A Daily Serving of Sweet Peas…

I know I promised I’d post my latest maternity shoot and you’ve been waiting ever so patiently to see it.  But, I have something I just have to tell you about TODAY.  Oh, keep your knickers on…pics of a lovely pregnant lady are just around the corner, I promise. 

But TODAY,  I feel compelled to tell you about, just at the title of this blog says… “Why good printing matters.”

A few years back, before I had ever really picked up a camera other than to take a few shots at birthday parties and so forth.  I signed up for an online photo service. You know, you all belong to one.  It is one of those inexpensive places where you can upload your pics, make albums, order prints, order the occasional mouse pad with your kid’s face on it or some such thing.  And all was well.  

I hadn’t ordered photos from them in ages, and then I received an email from them the other day saying that if I didn’t order something like $20 in photos by a certain date, that my account would be deleted.   I panicked a bit, wondering what photos were on the site, if I still had the original digital files here, and if my babies’ childhood photos would be lost for good.  

So, like any good, guilt-ridden mommy, I got online and purchased a bunch.  They were cheap, it was easy, and I felt better that some pics of my kids as babies were on the way.

So imagine my surprise when I received them today.  The paper was so thin (much thinner than it used to be), the printing was dark and dingy, the colors were dull and lifeless, the paper was SO shiny and the cropping was just bad.  I was horrified!!  

When I do photo shoots, I often have clients that ask what the difference is between a place like the one I used this week and the professional printing lab I use for portraits.  I know what they are wondering… I can see the wheels turning.   They want to know if there really is a difference in print quality, if they wouldn’t get the same results by purchasing the digital files and then ordering from a cheap and easy place as well.  And the answer is a resounding YES and NO!!  YES, there is a huge difference in print quality and NO, you won’t get the same results that you will get from a high quality professional printing lab.  

(There are quite a few reasons for this, which I won’t go into now.  But, two of the main reasons are paper quality and ink quality. )

This huge difference in photo print quality is one of the reasons that photographers either do not sell the digital image files to their clients at all or they do so with the client understanding the necessity of ordering from a good lab.  They want to be able to control the quality of the prints so that they accurately reflect the image that the photographer has taken. 

Now, I am not talking about ordering portrait quality prints for every single photo you take.  You won’t be ordering them for the 500 shots of your trip to Disney or the Grand Canyon.  (Do people still go to the Grand Canyon? Or am I just oh, so 70’s?)  And those quickie places are great for snapshots and forwarding online photo albums to friends and family. I love them for that.

But, moral of the story is this… If you want portraits that will look as beautiful as your children actually do in real life.  And you want those portraits to be family heirlooms that last for many years, so you can sit around in your rocking chair with your gray hair and gaze lovingly at them.   Then, you get what you pay for, my friends.  If you have portraits taken, or even if you take a fantastic photo yourself and want it to look really special and not have that too shiny, icky, “snapshot” look.  Do yourself a favor and find a good photo lab (there are several online or you can look for a local one).  You won’t believe the difference!

Now the question is… what to do with all of these terrible pictures I have sitting here?  Line the cat box?  Fold them into tiny paper airplanes?  Shred and use for yard mulch?  ugh!!!

Go forth and take some great pics this weekend!!  Then use a good developing lab.

Prego pics coming soon, I promise!!!

Alright… here is a sneak peek.  ’Cause I like you so much…