Digital without the printer

[blighty]

Apologies if this is not the right forum for this question but here goes....Does anyone out there in Hybridland not print their own digital images. My reason for asking is that I don't have the space or the inclination to piss about with printers , inks, profiles and the like. I was considering using my local pro lab (Farnells) to do all my digital files, output onto colour paper. Is this a viable option and does anyone else do this?

[Walt Calahan]

There are times when turning to a professional lab makes sense, particularly for extremely large prints.

If having your lab do the work for you is within a workable financial solution, then do it.

[gmikol]

I've been very happy with prints from Costco here in the US. They offer profiled output at very affordable prices. $4 USD for 12x18 inch, $1.50 USD for 8x10

Dry Creek Photo offers custom profiles for virtually all the Costco machine printers in the US (as well as many other stores), but it looks like most of the Costco UK profiles are out of date.

Some setup like this might be more affordable than your pro lab if you can find someone locally who makes their output profile available. Heck, if you convert to sRGB like Farnells wants you to, you should get decent output even from a drug store printer, if you can get them to turn off auto-adjustment.

I looked up the prices at your pro lab (Farnells), and it's cheaper than one of the pro labs around here (Pro Photo Supply, Portland, OR). $18 USD for a 12x18, vs. GBP 8 at Farnells.

I suppose the bigger question is, do you want inkjet prints, or do you want RA-4 prints?

--Greg

[blighty]

Farnells are pretty damn good. Ive used them for some years and they've done some of my wedding work. Dave is a really nice lad and will listen to and advise you on your requirements. I'll be wanting RA-4 (I think) but I'll be willing to try inkjet, especially on some of the more exotic finish papers. I suppose it depends on the image.

[Don Bryant]

I've been very happy with prints from Costco here in the US. They offer profiled output at very affordable prices. $4 USD for 12x18 inch, $1.50 USD for 8x10

Ditto what Greg said. My local Costco also makes poster sized prints on an Epson 7800 with Fuji inkjet paper, so a profile for that paper is available too or if I wanted to I could build a profile for it myself.

At any rate it's very feasible to have a good quality prints made at a decent price.