Patent ID: 7885864

Claim:
A network photograph service method, comprising: providing a plurality of photo-finishing laboratories, each including a laboratory server in which picture images have been stored, and a single center server installed in a service center in which picture images as image data whose resolution is lower than the resolution of the picture images stored in the laboratories have been stored; making the digital image data stored in the center server accessible on the network; selecting one photo-finishing laboratory out of said plurality of photo-finishing laboratories to output a print in response to order information transferred from a customer via the network; and providing the printing service requested in the order by transmitting instruction information to the laboratory server installed in the selected photo-finishing laboratory, thereby enabling the customer to select a desired photo-finishing laboratory out of a plurality of photo-finishing laboratories to perform the printing service, wherein the center server stores the digital image data in correlation with storage location information showing the laboratory server in which the image data is stored as high resolution image data, and selects, upon selection of the photo-finishing laboratory to output the print, the photo-finishing laboratory in which the laboratory server stores the high resolution image data of the picture image whose print has been ordered, based on the storage location information.