Looking for someone to print large.

[Greg Gibbons]

I'd like to get something printed just under 40x50".
I'm in California, and I have the digital file ready in PS, but I can only print 17" wide.
Anyone have a suggestion where I can go?
I'd be happy with anything printed on an Epson 9000 series printer.

Thanks in advance if anyone can help.

[gevalia]

What about ImageKind.com?

[Brian Ellis]

Costco actually does a pretty nice job on large prints and you can't beat the price. I'm not sure about 30x40, the local store here only goes to 20x30, but I think different stores have different maximum sizes. If there's one in your area check it out, can't hurt and if you don't like the result you're only out about $10.

[Peter Galea]

http://www.laserlightprintmaker.com/

[Lenny Eiger]

Costco actually does a pretty nice job on large prints and you can't beat the price. I'm not sure about 30x40, the local store here only goes to 20x30, but I think different stores have different maximum sizes. If there's one in your area check it out, can't hurt and if you don't like the result you're only out about $10.

Gosh, shouldn't one ask what kind of quality one is looking for before we send them off to a printer with the least amount of quality and no personal interaction or control? If they ask this list, instead of just looking at Google, I assume they want a step up from the least quality. Maybe I'm making an incorrect assumption, but it at least seems that way to me.

There are a lot of very good, no I'll say excellent, custom printers on this list. Customers generally want someone they can work with, who can produce something in their style, rather than the printer's style. Some people want to go to the place where the print is being made and actually work with the printer to get what they want. Some people want a photographer at the controls, that understands what they are trying to accomplish.

This is a community here, certainly, even with all its faults, it tries to be. I think we should try and support each other - at least when we are confident of people's services. That means not sending people off to big box store solutions and seeing if we can support another photographer. (Isn't that what we're doing here, trying to support eachother?)

Just my opinion.


Lenny

[Greg Blank]

Your about 100% correct, the very least I would suggest is some place like mpix they for thy most part "pretend" to do professional work.

To the OP- pick up up a copy of Range Finder or better yet View Camera, and find a lab that supports and caters to professional photographers!

Gosh, Your about shouldn't one ask what kind of quality one is looking for before we send them off to a printer with the least amount of quality and no personal interaction or control? If they ask this list, instead of just looking at Google, I assume they want a step up from the least quality. Maybe I'm making an incorrect assumption, but it at least seems that way to me.

There are a lot of very good, no I'll say excellent, custom printers on this list. Customers generally want someone they can work with, who can produce something in their style, rather than the printer's style. Some people want to go to the place where the print is being made and actually work with the printer to get what they want. Some people want a photographer at the controls, that understands what they are trying to accomplish.

This is a community here, certainly, even with all its faults, it tries to be. I think we should try and support each other - at least when we are confident of people's services. That means not sending people off to big box store solutions and seeing if we can support another photographer. (Isn't that what we're doing here, trying to support eachother?)

Just my opinion.


Lenny

[Brian Ellis]

Gosh, shouldn't one ask what kind of quality one is looking for before we send them off to a printer with the least amount of quality and no personal interaction or control? If they ask this list, instead of just looking at Google, I assume they want a step up from the least quality. Maybe I'm making an incorrect assumption, but it at least seems that way to me.

There are a lot of very good, no I'll say excellent, custom printers on this list. Customers generally want someone they can work with, who can produce something in their style, rather than the printer's style. Some people want to go to the place where the print is being made and actually work with the printer to get what they want. Some people want a photographer at the controls, that understands what they are trying to accomplish.

This is a community here, certainly, even with all its faults, it tries to be. I think we should try and support each other - at least when we are confident of people's services. That means not sending people off to big box store solutions and seeing if we can support another photographer. (Isn't that what we're doing here, trying to support eachother?)

Just my opinion.


Lenny

Gee Lenny, consider me duly chastised for making a suggestion based on my own opinion rather than yours. But I think you're confused. I didn't send him off anywhere. I made a suggestion. He's free to follow it or not as he sees fit. But I can tell you that Costco is far from the "least quality." I've seen plenty of prints from so-called professional labs that cost a lot more and weren't any better than what I've seen from Costco. If I thought their work was horrible I never would have mentioned them. The fact is that their work is surprisingly good. Is it the absolute best? No. But the prints I've seen have been a lot better than I expected and might be good enough for the OP since as you point out, he didn't say what he was expecting from whoever makes the prints.

