- prepare your badge / print by going into your image editing software of choice (I used GIMP), and I created a new empty image with the dimensions of U.S. Letter (A4 if you're not in the U.S.)
- plop your badge image in and size it to the size that you want, it will be proportionate to a sheet of paper.
- export that as a PNG / JPG / whatever, also keep the source in case you need to edit it IMO, this came up for me.
- go into Kinkos / Fedex / Staples, they have unmanned / supervised printing machine.
- you can buy / load in your paper there, you can also ask for them to load it for you.
- you can usually send that PNG by email, or transfer it to them via flashdrive, both are good methods but email is a bit slower in my experience.
- once you print that onto your cardstock / paper of choice, they usually have laminators / a lamination service.
- post lamination you can either cut it into a square with their biiiig alignment / cutting stations, or you can go in with an exacto knife to do it yourself.