I’m feeling a little overwhelmed these days. I have so many things that I’m not getting too and that are starting to snowball on me. One thing that is really stressing me out are all my pictures that have taken up residence and getting quite comfortable in my computer. You see I’m really good about transferring my pictures to the computer the same day I take them but that is as far as I get. Everytime I turn on my computer I am reminded that they need to be printed. They mock me, I swear. As of this month I have officially not had any pictures printed for a whole year! That’s 365 days and over 1000 pictures. Yikes! So many cute pictures of my little guy but a lot of good they do me locked away in my computer. I’m so tired of it weighing me down. I know digital cameras have so many advantages over film but can I just say how much easier it was to take a roll of film in be developed and be done with it.
Tonight I tried to figure out what was keeping me from getting it done. I think my biggest problem is that I haven’t had very good luck with who I’ve used in the past to print my pictures. I’ve used both Walmart and Shopper’s Drug Mart and the pictures were of terrible quality. This frustrates me. I have a Kodak printer dock at home and love the pictures that I print out from there, nothing else seems to measures up, but with the volume of pictures to print it would take me DAYS to do it myself not to mention the expense. I would love to use Kodak Gallery to do my printing but it is expensive because they are out of the States. The other ones I’m aware of such as Black’s and Costco don’t ship to far out in the hicks locations such as mine. Also I’ve noticed that some sites take forever to upload the pictures…that will just never do.
I can’t get my organized brain wrapped around this. My head hurts. I can’t take it anymore!
Maybe you can relate and you share my pain.
Maybe you can help and will share your secret.
Either way I’m hoping you’ll help pull me back from the edge…..
Quietromance says
Hmmm. Have you tried Shutterfly.com? I don’t know if they ship to Canada or not, but I know that it is fairly easy to upload photos on their site, and that the prints they mail you look just as good as they did on your computer.
They also have really cool photo gift options, like books and albums. I made an wedding book and they sent it to me in less than a week after I ordered it, and it is amazing!!!!
I am extremely pleased with the service I have recieved from them, and the price is right too! 🙂
HTH
~Haley
Melody says
I’m new to the blogging world. Wanted to tell you I enjoy reading your posts. I’ve also had good experiences with Shutterfly…
Wendell says
Check out shutterfly if you haven’t already, they do ship to Canada. I’m no expert but have always been happy with the print quality.
Good Luck!
Debi says
We’ve been really happy with snapfish.com. Much better quality than any of the local “affordable” places. We send in about 200 photos at a time, and it does take about an hour to upload that many. But we just start them, then ignore the computer for a while.
Good luck!
In Pursuit of His Call says
I have the same problem…DearDaughter1 is 16 months already and I only have her first 2 weeks in a scrap book and DearDaughter2 is due to be born in July.
Well, I really like the idea of the 30-Day challenge. It has really motivated me to complete my organizational project and so I thought I would do other 30-Day challenges here at home, even a 30-Day computer clean-up challenge. Would that motivate you?
Well, I’m one to print my own pictures because I like to crop and print them to the exact sizes, so I don’t have a development center to recommend, but I do hear that snapfish.com is good.
Well, blessings to you with this challenge. I can’t wait to hear how you attack it!
Stacey says
Hi!! We have this problem with my parents – they are in Canada, I am in the US.
I didn’t know Shutterfly shipped to Canada – it may be astronomical shipping prices, though. Check that out.
My folks are in Edmonton and they have had decent luck with London Drugs. I agree about Shopper’s Drug Mart – terrible quality prints.
Good luck!
(We use kodakgallery.com and are very happy with it)
Beth says
Ditto on the Shutterfly suggestion. I’ve also used Snapfish and Kodakgallery.com. It can be a bit time-consuming to upload the images, but it’s well worth it, imo. And I think they all have great deals for new customers right now. Give it a try! Good luck.
