Question for NW photographers who use Costco for prints (RANT)...

[regnaD kciN]

Several people on a northwest photography board have written of using Costco for prints, with overall good results. I therefore downloaded the Dry Creek Photo profiles, and have been using them for some time with satisfactory results. However, over the last three days I have had three bad experiences at two different Costcos that have me reconsidering.

MONDAY: I want to proof some images for sale, so I prepare 4x6, 300 dpi versions profiled for the Tukwila Costco's Noritsu 3111, just as Dry Creek recommends. (Dry Creek has a new profile out, which might have been the start of the problem.) Since some of these are of 4:3 originals, those images intentionally have white bands on each side. In any event, I load up my images at the store, and write "NO AUTOCORRECT" on the folder. When I pick up the resulting prints, they are clearly zoomed and cropped to eliminate the white space, even though I had sent them properly-sized originals. I speak with the counter help and am told that, in addition to "NO AUTOCORRECT," I also needed to write "OVERALL" on the envelope. They remake the images, but I find the results to be overexposed (too light with washed-out blacks) and with reduced color saturation -- nothing at all the way the profiled proofs on my computer suggested they should look.

TUESDAY: I decide to try the Issaquah Costco, and produce a set of images profiled for their Frontier 370 printer. I write "NO AUTOCORRECT - OVERALL" on the envelope. They come out zoomed and cropped again. I point this out to the counter help, and they tell me that I needed to write "NO CROP" instead of "OVERALL." When I point out that I wrote what I was told yesterday at Tukwila, he responds (in the most snotty, patronizing manner possible, as if talking to a two-year-old) "That was the Tukwila store. This is the Issaquah store." (I restrain myself from suggesting that he stick a 75-300mm zoom where the sun don't shine.) He also pointedly doesn't offer to remake the prints. I review the results, and find the image quality much improved over Tukwila. However, they can't make 11x14 enlargements on the Issaquah printer, and I need to go that big.

WEDNESDAY: That night, I look at the Dry Creek site, and discover that the number for Tukwila's recommended printer has changed (it used to be printer 2, now it's "3111-C"). Could that be the problem? I go back to Tukwila and resubmit several of the prints. This time, wanting to cover every base, I write "NO AUTOCORRECT - NO CROP - OVERALL" in the special instructions on the envelope, and point them out to the person taking my order. An hour later, I pick up the prints. You guessed it...zoomed and cropped yet again. This time, I talk to one of the apparent lead technicians behind the counter, who tells me that, with a "special order" like that, I need to talk to someone like him when submitting the order. I point out that I need the order to be printed on "Noritsu 3111-C." He gets a deer-in-the-headlights look, stares at the printers for a few seconds, points hesitatingly at one, and says "I think 3111-C is that printer over there." (What do you mean, you "think"...? Shouldn't you know full well which is which, especially since you're one of the lead techs with whom those submitting special orders need to talk? Shouldn't you know which is the specific printer profiled by Dry Creek, and advertised as such on the Costco web site?) In any event, he tells me with a shrug, it doesn't matter, because all of their machines produce "pretty much the same results." He then re-runs the order on the presumptive 3111-C. Since it's the same printer they did the reprints on two days before, I'm not expecting any improvement in the previous mediocre results, and, sure enough, I don't get any.

So, after all that, I'd like to ask the photgraphers here at DU who live in the Seattle area (I know there are several of you):

1) Do you have your printing done at Costco?

2) If so, at which particular Costco have you had printing done? Were you satisfied with the results?

3) If you don't use Costco, do you use another lab that has Dry Creek profiles available? Which one? Were the results good?

If I only needed to go to 8x10, I'd stick with the Issaquah Costco and be satisfied (snotty counter help excepted). But I need to go to 11x14 on a regular basis.

Thank you for any help you can offer.

[insane_cratic_gal]

1. Upload it to shutterfly

We don't have a costcos nearby but we have a Sam's which I attempted to use for some pics I was doing for a soccer brochure.. they cropped and zoomed everything wrong. Though the color was spot on. I had heads cut off and feet, it was a mess.

I've found that online printers tend to be better a little more pricey plus shipping but at least you can verify how the print will roughly look before you order it.

[Ms. Toad]

2. The only walk-in place I've had success with

with respect to cropping is Kinkos. Since I handcrop most of my photos to non-standard sizes I've checked out several. I don't know if Kinkos does 11x14 or not, and I haven't used them for professional work - when I do prints that size (or for sale) I use Shutterfly or Kodak Gallery (formerly Ofoto).

A caution about Shutterfly and proofs - Shutterfly seems to use a "local"(one state away) printing location for smaller prints and a distant one (to me, anyway), for large sizes. I had dutifully ordered proofs from both Kodak Gallery and Shutterfly to check quality, decided I liked Shutterfly better and ordered a mixture of smaller prints and larger prints. They came in two packages - the smaller ones from the "local" printer, and the larger ones from 2/3 of the country away. I was satisfied with the quality and didn't find any variation in color - but the smaller proofs did me no good to verify/select a printer since they were printed elsewhere.

In my experience, Autocorrect ONLY refers to print quality (generally color, but sometimes a range of factors including contrast, general brightness). I have yet to meet a retail operator of Costco nature that understands that in order to print 3x5, 4x6, and 8x10 that cropping WILL be done unless white space is printed on two edges. Their eyes glaze over when I start trying to explain that you can't print a 1:1.7 image (assuming I have sized it as a 3x5 print) on paper with a ratio of 1:1.5 or 1:1.25 unless you either chop out parts of the image or print white space. Since they don't understand the concept, even if the software on their machines is capable of not cropping they can't give you directions as to how to accomplish it. (Some, Walgreen's, for example, can only downward crop, not preserve all of a single dimension and add white space to pad the other).

[F.Gordon]

3. I'm a smugmug whore

:hi:

http://www.smugmug.com/help/display-color

Go the link above and you can download their ezprint profile. You can also order a calibration print that can be compared to different res images on your monitor. Might want to also do some reading on the various items covered on that link.....stuff on True Color, etc.

If you want to give smugmug a try use the group site. Setup a PRIVATE gallery using your secret decoder ring and make sure you set custom features to WATERMARK when you upload your photo. This way no one can "accidently" download something you put up for prints.

When you order the prints you can select how you want to crop or NOT crop. Give it a try. If you do and then want a gallery deleted afterwards just let me know.

Like I said.... I'm a smugmug whore
:hi: