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While I may use Flickr to store a lot of my photos I also like to have hard copies. Call me traditional if you will, but you can’t put a Flickr photo in your wallet, for example, unless you print it out (not that I have any photos in my wallet at the moment…)
I currently have 3 cameras that I use when I’m “out and about”:
- my phone’s camera (currently the E71 – so the quality isn’t exactly stellar!)
- Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W170, which I tend to leave in my jacket most of the time (logic being that if I have it with me I might actually use it!)
- Canon EOS 400D – great camera, but it’s a bit bulky to carry around the place
So where can you get your photos printed?
Donncha did a round up a few years ago, but it’s a bit out of date (if he’s done another one please let me know!)
So who is economical these days?
I did a bit of digging around over the weekend and compiled a short list. All pricing is based on 6″ x 4″ prints, as they seem to be the most common.
A lot of the services offer discounts if you pre-purchase credits, so if you’re planning on printing 500+ photos at once the cost per photo will drop quite a bit compared to the price of printing 30.
All pricing is based on their normal price without any extra discounts for bulk purchases or pre-orders, as I am unlikely to print hundreds of photos at one go.
UK pricing is currently close to parity with the Euro, but check the rates as they will change
Foto.com – 10cm x 15cm (6″ x 4″) 9c
BonusPrint – 6″ x 4″ 9c
MyPix (Pixmania) 6″ x 4″ 14c
Snapfish (HP) 6″ x 4″ 14c
Spectra 25c (drops to 15c on large orders)
DigiPrints.co.uk 9p
Photobox 6″ x 4″ 10p (drops to 5p if you order more than 500 prints)
Based on the pricing above it looks like the best deals can be got from Foto.com or Bonusprint, so I will definitely be using one of them for my next batch of snaps!
If anyone knows of any other companies offering these services that ship to Ireland please let me know
Nice round up of pricing. As I mentioned on twitter, we plan to bring printing to http://pix.ie in 2009. Watch this space.
Marcus
The more competition there is the better for the consumer
Michele
Aldi also have a service but the photos are slightly smaller than 6×4 (why I don’t know as two of the 50 photos they sent me were 6×4). The quality is good.
Snapfish also ended up being smaller than 6×4 which was a pain. Also the photos they produced had a washed out feel to them, wasn’t happy with the quality
Photobox and Foto.com were the best in the end from my perspective. One of the biggest issues is the quality of the software used to upload the photos (some of the interfaces stink) and the time taken for the upload (esp with 200+ images)
Must do a retry in the new year as I’ve a few hundred more to get done
Dermot
Is Aldi’s service available online?
I got a load of shots printed with SnapFish last year I think (I might need to check the envelope to see if it was them or not!) and I was happy enough with the quality.
A lot of the sites use Java based software for the uploads and I’m yet to see one that is as fast and responsive as I’d like. We can’t really blame them about the upload speeds, however, as that’s more likely an issue with our dsl lines 🙂
Thanks for your comment
Michele
Michele
http://www.aldiphotos.ie/
Dermot
Dermot
Thanks – the pricing is pretty good as well, so it might be one to check out
Michele
Also http://www.photobox.ie/shop/prints looks very tempting