Jodi says
I highly, HIGHLY recommend taking advantage of Flickr.com. Not only is it a great tool for organizing and sharing your photos, but they have partnered with some really good printing companies. I would say to give QOOP a try. (They should be on Flickr’s front page.) I ordered loads of prints from them for the holidays as well as some of their mini-books to give as presents. I’m a photographer, so I am really picky about prints. Still, Flickr and QOOP get my endorsement.
Good luck.
Rocks In My Dryer says
Hey, I’m working on a WFMW on this subject!
Cheryl says
I hear you! I had 700+ photos on my computer and it wasn’t until my youngest daughter said (when she was finally old enough to know what was going on) “mommy, why do you have so many pictures of Rachel (her sister) and none of me?
That finally got me going. I copied as many photos as I could onto a CD (or two), then promptly went to Shoppers Drug Mart. I used a kiosk and chose the ones I wanted to print. It took me about an hour. I’m sure quality was better elsewhere but with the quantity I had they were “cheap” and at least I had something “on paper”. I found that “cropping” photos was my key to salvaging any not so nice photos. After I was caught up, I spent more money to get “better” photos at a different place. You could then also just use your Kodak printer dock when you needed to.
I found sending them somewhere online was too slow because you had to upload all those photos. Burning them on a CD worked best for me.
I didn’t choose Walmart because their paper was so thin, if you held it up to the light you could see through it. 🙂
Hope that helps.
Sorry for the long post but, to keep up on your photos, you could take your memory card directly to the photo place and have them printed right away. I love those kiosk machines!
Cindy Rajlich says
I really like Winkflash. Locally, I like Sams Club and Walmart with the catch being that I only use the 1 hour option. I know you said you have not had good luck with Wal-Mart, but I thought I would mention them since I have not had good luck with them when they are sent out, but if they are done right there for one hour service they are fine.
I highly recommend Winkflash, though. Great service, quality product, cheap shipping. 🙂
Susanne says
Future shop has on line printing services. We’ve used Ofoto, from the states and found them both reasonable and good.
Marcia Francois says
Hmmm. Well, I download every couple of days or weekly and then when I do my cropping and sorting and filing into folders, I drag the ones I want to have printed into a folder on my flash drive called…wait for this…. PHOTOS TO PRINT.
And then when I’m running errands I just pop in, print them and I’m on my way again.
Lizzy says
We have a screen saver that randomly flashes pics from our photo files. It is an effortless and entertaining way to let everyone see our pics till I can get to them. Also, don’t think you need to print ALL your digital pics. Just print off enough to scrapbook in one day. Pick a day of the week to devote to this and only pic the best, most important pics. HTH
Kimberly says
Just so you know you’re not alone – I went a year without printing pictures too.
My MIL got seriously, seriously grouchy. I say it’s her fault for not getting the internet. =P
Thanks for bringing this up, I’m going to check out some of those sites the gals mentioned.
Melissa says
I totally hear you! I have 4 kids and TONS of photos on the computer that are just waiting to get out! I have used Creative Memories Photo shop, but I also like Winkflash! Also, Creative Memories now has storybook creators on line where you add your pictures, journaling and such and then they will print them in an album/book for you! Yes, it cost a little more than doing it yourself, but its alot faster!
Kara says
I have this problem too, I have thousands of pics stored on CDs and my computer but never get around to printing them, it’s just overwhelming. I’d have to first find what CDs have pics saved to them (because I was dumb and didn’t label them so they are mixed with all my other unused CDs) then go through the thousands of pics to find the ones I want printed, then find the best place to have them printed, find some money to pay for it, then buy some photo books to put them in (since I suck at and can’t afford scrapbooking lol). So it keeps getting put off and piling higher all the time. One day I promise I will get to it, but for now my life is too disorganized to think of that lol.
Andrea says
Not sure if you have a SaveOn near you, but I love that I can upload all the photos from a folder instead of having to click on each one. They’re pretty cheap too. The one thing that bugs me is my pictures are never quite 4×6 due to my camera and whatever they do. So that’s annoying, but haven’t found somewhere else that’s as easy to do lots of photos.
