I’ve gone to a lot of trouble over the years to learn about printing and in the process came to understand why some labs are always great, some are always so-so, and some are completely unpredictable!  I’m going to share my secrets with you today so that you’ll be able to get the best possible prints from your digital pictures.  Now, I know you see the tacos coming up, and are wondering where in the world this article is headed…  Just bear with me for a minute while I explain.

There are quite a few factors that go into how your prints come out.  Of course, the first factor is your photos themselves.  Are they exposed properly?  How is the color?  Were they taken under indoor tungsten or florescent lighting, natural sunlight, or with professional studio lights?  Is the resolution high enough for the print size you’re ordering?

Once you’ve determined that you have a good picture to print, the exposure is right, the color is right, and the resolution is high enough you need to start worrying about the lab.  What kind of equipment do they use?  Do they get it serviced regularly?  And arguably most important, who runs the lab?

When I ask who is running the photo lab, I don’t necessarily mean Costco, or Walgreens.  What I mean is who, specifically, is running the lab?  Let me explain.  Think about food for a second.  If you go to 5 different taco stands and order the same thing at each, you’ll most likely taste 5 very different tacos.  Why is this?  Because the person cooking the tacos probably has a different level of education about the food at each stand.  The person cooking your food also might have different levels of passion for tacos.  This person at one stand may be so excited about their craft that they’ve spent years perfecting the most delicious taco sauce you’ve ever tasted, whereas the next stand is serving their tacos without seasoning.  Each person may have different amounts of stress going on in their life that is causing them to care more or less about your tacos.  One stand might go heavier on the beans while another goes heavier on the cheese.  And it very well may be that the person at one of those stands just sees it as a job, and simply does not care how your tacos come out.

The same is true with photo labs.  That’s why you can’t count on the labs that pay their staff minimum wage and have high turn over.  Maybe you went to Walgreens last year and got great photos but when you go again 6 months later they’ve hired a new manager who doesn’t understand how to set the color balance, or who is just working there temporarily while they finish business school, and the prints are terrible.  There is no way to predict because the quality at these labs depends on staff who come and go on their way somewhere else.

Which is why I stick with businesses who only do photo printing.  They also must pride themselves on quality.  This means that the management is going to be careful who they hire, train them well, and work with them on the quality of their printing from day to day.  At a pro lab, trained image technicians review every print for color correctness, contrast, brights and darks, and overall image accuracy.  They make adjustments to the print if they catch something weird, so you don’t have to bring it back and say “My daughter’s face looks green, can you fix this?  Not only that, but they know the subtleties that make the image really look great instead of just looking okay.  Unlike someone who is simply pushing a button and letting the printer figure out the rest, the pros at the lab will ensure that each image is as stunning as possible.

Before you drop your files off with a lab, do a quick google search for reviews.  See who is talking about them online.  Are professional photographers using them?  This is a very good sign, because pros a have critical eye and will only go back to a lab that does quality printing.

Although I print my clients’ photos by hand when they purchase print sheets, when I sell digital files to my clients I always recommend they print with mpix.  Over the years I’ve tried out Ritz, Costco, and countless other brick and mortar one-hour labs – even local ones!  I’ve seen such a variety of results that I won’t even get into the details.  I’ve seen good and terrible prints come out of the same shop from the same file just weeks apart.  I simply don’t trust them.  I have been using mpix for all my event photography printing for the past 6 years, and I’ve never had a single complaint.  The one time an order got mixed up, it was an order that contained over 800 prints and one was missing.  I e-mailed them to alert them of the problem and they immediately sent the missing photo to me.  It arrived in the next day’s mail.

I just hate to think of my photos being printed somewhere that doesn’t love what they do and produce beautiful results.  So if you are wondering where you should go to print the photos you bought from me, or even ones you took yourself, check them out.  I worked hard for that lighting!  I want to make sure it makes it to the frame!

My favorite little boy of the day, the humble tiger

Remember, if you attended this event you’re eligible for a free photo session between now and April 1, 2012.  I hope to see you again soon!

I thank all the great kids and families I met at this event for their patience and optimism. I met a lot of great people and so many lovely, adorable families.  Here are just a couple of the great shots I took, each in 1 minute or less!  What a day!

A few of the many families I photographed at Adoption Day 2011

This is the 3rd year I’ve photographed these two, and I can tell you they are true live wires! It’s always a great challenge to get them to stand still, so instead I employ one of my favorite strategies which is to see what they do naturally and figure out how to make it work. One fun game we played was leaf dodgeball. I got quite a few great shots out of this game, but the one I love the most is this candid “between” shot of the older sister because she just looks so authentically happy.

Play makes for the best expressions

Her younger brother wanted to climb everything, so we found all kinds of great things to climb. I wish I could share more of the fun pictures from this session, but here’s a little sample to give you a taste…  The holiday season is flying by and my availability is almost gone so if you’ve been procrastinating, make sure to get your appointment booked before there are no more left!

Children's photo shoot; Code name: Play date!

Family photos at the beach on a foggy morning

We ran around the beach to keep the blood flowing and the kids had a great time skipping stones and climbing on driftwood. This to me is the ideal situation, the setting is fun and automatically inspires authentic play and creativity so all I have to do is capture it. One of my favorite candid photos from the day is this on of the two boys.

I was nervous when I first arrived at this particular session because when I called mom to let her know I was outside, I was informed that they were waking her up from a nap and would be 10 minutes late. Waking up from a nap can certainly be unpleasant for all involved, but little Kay surprised us all with her good spirits! I did end up touching out a few pillow wrinkles on her cheek, but by the end of this session I was so happy I could barely contain myself. I always love kid photo sessions, but this one just really put a smile on my face. I hope it does yours, too!

dynamic toddler photo session

As a photographer who’s used to being able to come home and look at the work, it’s quite odd to have that video footage walk off with someone else.  Sure hope it came out well, I know my photos did!  Thank you so much to my clients who were kind enough to speak about their experience for my video!

Kids playing outside in their hats and coats