posting..

I look at my online site as an extra backup, but would never use it for my only backup

 

[caniswolfie]

I go with a double headed attack. My offsite backup is an online vendor that does file backup only, not photo sharing. These are places like mozy.com, carbonite.com, Amazon's S3, etc. This is my offsite backup. I also have an external hard drive that I backup my data to as well. That way I have two copies which helps against the possibility of my online company going belly up and also having an up to date off site backup in the case of fire or disaster.

I've found that the bandwith in my case isn't that bad after the initial load of data to the backup is done. Some of the online sites has tools that backup the data once a day so that new data makes it to the online backup and I sync up the data on the external just as frequently as well.

 

[MarkBarbieri]

I backup by burning my image files onto a DVD. I back that up by taking a really, really high resolution photo of the DVD using a macro lens.

 

[Experiment_626]

I back that up by taking a really, really high resolution photo of the DVD using a macro lens.

Bah! Much easier to just scan your DVDs with a high-quality scanner -- less chance for distortion that way!

SSB

 

[jfinke]

I've found that the bandwith in my case isn't that bad after the initial load of data to the backup is done. Some of the online sites has tools that backup the data once a day so that new data makes it to the online backup and I sync up the data on the external just as frequently as well.

The problem is, what if you have a catastrophic event. You may spend months downloading everything to restore. I know that there are some systems out there that will ship you DVDs with images on it. But, even then, a DVD will only hold 6GB, I believe.

I will say that I weighed a lot of different options when I designed mine. And if I had a simpler setup at home, I probably would have gone with an online backup. I have 4 computers we use + the media server and popcorn hour w/ a hd. I am not that concerned about the media. That stuff can all be reripped from DVDs or rerecorded from TV. And I am just concerned with the "Documents" section of my computers. OSes and Applications can be reinstalled from scratch.

 

[MICKEY88]

The problem is, what if you have a catastrophic event. You may spend months downloading everything to restore. I know that there are some systems out there that will ship you DVDs with images on it. But, even then, a DVD will only hold 6GB, I believe.

I will say that I weighed a lot of different options when I designed mine. And if I had a simpler setup at home, I probably would have gone with an online backup. I have 4 computers we use + the media server and popcorn hour w/ a hd. I am not that concerned about the media. That stuff can all be reripped from DVDs or rerecorded from TV. And I am just concerned with the "Documents" section of my computers. OSes and Applications can be reinstalled from scratch.

standard dvds only hold 4.7 gig

 

[caniswolfie]

The problem is, what if you have a catastrophic event. You may spend months downloading everything to restore. I know that there are some systems out there that will ship you DVDs with images on it. But, even then, a DVD will only hold 6GB, I believe.

I will say that I weighed a lot of different options when I designed mine. And if I had a simpler setup at home, I probably would have gone with an online backup. I have 4 computers we use + the media server and popcorn hour w/ a hd. I am not that concerned about the media. That stuff can all be reripped from DVDs or rerecorded from TV. And I am just concerned with the "Documents" section of my computers. OSes and Applications can be reinstalled from scratch.

If I did have a catastrophic event, having the files at all will be important since it would have to take out both my computer and the external drive. The problem with external drives is having to move them back and forth from the computers to backup and then to the safe place which can cut down on the frequency of backups and possibility of the backup being at the same place as the computer when the catastrophic event occurs.

With the online backup, it is backed up much more frequently. I'm lucky also to have a cable broadband connection which can download gigabytes of data relatively quickly which can make a backup not as bad as it seems. For those that don't have a good internet connection online backup is not an attractive option.

With my online backup, I can choose what files are backed up. I only backup information that is irreplaceable such as my pictures, documents, etc. That information can be downloaded back to my computer from the online backup once I reinstall the operating system and applications or they can ship DVDs of the files I want to restore. This does not require backing up the operating system and applications. Sometimes people deal with multiple computers by synching the data to one of the computers and back up the data online from that computer, though some of the online backup clients can be installed on multiple computers and then backup to one account.