Lura says
I also use the one hour photo at Walmart and have had no problems. I have recently uploaded my photos at Walmart.com and then chosen the one hour option. That works good too. Then you don’t spend extra money shopping while your pics are being developed.
GiBee says
Have you tried Kodak? I have had great luck with them, and I really like their quality.
I’m not sure if they deliver to Canada, though …
http://www.kodakgallery.com/Welcome.jsp
Pam says
scrapbookpictures.com…reasonable prices, all sizes, borders, easy. Not sure of shipping prices to Canada though.
Katrina says
I’m a snapfish girl too… that is, when I’m on top of the whole picture thing. Which most of the time I’m not. 🙂
Kim says
Hey Laura, I use snapfish. I’m not sure if they do Canada or not. I’ll look and send you an invite for 20 free photos if they do.
A strong word of caution from the voice of experience. In the fall of 2005, our home computer crashed beyond repair. Delaney was 4 years old. ALL of our pictures for the previous 2 1/2 years were on the hard drive; all our time in New York, all our snow pictures, all our trips to Canada, etc. They are all GONE! I hadn’t printed any of them, and when the computer crashed, they could not be retrieved. Please at least back them up on an external source if you don’t print them soon; I’ve been heartsick since I lost all those pictures.
Brandie says
Shutterfly and snapfish are popular.
We happen to live near a walgreens. I personally like them. I can e-mail the pictures to the store, they print them there and they are ready in about an hour. Which means I can send them, have them printed and make my dh pick them up on the way home!
Also, they frequently send me 15 cent print coupons via e-mail. That is the cheapest I can find without prepaying for 1000 pictures. Granted I have 1000 pictures I could print out now, but once you add in shipping and the prepaying thing and blah, blah, blah, well for me Walgreens is just easier.
That said, I too have been remiss about printing pictures. It seems I only print them when I absolutely have to (christmas cards, mil is demanding some lol!). I put them on the computer, I load some to flickr, put a few on the blog, and move on.
Although, dh backs us up all the time, so I don’t worry about them dying on the computer, but I do think I need to get them printed up to have them, to scrap them, to display them, to share them!
I do tell dh to build in 20 to a monthly budget just for printing pictures. I figure $20 at a time will make it feel less over-whelming, both for going through the pictures and also on the pocketbook. But we haven’t started that system yet. Maybe I should … go out get a photobox and start next month …
Let us know what you do with yours!
Anonymous says
If you choose Winkflash, snapfish, or shutterfly (or anything else) – do a google search for a coupon code. There are usually some for .99 shipping or so many free prints for new members. Check around first!
I’ve been pleased with Sam’s 1 hour printing, I like it a lot better than their send-out processing.
We upload to Walgreen’s for the grandparents to look at (they can right click and save it or print at their local Walgreen’s). But we’re bad about printing for ourselves! 🙂
Jennifer
Thea says
I’m an instant gratification kind of person so having pictures shipped to me is never fast enough.
I live near a camera store that does picture printing. You can e-mail the pictures and they will be printed in an hour. The location by my house even has a drive thru which saves a lot of time.
Because it is a camera store (as opposed to a grocery/convenience store), the pictures have always been top quality. I pay a little more, but it’s worth it to me.
foodiechickie says
I have the same problem. Snapfish lost my photos and the Target photo booth near me has terrible paper. Yahoo has been pretty good. I have not used Flickr to print yet. Perhaps that will be next. And CVS hasn’t been too bad. I think I just need to get off my butt and do it. The best of luck to you.
Stacy at Exceedingly Mundane says
Laura, you’re ONLY 1 year behind? 365 measley days?! Girl, I am over 3 years behind. I have printed a few sporadic ones from holidays and vacations, but no regular pictures in over 3 years. I have thousands upon thousands of them. I convince myself I have them backed up to a CD, but we’ll see if something happens to that computer. Heaven help me.
What little printing I have done is usually done online. I can upload whenever I want and get them from my mailbox. I’ve had good luck with Snapfish also.
Good luck and let us know how you’re coming!!!!
