Digital BW, The Print

First off, thank you for reading my post. I'm an amateur photographer (no dark room experience) with a Canon D30 and a Epson 2000p printer. I primarily take photos of my family and friends. I've been happy with the color pictures I get from the D30/Photoshop/Epson 2000p combination.

My 10 year old daughter has become very interested in acting/modeling and requires black and white head shots. We had them professionally done and they were ok, but not great. I thought I could do better and her acting coach/agent loved the photos. Now I want to convert these photos to black and white and found the great "cast in different lighting problem" called meta something :-) 

So after reading some very informative articles in this group, I've come to the conclusion I can't make good b&w prints with my printer that will look good in all the different lighting environments. So the next question is how do I get my b&w photo printed? I don't want to buy a new printer for this. I also don't want to spend $10 per picture as I need about 50 of them printed once or twice a year. Any recommendations?

Can I send the digital image to a printing place that will print images for me on light sensitive paper? Can that be done economically? Or should the digital image be converted to a negative and then prints made from that? Is anything lost in the conversion? Which process is most economical? Who would do it well for a reasonable cost?

Thank you in advance for any response. I really appreciate it!

Shanda




[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

I wouldn't normally recommend this for fine art type photos, but for
your application it may be worth trying out some of the online photo
services like http://www.shutterfly.com/, http://www.snapfish.com/,
http://www.ofoto.com/. You can upload your digital files and they will
make prints and mail them to you for a relatively low cost. Try ordering
some test prints and see if the quality is up to what you need. Most
will give you a bunch of free prints when you sign up too.

-Jason

> -----Original Message-----
> From: S. Bhasker [mailto:sbhasker@...] 
> Sent: Friday, May 02, 2003 12:53 PM
> To: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [Digital BW] Need advice on easiest way to print 
> Black & White photos from Digital Camera
> 
> 
> First off, thank you for reading my post. I'm an amateur 
> photographer (no dark room experience) with a Canon D30 and a 
> Epson 2000p printer. I primarily take photos of my family and 
> friends. I've been happy with the color pictures I get from 
> the D30/Photoshop/Epson 2000p combination.
> 
> My 10 year old daughter has become very interested in 
> acting/modeling and requires black and white head shots. We 
> had them professionally done and they were ok, but not great. 
> I thought I could do better and her acting coach/agent loved 
> the photos. Now I want to convert these photos to black and 
> white and found the great "cast in different lighting 
> problem" called meta something :-) 
> 
> So after reading some very informative articles in this 
> group, I've come to the conclusion I can't make good b&w 
> prints with my printer that will look good in all the 
> different lighting environments. So the next question is how 
> do I get my b&w photo printed? I don't want to buy a new 
> printer for this. I also don't want to spend $10 per picture 
> as I need about 50 of them printed once or twice a year. Any 
> recommendations?
> 
> Can I send the digital image to a printing place that will 
> print images for me on light sensitive paper? Can that be 
> done economically? Or should the digital image be converted 
> to a negative and then prints made from that? Is anything 
> lost in the conversion? Which process is most economical? Who 
> would do it well for a reasonable cost?
> 
> Thank you in advance for any response. I really appreciate it!
> 
> Shanda