I used to call Little Laughs "Calgarys best kept secret", but now with the word spreading, we are now far from a secret. Our approach of supplying the full sized photos on cdrom has been a hit (and a money saver) for our clients.

To make the most of your photos, I have included this page to help you with printing and try to answer some common questions. Hopefully you can make use of this information with both photos by Little Laughs, as well as your own prints from home.

• Where do you print?
  I print everywhere! Thats is the best way for me to ensure the photos will print just how I supply them. Plus it gives me an opportunity to check out special deals, and give my personal reccomendations.
  
  
• Best places to print?
  Here is my personal opinion on some top printing labs (these are from my past printing experiences only and not intended to promote or cut down any specific company)
  
  
  • Walmart - Prices are great, quality is usually pretty good, but it can be hit or miss depending on how good the staff is. Also, sometimes they are not able to actually do prints within an hour and the online ordering service only works properly 70% of the time - with prints taking quite sometime.
  • London Drugs- One of the best printers I have found, prices are a bit higher, but turnaround time is usually quick. They tend to have better quality so I would reccomend London Drug if you are going to be printing anything over an 8X10. They also have online photo ordering, but you need to pre-pay online before submitting your order.
  • Superstore - Very similar to Walmart quality, however latley I have found the turnaround time to be under an hour and the online ordering system works well 98% of the time. If you are ever in the process of ordering and it give you a blank error page message, refresh the page and you will not need to start over.
  • Blacks - It has been a while since I have printed at blacks. Then tend to give me hardest time about "copyright" on professional photos. The quality is great, and the prices are quite high in comparison to the other places.
  • Shoppers Drugmart - The prices tend to be middle of the road, but I have been very happy with thier quality. Not every Shoppers Drugmart has an actual "photo lab" some use ink printers, and there will be a quality difference with printing with ink v.s developing. Developing is always better.
    
    
• The Print doesnt look like the file!
  I have had this happen to my own photos many times, and heard about peoples personal prints having the same problems. The problem is in the photo labs default settings using "Auto Levels". When the digital photo is sent to the lab, the computer will automatically look for a black point and a white point to set the "proper" colors. If the photo has a strong black and white point on it, the photos will be perfect. However, I find with the more artistic styles (with faded white images or soft glow styles etc.) the auto levels take over and you are left with a print that looks nothing like the original file.
  
  
  While I do my best in the editing process to prevent that from happening, there are places that do not adjust levels on prints.
  London Drugs is usually pretty good at acurate colors, and I have had suggestions to visit mpix.com, as they have a no adjustment price of only $0.19 a print.
  Either way, If you are printing photos (be it ones I took or your own from home) Do not settle for improper colors. The printing company should be able to print exactly like your file. So keep that in mind.
  
  
• When I print an 8x10, I have to crop off some of the photo. Why?
  4X6 prints and 8X10 prints have different dimensions (as does 5x7). That is why you need to trim a little off the photo. If you do not want to trim anything, then choose 8x12 and you will not need to crop anything. In most cases I leave a little extra space in the image, so the large prints have room to trim.
  
  On ALL of my montages I test the file to ensure that it will print as an 8x10 without loosing any of the important layout.