I have had two readers in the past two weeks recommend online “photo processing” sites for a column.  I thought this would be a good idea for a couple of reasons. First, I have never written about them before and second, I have never used one before.

Since my wife and I just returned from our summer vacation to the western part of the country (I highly recommend you see the Grand Canyon) I thought we should try it.

The two sites that were mentioned to us were WalMart and Costco.  Although there are many others I thought these would be the most convenient for us as far as picking photos up when completed.  Before I go on I will mention that either one of these will happily mail you your pictures after they are printed, but I wanted immediate gratification so we chose pickup.

The sites are very similar and after reviewing them I decided on Costco.com since it seemed a little more straightforward and easier to use.

It is pretty simple.  I had to start by moving the pictures from our cameras to my computer.  Next, after going to Costco.com I clicked on the “Photo” link near the top of the page. I needed to create a Costco online account which took just a minute.

Once logged in I created an “Album” which is where my photos are stored once I upload them.  You may create multiple albums for different reasons; vacation, fieldtrip, research, etc.  To add photos to the album click, “Add Photos” or “Add More Photos”.

You will then get a legal screen which states that if the photo was professionally taken, it is copyrighted and you must get the photographer’s permission to print it.  This doesn’t make much sense to me since it could be a picture of me, paid for by me and used by me, but I’m not a lawyer and that’s the way it is.  All photo printing services say the same thing so this is nothing unusual.  You photographers don’t need to email me about it, I worked as a photographer to pay for college before these restrictions existed and you won’t change my opinion.

Then you choose the photos you wish to upload to their site for printing.  I selected ten and it took three to four minutes to upload them all.  Please note that I have a very slow internet connection so times will vary…downward.

Now, before you finish just choose each photo and make some basic edits, i.e. rotate, brightness, contrast, etc. and then send it to your cart.

In the cart choose the size print you would like along with the number of prints. Click, “Continue” and you will make sure everything is correct.  Finally, decide whether you want them mailed to you or will pick them up at the store.  Once you are finished you get a screen informing you of the cost and when to pick them up.  One hour is what they say; however, the day I ordered their computer was down…can you imagine that?  An email and phone call let me know they would be late.  I did get them the next day and it was a very convenient experience which we will definitely repeat.

Let me know via email which online service you use for your photo prints and how well, or not, it works.

Tags: photographer, photography, photos, Ron Doyle, vacation

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 7th, 2009 at 5:41 am and is filed under Columns. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.