Guinevere Meadow says
I also LOVE snapfish. You can transfer pictures directly from your memory card, if you can hook up your camera to your computer. I used to use a Ritz camera shop, but I moved to another town and my local Ritz had only a kiosk, not a photo lab, and I was not happy with the print quality. My friend suggested snapfish, and I’ve been using them ever since!
themomhalf says
Half the time I can’t even take pictures due to the fact my children (the little darlings – hehe) have dropped and broken 2 cameras, I have reached a point where I cannot replace or fix the cameras any more.
so no pictures 🙁 — this hurts when I see something cute the 2 year old is doing or something the older ones have made, or they have a special event like a church pageant where I want to take pictures.
It costs money but send them off to Walgreen’s or CVS (what ever pharmacy you have near you, its better then the pictures sitting there on the ‘puter)
then ask hubby to pick them up on his way home from work — this is what works for me
good luck
themomhalf
Rhonda says
I didn’t read all the comments, so this may have already been suggested.
I keep all my photos at snapfish.com. I have an album for each month. When I want pictures printed, I have them printed through Snapfish at my local Walgreens. I am very satisfied with their developing. (I also don’t like Wal-Mart’s pictures. blech) If you print more than 50 at a time, the prices is lower, but I can’t remember what the difference is.
Costco also has very good developing (if you have a membership). You can upload them to their store for printing, but it’s not meant for storage.
Megan says
I’m going to second Flickr. I upload all the printable pics there and they are easy to organize. They are easy to have printed and are printed through Target. You can either do a one-hour service and pick them up at your local Target asap, or you can have them mailed to your home.
Easy. And the quality has been great. We used to use snapfish for our film, but I was never happy with their digi prints, so we Flickr it all the way now.
Melissa says
Kodak.com is great. They have several advanced developing choices and you can edit, change to b&w, etc. If you upload them as soon as you download them from your camera, it acts as a great “backup” to your computer and then when they have great sales on prints (like they just did last weekend 10 cents/ea., you can tell it to print ’em all! Yes, you pay shipping, but not having to stand in front of the Sam’s terminal for an hour while your kids go nuts, makes it worth every dime!
Cindi says
Love your blog–I’ve been reading for a week or so now.
I have say I love love love the photofinishing at creativememories.com Photo Center. You do have to have a consultant’s photo ID # to use it, and if you don’t have one I can help you out. As consultants we don’t get any benefit from poeple using our ID to print pictures–it’s just a tracking system I think.
I’ve used Snapfish and had mixed results–some batches weer gerat, some were not great. The digital photo part of the WalMart by me is always out of service for one reason or another, and Costco is pretty good, too.
At the CM Photo Center site you can do some editing and their finishing looks great.
p.s. I love when you post recipes!
Faerylandmom says
ohmygoodness..I am soooo the right person to ask…not that you asked me, but hey, here’s my 2 cents anyways.
I use Creative Memories Memory Manager Software to keep track of all my digital photos mainly because of the following two features:
1) PrintTrack – tells you what pics you’ve printed, and which ones you haven’t.
2) Reminds you to back up when you open the program.
Honestly, it’s a great deal for all the stuff you can do with it, plus it’s EASY to use. I have yet to use the tutorials or the Help feature. It’s AWESOME. IloveitIloveitIloveit.
I use Snapfish.com to upload my pics. I create albums monthly based on my organization in MMSoftware. I always put (order) after the album title so I know which ones I still need. The best part? 4×6 prints are only $0.12/print regular price. If you pre-buy, they go down to $0.10/print. Even with shipping (standard is what I use, and it takes 3-5 days), they’re cheaper than Wal-Mart. Also, you have the option to pay more and pick them up at a local Walgreens same-day. It’s pretty cool. You have unlimited storage space, and they archive everything safely for you. I have been using Snapfish for 6 years, and have NEVER had a problem with them. The quality is amazing.
