Need Recomendations for Printed Photos to Hang on Walls

[Michael in ABQ]

My National Guard unit is deployed and I've collected a lot of good pictures that I want to print and mount in our company area when we get home. I'm looking for recommendations for a service that will print photos suitable for wall mounting. I'd like to be able to add captions as well so a few years from now when some new Soldier joins the unit they can see these photos on the walls and know that it was Sergeant Jones or Private First Class Smith that was firing that machine gun and he was at X location on a certain date.

I'm probably going to be paying for this out of pocket so I'd like to keep it to under $500. I'm hoping to get a dozen or so photos  that are in the 8x10 to 16x20 range. I've seen some examples where they're printed on metal or something similar so there's no need for a frame. I'm not sure how those look and how they'll hold up but I definitely don't want to do a normal photo with glass and a wooden frame. That's just asking to get broken.

I'm aware of Shutterfly and I know there are probably dozens of similar services out there. I'm looking for first hand recommendations to help me sort through the possible options. I've got a few months so I can afford to wait for a large sale or take advantage of a coupon code. Thanks in advance for recommendations.

[Nerdscatchfire]

I have used shutterfly for printing photo mugs and I am very happy with how they come out. They seem to always have coupons on retail me not. https://www.retailmenot.com/view/shutterfly.com

We always used to get out prints at Costco in my home town. It looks like you can get metal prints delivered through costco online. Not too pricey either https://www.costcophotocenter.com/wall-decor/metal-prints

Good luck, that sounds like a nice gift for your unit.

[JLee]

I had a large canvas print done by Costco and it came out quite nicely.

[FrugalFisherman10]

SharpPrints.com

SO cheap. I've used them a bunch of times (i'm a part time photographer) and definitely recommend, based on the price. check them out

[ender]

Sams Club is pretty reliable for this too.

[GreenToTheCore]

For most prints we use Nations Photo Lab and for really nice prints we use Photographic Works.
Both have exceptional customer service for questions and customization.

[Fishindude]

I've been buying prints from Easycanvasprints.com for a while now and have been real satisfied.
They are cheap, service is fast, and they look just fine without frames.

[Dicey]

I had a large canvas print done by Costco and it came out quite nicely.

Public Service Announcement: All Costco Photo Departments will be closing on or before February 14th, 2021. Thereafter, everything will happen via their website. Since big prints are more expensive to ship, act fast if you want to take advantage of their great pricing.

[ObviouslyNotAGolfer]

I used Shutterfly for a wall calendar (Ireland) a few years ago. I was pretty pleased with the results, but got tired of their endless spam and discount offers EVERY SINGLE DAY. If you've used Shutterfly for any length of time, you've probably figured out that you'd be crazy to pay full price for any of their offerings because there are always promo codes and sometime fairly large discounts.

I am a serious fine art photographer (seven exhibits in three countries to my credit) in addition to my day job as a scientist/university faculty. If you are serious about high quality prints, you might want to look into https://bayphoto.com. Their prices are not bad and the quality is quite impressive. They also have knowledgeable techs you can talk to on the phone--I would recommend you call them and discuss your project. Many serious amateurs/pros I know use their services for things that can't readily be printed on an inkjet printer--metal, acrylic prints, calendars, mugs and the like. They have a ROES/remote ordering system (i.e,. an app) you can install on your desktop. It allows you to configure whatever it is you want to print and send it with one click. Their shipping is pretty fast.

They fcuked up and printed the first calendar I sent them (France) without a cover. They were pretty slow to answer my e-mail about this, but they did refund my money. The calendar app is a little weird; I did the months out of order and had to specify that I wanted the months printed in the correct chronological order. Otherwise, I would have received a calender with December before October. Nevertheless, the calendar looks great and the paper is terrific!

If you wanna be a rock star, I recommend you look into RawTherapee for postprocesing. It will do bitmap images (jpg tiff) in addition to RAW. In some respects, it absolutely nukes Lightroom (but it is NOT an easy program!). And it's free. http://rawtherapee.com

(Pro tips: If you're going to post-process your own images--which you should do if you are serious--be sure to turn OFF "color correction" option in the BayROES app.

Also, unless you are a pro with monitor calibration, ICC profiles, and soft-proofing, I would recommend you print a proof or two to see how well their prints line up with what you see on your monitor! Don't waste 500$ on all of it only to find out that all of the prints are too dark or light, or the colors are way out of whack with what your monitor displays!)

[ObviouslyNotAGolfer]

Also, if it's ultimate longevity you're after, I think you will need archival papers, pigment-based inks, mounting media, museum-quality glass, etc. It's expensive. I have some of those in my house.

However, in my office at work, at least two of my walls are apparently made of diamonds or something, because I broke two nails and almost a hammer trying to get nails into them. For starters, I put up a couple prints on foam core. I've had these around in various locations for over a decade and they still look great. Very lightweight, easy to mount, and no shards of glass to deal with when (in my case) the adhesive dries. Whatever you go with, keeping it out of direct sunlight will help a great deal.

Given that fluorescent lights are an affront to all that is good and decent and in addition are spectrally very fcuked up, I recommend you choose some other sort of ambient illuminaiton.

[Michael in ABQ]

I ended up getting them printed and mounted on foam board at a local FedEx Kinkos. Total price for 11 10" x 10" photos was only around $130 after a 30% discount for orders over $100. Original price was going to be more than twice that using a black 3/4" foam board that had a plastic backing with 4 holes drilled in it for mounting. Turns out they were out of stock locally for that so the store manager said they could do it on thinner white foam board (probably 1/4"). They even reprinted the first test photo I ordered since it was done on 1 1/2" instead of 3/4".

I just used some 3M wall hanging strips and attached them to the walls. Turned out pretty well.

I also used Canva.com to take my original images and make some collage-type photos and add captions. I was able to set it to 10" x 10" and then easily crop the photos and resize them to fit.

Overall I'm pretty happy with the results. If it hadn't literally been my last day as I was hanging them up I probably would have ordered a few more at a larger size like 16" x 20". The problem is that many of the photos were taken with phones so they weren't high quality. However, we did get some where the public affairs or combat camera detachment came out and took very high-quality photos.