Digital Prints - Bad Quality

Hi there.

I print all mine online through Creative Memories photo website. The prints always come back great and the prices are good too, plus I don't waste my ink from my printer at home!

It's www.creativememories.com/digital.

Good luck.
-M

It's Costco. They were good before, but now the quality is horrible. We now download to Shutterfly and get them printed at Target. A little more money than Costco, but worth getting good prints.

It's Costco. Always seems too dark so I switched to CVS and I'm very happy with their quality. Good luck!

sounds like Costco in your area has a bad printer. unlikely to get fixed any time soon so I would just go elsewhere.

Our Costco prints have in the past, come out too dark as well.
It is the processor/the person who does it. And it varies. At other times, our prints have come out fine.

I, have had prints done via www.kodakgallery.com and it has come out great! Many special prices too.
But you will have to wait for it to be shipped to you.
Not in store pick up.

In both instances, I did NOT "edit" our photos first. Just sent them in as is.

Good luck,
Susan

I noticed it to at Costco, so I only upload to Walgreens online, great price, great pictures.

I'm a photographer and I've had terrible luck with costco. I will not ever get prints done there. I go to a walk in photo place. The one I go to is in San Juan Capistrano (not sure where you are from). It's called San Juan photo and digital. They are great there and super friendly. I don't think it's your camera, I think costco just has poor quality. You get what you pay for

I love Costco printing so this is surprising to me. I wonder if it is your Costco... have you tried the mail it to you feature? They don't charge for shipping and they probably print somewhere else for those orders. Also, when you are in the checkout area of Costco, do you let them autocorrect all prints? You don't have to do the work, they just automatically auto correct for you. I fix several pictures because my son and I get red eye really bad at night or indoors. Even after I fix, lighten etc... I still let them autocorrect. The professional photographers that develop through costco do it too. Anyway - that may be your quick fix. Other than that, I've ordered through snapfish and love it and shutterfly comes out a little rosy (everything is a little more pink or red). You can order through shutterfly to target but it has to be on glossy prints. I do the matte prints because I don't like fingerprints in my scrapbook! :) Good luck!

If you need to use a flash indoors because there is not enough lighting from sunlight, you might have to take a second or two to make sure that the camera is on the right setting. I never had time (or interest) in reading through the camera manual, so my husband and I were pleasantly surprised when we found a "macro" setting that was seemingly the equivalent of a really bright flash. I am not a big fan of using the flash in general, but this setting really lit up the room, almost as if it were daylight. Many of the other indoor photos where we just used the regular flash look dark. I use a Canon Power Shot A1000IS. Hope this helps.

I do all our printing at Costco-all you need to do in terms of editing is click on the auto (recomended button) it takes 1 second. i edit all photos by adding a thin border. or cropping something out of the photo. Costco does make it very easy. so, try it once before you say it takes too much time. I am the lamest person ever at computer stuff. (I can't even download photos!)

Hey E.,
I have had the same issue with photo quality with Rite Aid and Target as well and I know exactly what you are talking about. I did find that the way your computer, or camera, saves the print will make a difference in how well your pictures will come out. Since I work off of a Mac, and since my technology skills are somewhat limited in this capacity, I have started taking my pictures to a photo studio called Fromex, and they are able to convert the files for me. The cost is comparable to Target or Rite Aid, and the quality far superior. You can even send your photos on-line to be developed and they will be returned to you within a few days.

Editing a lot of photos is a tough deal. but, you have to make a little troubleshooting, It seems the poor quality is on the configuration of the cameras, if you say it appears well on the camera's screen as well as on the computer, you have to try printing by different configuration of your camera. that's only why I see on the problem.. because it shows a good image on the screen and computer, but i guess this is very basic for you and might tried this already, I hope this helps.. thanks..

I don't think it's your camera. I think that the printer at Costco needs to be recalibrated. I would try taking your pics somewhere else. Either another Costco location, Walmart (I get all my pics and photobooks done there). I have never had any problems with them. And you can order everything online.

Rite aid and walgreens are great...quality is awesome and so are the prices!!! cant beat that!

Hi! Although editing does take a roll in picture taking these days - you need to talk with your costco photo people.... take some time and show them what you take and then print it how you do - do you order online or take your stuff to the store to print?? if you do it online - there is a box to have them auto correct your images - try it both ways and see if you notice the difference -- the other key - for me at least - is print lustre --- glossy seems to add guk to pictures ...... good luck!!

Bad prints often come from over-used developing chemicals. When they have used the same batch of chemicals to develop a lot of prints they will be dark or the color will be off, and they can also have a green tinge. If this is happening often you can guess that they are perhaps trying to get more pictures out of their chemicals, before changing them to save money/improve their profit margin. Or perhaps someone isn't keeping up with the machine maintenance?

Regardless- You lose business quickly if it gets around that you don't do a good job. It's not as drastic with digital prints as it is when they used to develop your film to negatives and ruined them. Now you can run your prints elsewhere, with film, if they messed that up you lost your photos.

Try some of the drug stores that develop pix, go at the time of the day when the chemicals are fresh.

Good luck!

