Ask Slashdot: Best Option For Printing Digital Photos?

rrossman2 writes "With the birth of our son (who is now just over two), we have snapped and accumulated a ton of pictures — on Panoramio, Picasa, Facebook, etc. What is the best option for bulk printing the photos to a physical format? We all know how fast technology advances, as well as how fast sites come and go; I want a way to have these pictures for my son when he is older... just like my grandfather has photos of himself from World War II, my parents have photos of me when I was little, etc. Are there any affordable services that you can upload the photos to that print and deliver long-lasting pictures? How well do today's photo ink jets last, and what's the best type of paper? I do have a cheaper Samsung color laser printer, but color lasers don't make the most color-rich prints, and using normal photo paper you can find in big box stores doesn't work out too well, as the laser toner seems to peel off on the rollers and gum things up. (Is there a good long lasting paper that seems to work well with laser printers?) I can see what's going to happen in the future: all of the digital photos people take now are going to either end up on a website that won't be around in 20+ years, or get stuck on disks or flash memory that won't last, or for which interfacing with the media will become difficult or impossible."

Comments

All my old photos are faded

[cpu6502]

And they weren't printouts. They were actual developed 35mm film. Why go with physical photos when you can have the permance of a digital photo that never fades?

What you should be asking is: "How do I save my photos & videos so they don't get lost?" Backup to a USB drive in a fireproof safe. Backup to an online place like google. Backup to another online place like amazon. And make sure google/amazon are not in the same building (in case it burns down). That's what I would recommend.

Re:Photographic prints!

[clickclickdrone]

My friend does pro portraits and he gets all his stuff up to poster sized done via Costco. Having tried a few, he reckons they're the best and the cheapest too which is a bonus.