I'll second Geoff's recommendations on those books. They're great and I own them both. A third book that's quite worthwhile in this space is "The Art of Digital Fine Art Printing" by Uwe Steinmueller & Jürgen Gulbins. It's an e-book and available
here.There are a lot of people sending their work off to labs for printing. You'll likely get a lot of recommendations from people on the various labs.
At the high end of printing are boutique shops with incredible skills and generally prices to match.
Many of us also print our own work. I can't speak for others but for me its because I'm a control freak when it comes to printing. I want my work to be "just so". I also consider printing to be the final act of creativity and expression.
You'll need to consider what you want to do with your prints. If you're going to put 4x6 prints in an album the labs will do an outstanding job for you at very reasonable prices. If you're interested in larger and want to understand the printing process you'll likely want to start with a printer of your own that can handle up to 13x19" material.
Glossy, satin, matte, luster, etc. are all things you as an artist decide. Its generally a question of which an image looks best on and which best suites your creative expression.