Try printing a few of the same photos at a photo lab. Most one hour labs will have tighter quality control and know how to do more than just hit "print"

If you still want to print at Costco after that you can take your one hour samples back to them and have them somewhat matched.

Your computer screen should be able to give you a pretty good idea of what the pics should look like printed. Not only that, but since you had images from 3 separate cameras ALL come out dark, I would think it's the printing, not the cameras.

I took some BW pics in to be printed. They all came out green. The minimum wage person saw no problem, tried to tell me that's how BW always looks. Oy. I literally had to go get a standard BW pic to hold up next to it, AND to get the manager before the problem was fixed. Turned out they were low on inks... but neither the employee, or the manager knew how to fix it. A whole separate person had to be called in (who understood digital photos AND the machine), who glanced at the photo, said "Whoa, that's green... betcha the ink is low" and poof problem fixed in under 30 seconds.

Costco is usually a decent place to get photos printed. For one thing they use high quality paper BUT if they're staffed with non-photo employees (or badly trained ones) you're up the creek. More than likely, the machine is set to print low, because most people overexpose, and that they don't/didn't run a test first.

What *I* would do is this:
- Take the card (and the dark photos) into a camera store (not a bestbuy/target/whatever multistore, but a camera store). They'll be able to tell you in a heartbeat whether it's the printing or the settings on your cameras that are causing the problems.

- If it's the camera... that's one of the beauties of digital... it's REALLY easy (although tedious) to adjust the exposure of the photos you've already taken on your computer using a photoediting program. You're in great luck, because even if you don't own Adobe or Aperture many camera stores have a kiosk where you can edit in shop using one of those programs for free, or if you'd rather, you can pay them to do it. The photoshop people will also be able to help you reset your cameras & to learn the programs for editing.

- If it's the printing:
a) get your money back
b) print elsewhere
You'll probably need to get at least 10 photos printed elsewhere FIRST so you can show the manager at Costco in order to get a refund.

As to working with the pictures before printing... for many people that's the "fun" part. :) Me included. Cropping, color, tone, effects... but I've never had pics that I HAD to mess with first... just chose to. Plus the money saving part. I only take around 5,###-###-#### photos a year... but I only "keep" 1 in 10, and I only print one in 50, and I only get one really really GOOD shot about 1 in every 100 (aka those go on the wall, the other printed ones go in an album). If I printed each and every single one I may as well be working in film. Digital lets me take 200 photos at a soccer game, or 40 of my son building the fence. I may keep only a couple... but for amateur me... it gives me the chance of getting those great keeper shots, without wasting thousands of dollars in film, and countless lost opportunities learning how to get them.

One of my best friends who IS a professional photographer can easily go through 30-100 rolls of film a day if she's working on a commercial project, 15-50 on a wedding or other personal thing. But she's being PAID to. I'd have to pay out of pocket, and OUCH. Huzzah for digital. If I had to pay... well I'd take photos like MY mum did. One or two shots here and there, and cross my fingers.

I can only say that the same thing has happened to me. My daughter was a cupcake for Halloween and had red and pink polkadots painted on her face. When I received the photos, the dots were jet black. I can only say DO NOT USE SNAPFISH.COM! The customer service is outsourced and horrible. I, too, am going to search for a different company. I will follow this post closely!

Try turning OFF the autocorrect when you order them... It's usually on by default- if you like the way it looks on your screen, it should print closer to how you see it. It's an option in the ordering process. I have great luck with costco- but I do turn that off. It's worth a try
good luck

Oh, and I've had overly saturated color on the Kodak kiosk printers like they have at the grocery stores or next to the walmart lab.

Totally try a different place! but do it w/ a small amount. I usually end up at Walmart. Costco and Sama do such volume of pics they end w/ machine not producing the way they should. I have a cannon EOC and sony exlim and no problem. Both are easy to use.

I used to take my pictures to Costco for printing and didn't know any better. Now I know the color is not sharp there, and pictures developed at Target have too much of the yellow tone. My husband have been making prints at Walgreens, love the price, quality and convenience. Give them a try. We've gotten prints as cheap as $0.10 each- send online and pick up in less than 1 hour.

Hi E.,

I think the problem with the dark photos could be that your computer monitor is not calibrated or adjusted properly. So what you see is not what you get. For example, your camera takes/"sees" millions of colors but your monitor may only be displaying hundreds of colors and this would make a huge difference in what you see. And your printer is probably in sync with the monitor. Adjust your monitor to millions of colors and see what happens. Also, have you tried printing anywhere else besides COSTCO?

Another thing is before you print your photos at a commercial place you probably do need to make a few adjustments - that's just he way it is. You have to take into consideration that not all photo machines are kept up properly - unless you go to a PROFESSIONAL photo lab like Say's Camera.

I hope this helps or makes sense to you! I am professional portrait/baby photographer. http://www.primphotostudio.com

Feel free to contact me.

I think it's costco. I have a cannon and have the same story as you. I also printed a professional photographers print for Xmas cards at costco thinking it was my camera...same problem TOO DARK. Costco said I could refuse the cards but it was too late to get my cards anywhere else. But I did get prints done at kinkos just to check the difference pics look like my screen. Good luck maybe give kinkos a try before you toss the cameras!