ITs gonna be my first time developing Pictures

meow_mix450 · 12-27-04, 06:02 PM

Hey

Its gonna be my first time developing digital pictures. But before i go do it i wanna ask some questions. Also I will be developing them like a normal size photo

Will it look just as good as film?

Do you know with some digital cameras they allow you choose what size mega pixel, so like small medium and large?
Well will it really effect the development of the picture?

Also where would be the est place to develop them, not to expensive and not to cheap. I have to print around 110 pictures lol

Thanks
Meow

shaggybill · 12-28-04, 02:38 AM

I do mine at Walmart. Its around 24 cents USD here. I dont know how to convert to CAD.

Anyways, what I usually do is touch my pictures up in photoshop, resize them to 800x600 @ 100% quality, burn them onto a CD, and then take the CD to Walmart and give it to them. An hour later they are ready to be picked up.

Big Mike · 12-28-04, 09:38 AM

That's a very good way to do it.

If you plan on printing the pictures, shoot at maximum size and maximum quality. Upload them to your computer and edit them if you have image software. Crop them, adjust the color & brightness then sharpen them if you can. Save them at full quality .jpg files. It's also a good idea to resize them to your print size (4x6, 5x7, 8x10) and make sure to set the DPI to 300.

Now you can burn them onto a CD and take them just about anywhere. Wal-mart, Cost-co, London Drugs, Superstore...or any photo finishing place. Price & quality will vary from place to place but it might be a good idea to test a place out before getting all 110 printed.

Depending on the quality of your original files and the size of prints you want...they should be pretty much as good as prints from film. Did you know that most photo finishers just scan the negatives and make the prints from a digital file?

meow_mix450 · 12-28-04, 01:51 PM

no i had no idea. Thats a lot

Meow

marisa · 12-28-04, 01:57 PM

This is a good thread because I was wondering these things myself.

Question....I have a few pics I'd like hard copies of. Now to size them 4 by 6 say, they would come out misshappen or I would have some leftover space.

Will this area just come out white if the photo is less than 6 by 4? Or what?

Anyone get what I am saying?

Marisa

Nicki · 12-28-04, 02:22 PM

Hi Marisa, I think I get what you're asking.

So, for example, I have a photo that is really 4.5x6" instead of 4x6. What I personally would do, is crop part of the image off to make it 4x6".

You could re-size the image so the 4.5 side is now 4". The other side will now be less than 6" and when it's printed, it should leave a bit of white space above or below on the print. (but you can always ask the photo printer in case they do it differently.

Hope this helps, and isn't more confusing!!!

Have a great day!
Nicki

Big Mike · 12-28-04, 02:53 PM

That is a problem that photographers have been dealing with for years & years. Standard picture sizes (5x7, 8x10 etc) do not match the ratio that a 35mm negative has. Most cameras are based upon the 35mm standard.

So when you go to resize your photos to fit a frame, you will have to crop one of the dimensions to make it fit. This is why it's a good idea to crop & resize yourself. This way you have full control over the process.

If you know that you might be printing the photos you are taking...especially if you want to enlarge to 5x7 or 8x10...compose the photo with that in mind. Leave some extra space so that you have room to crop.

With digital printing, you can print at just about whatever size you want to. If you want to put an odd sized print into a frame, you can use a larger frame and cut a custom matte to fit your print.

doenoe · 12-29-04, 02:47 AM

Here we can choose for a format that matches the size of the digital pic. So you wont have to crop them. Thats pretty easy. You just send the pics over the internet or bring them on a CD/DVD. You just have to think about getting a new scrapbook, since these pics wont really fit anymore, due to the weird size

Greetz Daan

meow_mix450 · 12-30-04, 02:16 PM

Here's one of the pictures that I would like to develop. But my computer is crap, and theres to much stuff on my computer to load my photoshop. I'm getting a new computer soon hopefully. So if anyone has the time on there hands and would like to show me the end product of what it looks like that would be great. I would just like to compare the two before and after its fixed to 6 by 4 to develop just so I can get an idea.

Thanks a bunch

Meow

Big Mike · 12-30-04, 04:19 PM

Here is what I came up with.

I adjusted the levels & saturation a bit. Then resized the image to make it 6 inches wide at 300 pixels/inch. Some sharpening via Unsharp Mask. Then I opened a new canvas and made it 4x6 at 300. I copy & pasted the image into the new canvas and moved it around for the best crop. In this case I just cropped off the bottom.

From there, just save the new file at high quality in a format that can be taken to the printer. Full quality JPEG should be good enough. You might want to run Unsharp Mask on this file as well.

For posting on the web, I saved a version at 600 x 400, medium JPEG compression.

meow_mix450 · 12-30-04, 04:48 PM

wow! thats great. Thanks!

Meow

Removed_2815 · 12-30-04, 06:32 PM

Futureshop all the way!
The photos are very cheap. They are printed on Kodak paper. Shipping is next to nothing and they arrive in your mailbox in a few days. On the website, you are shown what sizes your photo can be printed and there is a cropping feature that allows you to see what areas have to be cropped so that the photo fits the dimensions (you can move this box so that your desired subject is in the frame). I wouldn't recommend anything else.
Ryan

ssshell · 01-11-05, 11:44 PM

if you have the memory card for you digital camera use the kodak picture makers at wal-mart they only cost 0.25/print and you just put your memory card into the little slot!

gargoyle · 01-29-05, 09:28 PM

I Manage a photo lab and shoot exclusively digital photos, so here goes just to clarify a couple of things about sizing.

how you actually size them in photoshop will not adversely affect the photos unless you downsize the photo.

for prints always shoot as high quality as possible (you'll get the most out of the camera this way too, no point in paying for a 4 megapixel camera if you downsize it to 2 or 3 mp
the actuall ratio for the photo of 99% of point and shoot digital cameras is NOT 4x6, but if you'd like them to still fit in your photo albums ask them to print them 4x5.3 inches (this is the same ratio as the sensor in the camera and will avoid cropping off the top and bottom of the photo)
I will not mention where I work so here's our prices JUST FOR INFORMATION

1-24 pics $0.59
25-99 0.49
99-249 0.39
250+ 0.29

some places are cheaper, some places are more expensive but it's not always just the end price you want to consider.

consider
1- paper quality (archival qualities)
2- colour corrections (auto or adjusted individually by a tech)
3- consistancy (if you take a photo in today does it look the same as if you take the same pic back a week later for reprints?)

anyways enough blabering....just my experiences (every day)
have a good one