Ordering large scale photographs

Those who know me know that I love taking photos. I'm not a professional by any means but I really enjoy being behind a camera. I recently splurged and bought a DSLR, which you can read about here, and have gotten more serious about printing large scale photographs. As a card carrying Costco member (is there any other kind of member?) I have happily printed through them, enjoying their "anything goes" return policy, fast turn-around times and of course low prices.

However, when I took photos of my niece and nephew and had them blown up I was unhappy with the large scale resolution of the prints. So I started shopping around for a better printer. Having enjoyed great results with my first 24 x 36 I am now a card carrying member of Ritz Pix (I swear I don't have "need to belong" issues). Membership basically means that I get 5% cash back on my large scale printing.

This photo actually took 4 prints to get right, the first time the laminator was fritzy so there were lines in the plastic and the second and third times the crop was off. Because of that it wasn't ready in 1 hour like advertised but they were totally dedicated to making sure that I was happy with the product. And I am. I chose to mount since it's a photo and will tend to sag behind the glass at such a large size and I chose to put the laminate film on because it has UV protection and will keep my photo from fading in the sun. The color is beautiful (not at all displaying well in this photo), there is no graininess and the mounting is really nice. They will be getting all my printing business from here on out.

In case you're curious, I took this photo about halfway up, as we hiked to the top of Mt. Olympus in Greece. The mama and horse were all by themselves with not another living creature for miles (except us of course). I did deepen the colors in photoshop and made sure that the photo was saved at 400 dpi but other than that I didn't do much else. I took this with my cheap-o Canon (before Mr. Nick consented to my relentless reminders about DSLR cameras). That's Mr. Nick and I in the back, one at our wedding and one at my brother's wedding. It's leaning against our piano (did I mention we need to move out of this apartment ASAP). I left them in so you can see how big it is.


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