Method 1: Bring your camera or memory card to a shop. This is the most common way to print digital photographs. You can do this at any photo lab, department store or most local chemists. Kmart and BigW are two department stores that have been heavily competing for this market. Certainly the paper they use may not quite be up to the quality of a good photo lab, but most consumers will not notice a difference. Prices have been seen as low as 20 cents at department stores. At most stores you place your media card form your camera into a machine, then follow the prompts to print your photographs. In a department store the photos may take a couple of days to print, while some photo labs offer a one-hour service. Personally, at the right price, I would go to a photo lab. You can typically just hand over your memory card, ask for one of each photo, and come back in an hour. No need to fight a computer terminal. Admittedly, the computer terminals are fairly easy to use. Unfortunately you may need to queue to get to one, and they do take a while to read a large memory card and create thumbnails - this took about 10 minutes for my (largish) memory card when I tried this method. I prefer to select my photos on my computer at home, transfer them to the memory card, and just hand it over. Method 2: Upload over the internet and collect the photos in person. I like the general idea behind this method, offered by BigW. The idea is that you upload your photos to their server over the internet and request the prints. Then, a couple of days later, on your weekly trip to the shopping center, you drop by and pick them up. This give you the opportunity to complain about problems, avoid any postage, and take only one trip to the shopping center. The main problem with this service is that you must install and use their software in order to use this service. Currently Mac and Linux users (like me) miss out. Indeed anyone who does not have permission to install software on their own computer misses out. Many overseas services use a web or java or ftp based method to upload photographs which do not have either of these problems. If they fixed these issues, then I'll probably use this service! Method 3: Upload over the internet and return by post. Currently the only offerings in this category in Australia are much more expensive than the department store offerings (unless it save you a trip in to the shops just for a few photos). If you only have a small number of photos to print, postage is relatively expensive. Some overseas services will deliver to Australia, but postage does cost significantly. Some of these companies offer nice web based interfaces that are easy to use. Some also allow anyone with photographs on a website to allow their photos to be very easily printed by anyone. I certainly hope that the department stores around Sydney will examine this interface issue soon so that we can easily use methods 2 and 3 at good prices. Method 4: Print it yourself! Of course, you can always print photos yourself. Unfortunately you would need to print a lot of photos to make the cost of a specialist photo printer worthwhile. I have a nice colour A3 printer. I don't use it for standard size photos as the ink is expensive and the paper is difficult to use. In addition it is easy to make a mistake and waste a fair bit of ink or paper. Enlargements an other related products So far enlargements and other products seem relatively unaffected by the price war, unfortunately. Most of the stores mentioned offer some extra products such as mouse mats or tshirts. I am interested by some of the concepts offered by The Online Printer who is in Canberra but ships to Sydney. You can make a calender with a different photo for each month. Or a postcard with your own designs. When done in some quantity, a run of 25 calenders could make a nice set of Christmas presents to all your friends and relatives, without being too expensive. Sydney shopping related pages on this site Shopping in Sydney (about Sydney shops, discounts, sales and catalogs) Catalogs and Sales in Sydney Sydney garden centres and nurseries (plants and garden equipment) Options for printing digital photos in Sydney Back to Main Page Comments by visitors: Email webmaster@iliveinsydney.com to contact the webmaster.