It never occurred to me that I should refrain from mentioning a place that I think does pretty good work at a very good price just because they aren't members of this forum. I thought we supported each other by giving our honest opinions about providers of good or services, uncolored by whether the provider in question was a member of this forum. Of course if I were in your business I'd probably be very happy to be told that we're supposed to only recommend forum members for services a forum member can provide.

[Lenny Eiger]

Gee Lenny, consider me duly chastised for making a suggestion based on my own opinion rather than yours. But I think you're confused. I didn't send him off anywhere. I made a suggestion. He's free to follow it or not as he sees fit.

It never occurred to me that I should refrain from mentioning a place that I think does pretty good work at a very good price just because they aren't members of this forum. I thought we supported each other by giving our honest opinions about providers of good or services, uncolored by whether the provider in question was a member of this forum. Of course if I were in your business I'd probably be very happy to be told that we're supposed to only recommend forum members for services a forum member can provide.

Brian,
Sorry, didn't mean to insult you. Or chastise you. It's just one of my pet peeves. I have put a lifetime into printing, not unlike a few others around here, spent a million hours in the darkroom, then developed and developed my eyes.
OTOH, Costco and the other labs use some device that averages everything, have some kid making $8 an hour running the machine and outputting things. You are correct, it isn't horrible some arguable percentage of the time, but it isn't the same as having someone be very careful about getting you what you want.

I know Bruce Watson does work for others, I don't remember is Sandy does more than his own work and teaching. I know there a lot of others, perhaps we should all get together and get us a page on this site so folks can have a number of choices to choose from - for scanning and for printing.

You and I have been disagreeing on things lately. For me its just that. I got no bones to pick with you, and once again - you just hit one of my pet peeves and I apologize for not being clear it wasn't about you....

Lenny

[Daniel Stone]

greg(OP),

where are you located in CA?

if you're close to LA or San Fran, there are multiple pro-labs in either city that are able to print inkjet, or lightjet(laser to actual "photo paper" rather than ink on paper), and I can recommend quite highly.

but if you're looking to mail out a dvd/cd/flashdrive, quality control might not be the best when you can't see the print at the lab. And since you're looking to make a large(and expensive) print, personally, I'd at least drive to the lab to have the print made.

but this is my opinion.

-Dan

[bob carnie]

I run a professional lab and IMO and Brian is quite correct here as well Lenny brings up a good point.

If you are looking for RA4 prints or Inkjets .
If you are proficient in PS and understand the printing requirements for Costco,*and follow them*
If you run a test run on the files you are submitting.
If you sharpen/edit based on the results of the test.
Then resubmit for printing ASAP.

the results at Costco will be every bit as good as any of the Major Labs World Wide.

their throughput is large, therefore chemistrys are very stable, the reason they can operate with a $8.00 hour employee is they run multiple control strips each day, their plots are good.

This test was done 25 years ago by the PMA , then they tested hundreds of pro labs against the then new upstarts local miniLabs.
Conclusion, the miniLabs kicked the Big Labs asses.
this started a wholesale change of equipment within the larger labs that went from manual operated prints to these fancy dangled mini lab machines. Fuji, Noritsu, Kodak had a field day.

If a costco has a Theta, LIghtjet or Chromira driving the exposure , you can be assured it is the same light source as what is being used in the Large Labs.

Now to Ink Jet , I believe this also will be the case, with excellent custom profiles and clean working conditions the above will be true.
Costco or LARGE CHAIN STORE can afford to hire a super geek to go from store to store and set up the operations.

Our Lab has started to offer a Press & Go service much like Costco , ** We joined them rather than fought** What we have found is savvy photographers take advantage of this service and it has released me from working on some photography best left in the trash bin or day to day work that is not show related.

To Lenny's point, I too have spent my entire adult life learning how to print . The ability for our core financial clients to get great prices on printing for their day to day projects is very benificial to our companys bottom line.
When some one requires my abilitys then they will pay full pop for full service printing.
Today I am working on projects that I like with artists that want to use my printing skills. So though my files may match the paper a bit better *as I am printing every day* I can now concentrate on the projects that I want to work on and we are now seeing the best of both worlds, good volumne with the Press and Go which my employees can handle , and as well the time to concentrate on scanning, editing, and printing projects.

All major labs that want to stay in business over the next few years, will offer bulk printing or loose their share of printing.
What it will boil down to for photographers, is Sevice, Timelyness, competitive price , and as well the abilitys of Labs to make the experience pleasant and problem free.

Costco actually does a pretty nice job on large prints and you can't beat the price. I'm not sure about 30x40, the local store here only goes to 20x30, but I think different stores have different maximum sizes. If there's one in your area check it out, can't hurt and if you don't like the result you're only out about $10.