Dennis Stegall

We picked the brains of Marvin Chapman, photo lab specialist at the Wal-Mart Supercenter; Dennis Stegall, camera sales manager at Columbia Photo; L.G. Patterson, a freelance photographer; and Amy Enderle, a professional photographer who primarily takes wedding pictures, to provide some advice.
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Stegall, for example, reminds people to make sure to hold the camera steady while taking photos.

"If you are zooming in on your subject, it is very important to be steady," he said.
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"The little computer inside the camera is making the changes an advanced photographer would set manually," Stegall said.
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Stegall explained that a digital camera's flash is typically limited.

"Set your camera to a higher ISO and turn your flash off in a low-light situation," he said.

Get the latest camera-related news, photo class schedules & more from our camera manager, Dennis Stegall.

"They're not a match at this point for the traditional silver halide printing that you would get in a lab like ours, for instance," says Columbia Photo's Dennis Stegall.

The problem?Inks and paper you would use at home aren't as high quality at professional printing.And since there are no negatives for re-printing you could lose those images forever.

But the good news is you can have prints from your digital camera that will hold up longer.

"The materials we're printing it on is exactly the same as what we've been doing before," says Stegall."It's still a silver halide-based material.So, it's exactly the same chemistry, exactly the same paper and paper surfaces that we've used for 35mm and 120 film for years."

Having them printed at a shop may save you money.Stegall says it costs about 16 cents per print at Columbia Photo, where, on average, it costs about 35 cents on your home printer.

If you are going to print at home, he says there's a few things you can do keep those prints fresh.