If you have any questions about the MMSoftware I suggested, please ask. I can tell you pretty much everything you need to know to get started. (I used to be a CM consultant, but I’m not anymore.) It really is worth it, I promise.
sara - The Estrogen Files says
I’m sorry but I don’t have any great advice! I use Kodak Gallery. Shutterfly is good, and so is Snapfish. Good luck!
Tracy says
Here is a very sad reality, I have not printed my pictures in years. Yes you read that right, YEARS. Now don’t get me wrong, I have printed a few here and there, but I have many thousands on my computer. Just last week in FL I took a little over 1,000 pictures. That is just ONE week.
I have had a little luck uploading to RiteAid, but it is slow. I am going to actively start searching for a good place in the next month or two. I have other things weighing me down. And once they are printed, they are going to darken my craft room to get scrapbooked, so I don’t need that weight right now.
Good luck! Please post what you end up doing. I need a good place to get my pictures printed.
onewayoranotherway says
winkflash! 50 free photos!
Mercy says
TARGET!
They have Kodak filming so the quality is great! Look for the Kodak sign at other places to see if thats what they print.
That’s my only suggestion. I’m terrible at actually getting the pictures from my computer to target though.
Hope you do better than I do!
~Mercy~
Sarah says
Oh my I so relate, I fear the day our computer crashes and loses them all. We haven’t backed up for ages, I keep reminding hubby to show me how, but to no avail.
We’ve used an internet photo shop before, fish-something or other I can’t remember the name, they were very quick and very cheap.
Heather says
You’ve gotten some great ideas here from the looks of these comments. You can do this Laura! You helped pull me back from my edge…and so the least I can do is help you. 😉
One strategy (after you pick your place of uploading and printing) is to print off major holidays and birthdays. Put them into scrapbooks or archival safe albums. Then move on to a month by month system of picking ‘everyday’ shots.
Pick a day a week to updload and send to print. Then have a friend over to scrap with. Makes it more fun and adds accountability.
I know it’s already been mentioned but BACK-UP your photo files…like right now. You won’t be sorry you did, but you’ll be sorry if you don’t.
Have fun remembering the year gone by. You can do it!!
Chrystal says
You are not alone.
I used snapfish when I mainly used a 35mm film camera.
Now that I have a digital camera, I have never printed at all.
I think the fact that I share photos online makes me lazy.
Rae says
I have the same problem, thousands of pictures living on my computer. I have them all organized into folders for each month, separate folders in those ones for each occasion the pictures were taken. But, still. I have a Kodak printer too and love it, but it’s too spendy to be printing more than 50 pictures. I’ve had horrible results from Walmart too. I love love Snapfish though! They also send you amazing deals all the time and with my first order I recieved 50 of my prints for free. If you refer friends and they join you can get up to 500 free pix I think it is? So great offers, fast shipping, and great prints.
I’ve heard good things about Shutterfly too. I’ve never tried it out yet though. Good luck! =)
Darlene says
I’m good for downloading them into the computer too. But I like to print my own. I like to crop and resize them, get the red out. Mix and match them together.
Besides, is it about quality or is it about printing them and enjoying them. Who really cares about the quality. They are cute, even if they are not printed professionally.
All the photo shops mentioned are good. I don’t much care for Walmart. I can honestly say, I personally have not used any. My family members have. The like Walgreens.
Jennifer says
I LOVE Winkflash! I have to admit I have over 3,000 pics on my computer, but I get batches of about 200 printed at a time. 12 cents a print and 99 cents shipping. So about $20 for 200 photos. I don’t have any idea if it would be the same shipping price for Canada or not. But I’ve been very happy with the quality, and they’re pretty quick too!
Judi says
I use Walgreen’s. Not sure if you have them there. Their quality is fantastic. You upload your pictures and then pick them up in the store if you like. They always have them done in less than an hour! http://www.walgreens.com
Mommy Dearest says
Laura:
I’m way behind and haven’t read all the comments, but I recommend My Publisher. If you enter Coupon Code VAL2550 at checkout (I think it’s still valid) you’ll get 50% off on orders over $100 and 25% off orders over $50.