Late last year, digital cameras, both point-and-shoot DSLRs, have become really affordable and accessible to the public. Old and young folk alike cluttered over to the nearest Best Buy and Circuit City to grab a Canon, Nikon or Olympus that suits their liking and budget. This sudden overstock of cameras has led to quite a handful of people aspiring to become photographers or at least anxious to shoot and print their first collection. However, good quality printing cannot be availed at just any price. As many online printing companies there are online, not all can promise good quality printing. So where to go now?

For those who want standard print sizes of 4×6, 5×7, 6×9 or 8.5×11, you can get cheap prints with good quality from Costco, Target, Walmart or another major general retail merchandiser. Better watch out though, not all general merchandise stores can give you good printing quality. For those who want poster-sized and poster-quality prints, however, it is very much recommended that you send your print files to an online print shop. The tricky part is, how to get one that offers the same price as your retail store? In this context, you will have to scour for coupons to get printing discounts for your online printing store. Next question you might ask is “how do I get printing discounts?” Different online printing companies have different ways of offering printing coupons to the public. One way is that you subscribe to their mailing list or register as an online customer (don’t worry you don’t need to buy anything to be able to be a registered user). Some online printing companies buy email lists and send out printing coupons to these addresses, and well if you’re lucky, then you might land a printing discount in your inbox. But try guessing the likelihood of that happening! Another way to get printing discounts online is to type in printing coupons or printing discounts in Google. Look through the SERPs but most importantly try looking through the PPC ads. They give out discounts to customers who enter their site through paid ads. Another way is of course the traditional cut-it-off-from-a-newspaper discount coupon. Still works!

As I end my little post, I hope I was able to give you some ideas on how to get your photos printed within your budget. But at the same time, remember not to sacrifice the quality of your prints for the price. You wouldn’t want to be known as the wash-out photographer do you? Good luck and happy shooting!