Now that I'm looking to move over to actually printing my photos, I'm finding that I'm woefully uneducated in this area.

So what is the current hot-ticket as far as printing technologies go? I think to start I am going to use a printing service before I drop a bunch of cash on a printer of my own.

Looking around the internet, the consensus seems to be that a good inkjet printer tends to give the best results. I just got a photo printed off at 12x18" at the local photo place, and frankly I'm just not happy with the results. The colors are a little washed out, the blacks just aren't black enough... Bleh. It's not doing the photos justice. Is it just this photo lab, or are chemical printing processes generally sub-par compared with inkjets?