Kelly Garvey Photography

If you have purchased images on disc & want them to look as good as possible, picking the right place to print is a huge part! If you are taking the time to read this you are making the the first step to getting awesome prints for yourself….I am sending you a BIG HUG. Thank you for being here!

Let me preface this by saying that buying prints your photographer will always get you the best result. I use a professional lab only available to professional photographers. I have a separate workflow in Photoshop to prepare images specifically for printing after the client orders a specific size. It involves re-sizing & cropping each picture appropriately based on the size it was ordering in, sharpening at amounts specific to the size it was ordered in. Sometimes it even involves going back to the original & re-editing to gain space back so the print looks right (in cases where the print is ordered in a non-standard measurement & area is lost around the edge). Basically, there’s a lot to it….

However, I understand the value of a digital image. Everyone wants them so you can keep them forever & go back to re-print whenever you want. I know I would want them, too, and usually only choose photographers who offer this option for my own photography needs, because I value having the digitals. For all of these reasons I will help you as much as I can by giving you my recommendation. They won’t be able to be prepared quite as technically as I would do it myself, but if you listen to my suggestions, your prints will turn out great.

We have established that choosing a good lab plays a huge part in making sure your pictures look great. There is a lot to learn about printing, printing in different sizes, etc. In this post I will touch mostly on the subject of where to print.  

After you buy images on a disc, what do you do next? Please please please, don’t say Walgreens or Walmart, Target, etc. (the list goes on).  Beautiful, professional photos are done no justice when printed at a bad lab, so don’t do it! I know they are quick…I know they are cheap…yes, I’ve made the mistake myself long long ago, but it’s not worth it. Their machines alter the editing, crop, change aspect ratios & completely ruin your images! You will be left with bad color, wonky skin tones & much more….not worth it. But don’t you worry because I have a recommendation! I don’t get a kick back from this companies… What I hope to gain from giving my recommendations is a happy customer who has prints that look GREAT! I want the pictures that hang on your wall to look as good as they possibly can for YOU & for ME, too! That’s why I sincerely appreciate you not printing my art through a bad lab.

For printing my favorite recommendation to you is MPIX at www.mpix.com . You can choose higher quality paper & luster coating to help preserve the pictures longer from things like fingerprints. When printing black & white photos, you can choose True BW paper to print on, which is nice. They have a metallic finish option, too. Choose e-surface prints, then add luster coating…it’ll be worth it. Your MPIX prints will still be extremely reasonable with those upgrades. I always recommend printing in matte finish. I think it is more professional.

MPIX is an online company that offers a lot of different photo services, like photo books, canvas, mounting, retouching, greeting cards. I think you will be happy with the quality you receive. I have had good results with them & my customers have been happy, too.

I don’t really recommend any local labs. I have done a lot of test prints locally at labs available to people everywhere & my conclusion is that MPIX is the ONLY thing I am comfortable recommending. Plan ahead a little bit so you don’t get caught in a bind needing to go somewhere local just so you get your prints in an hour. I really recommend MPIX even over places like Snapfish & Shutterfly. There is a huge difference from what I have seen with all of my experimenting. Their prices are competitive with those two & they are just as fast anyway.

I am working on getting some “proof” together for you.  I know there are a lot of people out there who have to see it to believe it 🙂 I am getting prints made all over the place to show you the difference in a “good” lab & a “bad” one.

Thank again for reading this! If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask.

I thought I’d write this post because at almost every session or wedding, atleast one person mentions something like:
“What kind of camera is that? It takes good pictures.”
“I bought a nice camera so I could have good pictures, but it doesn’t work that well.”
“I want to take my family’s pictures myself to save money, what kind of camera should I get?”
“I am thinking about being a photographer so what kind of camera should I get? I don’t know much so I will need a good camera that has good program modes.”

Well, here’s the good & bad news. The bad news is that it isn’t as easy as getting a good camera to be a photographer or to take good picture even. Life for photographers would be so easy if that’s all there was to it! Yes, at the professional level it helps to upgrade your camera body but it is mainly about technical knowledge & skills. I think Ansel Adams once said – “The single most important component of a camera is the twelve inches behind it.”

For Valentine’s Day all I wanted was a photo session with my son & I – I am always taking pictures of him & my husband…I want some of me with Garrett around the house, too! My husband nicely volunteered to take some pictures of us. We finally got around to it last weekend. Bless his heart – about 5 minutes after we got there, he said “Man this picture taking is hard, I don’t think I am cut out for it!” When I downloaded the memory card I saw stuff like this….

This goes to show you that it is not all about having a nice camera body. I have a REALLY nice camera body & we ended up with ZERO pictures from that day 🙂

Here’s the good news: it is not all about megapixels & buying a $5,000 camera. Really after you get to 12 megapixels, anything above that is useless unless you want to blow your picture up on the side of a billboard & I don’t think any of us are going to do that. It is all about taking classes, practicing, studying, asking questions & just getting out there. Your camera doesn’t take good pictures, YOU DO! There is ALOT to it, but you can do it! And you don’t have to drop $5,000 on a camera to get there. The camera does not do all the work 🙂 YOU have to learn how to be confident & comfortable then the camera you have will function much better. It is all about shooting in manual so you can control your outcome working with the conditions you have. Using auto or program modes doesn’t do the trick, because cameras aren’t quite as smart as people give them credit for….you need to learn how to have control. It is the most rewarding thing when you “get it”! It takes time but you can do it!