I just sent 22 pictures via the Internet to Wal-Mart for photofinishing. At $0.16 per print, which includes taxes, that was only $3.52. What a bargain.

There is something very important to know before sending pictures to any on-line photofinisher: You HAVE to crop them on-line or else you will be unhappy with the large majority of your prints. Here is the reason why:

The image sensor in your camera has a different shape, or aspect ratio, than the common print sizes. Here is a list of the aspect ratios of the three standard print sizes as well as the aspect ratio of a common digital camera image sensor:

         Width   length    aspect ratio
Camera   1,200    1,600     1:1.333
           4"   x   6"      1:1.5
           5"   x   7"      1:1.4
           8"   x  10"      1:1.25

So because the shape is not the same between any of the different format sizes some part of the picture needs to be cropped out. If you don't specify how you want it cropped the software just whacks off a little off the top and a little off the bottom of a landscape oriented picture, and a little off the left and right for a portrait oriented picture.

For some of your pictures this will work out just fine, but for most of the pictures it will cut out part of the picture you wanted to keep, and include more of the stuff you don't care about. For the 22 pictures I just uploaded I would guess only about 25% of the pictures I didn't need to change the default cropping.

You could look at it as a pain in the butt because it as an extra step, or you could look at it as a plus because you get more creative control over the finished product. It is actually not too time consuming. I think it didn't take me more than 10 minutes to go through all 22 of my prints, so about 30 seconds per picture.