I have a digital camera, and keep my photos on my computer's hard-drive, but occasionally I like to get better and more interesting pictures printed, it just seems so much more natural to hold a real photo than look at it on the screen, plus it's better for showing them to people when a computer or TV isn't available, or giving photos to people who don't have a computer or DVD player. I recently therefore took a batch of my digital photos to Boots to get them printed.
Boots now have self service machines
for digital photos, which allow either instant, 1 hour or 24 hour printing from various sources. This can be a memory card, a photo CD, or Infra-Red direct from a compatible phone or camera. This has 2 benefits over the old over the counter method, firstly you can keep the media that the photos are on, very useful if it's your only memory card, not to mention the piece of mind of not having to leave behind a memory card which after all, aren't cheap. Secondly, self service usually reduces queuing time, especially when combined with having a reasonable number of staff, they can deal with the more difficult problems, leaving those with simple things to the self service. The simplicity of the machines also helps here, so it's less likely your going to get stuck behind someone struggling.
My photos were on a Flash Memory card, and I simply put this into the machine, and it asked me if I wanted to select specific photos or print all. I printed all. It then downloads the photos onto the system, which didn't take long even for 60, and asked me what size and what service I wanted. I went for 6x4, 24 hours. It then prints a receipt, which you bring in when you come to collect the photos, and you can take the card back. Despite being a couple of minutes walk from the car, I got back to find I'd only used 10mins of my 30min ticket, but for 20p I wasn't complaining (especially since the bus would have been over 10x that, but that's another matter).
My receipt told me I could collect my photos from 11:30 the next day, but I was just under an hour early getting into town, so I went to see if I could collect then. This time I did have to queue to a while, 2 people ahead had had problems with their films (not a reassuring sign), but it seemed it was the camera in one case and the film in the other at fault, and the staff were more than happy to explain what might have gone wrong and give advice about how to prevent it in future. On getting to the front, I handed over the receipt, and said I was a little early, but the lady checked, and came back with my photos. Payment is made on collection, other than for instants. It came to £6 for 60 photos, 10p each. For more than 100 it drops to 7p per photo, less than 50 is (I think 15p), and for small amounts it's 20p each. It's particularly worthwhile getting larger runs done then, rather than individuals. I'm sure it cost me more than 10p a sheet last time I bought some 6x4 photo paper, so it's much better value than printing at home, and that's before ink is taken into account, which I'm sure would at least double it. Other services are probably cheaper, but possibly not the same quality.
The photos themselves are very good quality. I've not got the best digital camera in the world, but they were all sharp and with good colours. This included a few difficult ones such as shots out of a plane window at 28000ft, and a few in quite poor lighting conditions that have required a little editing to look decent on the computer.
I've used Boots for photo printing like this for many years, ever since I got a digital camera, and also used them when I had a normal camera as well. I've yet to have any problems, other than one incident a few years ago where photos were mixed up, but this was sorted quickly, and I, and the other person, got a free film and a refund. I will not hesitate to use them in future. A particular thing with Boots is the staff, who you feel really know what they are doing, rather than just being lightly trained button pushers.
I would definitely recommend Boots for digital photo printing. It might not be cheapest, but it's worth it for the quality and professionalism.
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