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Costco Pictures ! ARGGH!

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I use the same CostCo. I have no problems printing, either online or in person. I avoid the kiosk because of the issues you noted.
Victor Engel said:
I use the Costco in Austin, and for orders like this, I go ahead
and do the upload. Then I call the Photo lab and give them any
special instructions over the phone. It's still the same people who
have to process the prints, and if you give them a heads-up,
they'll do what you want.

The only time automation like this doesn't work for me is if I need
sizes not available online, such as panorama. These I burn on CD
and hand to them. The kiosk cannot handle these odd sizes either.

--
http://www.pbase.com/victorengel/



Calendar: http://the-light.com/cal/ve28293.htm
Click to expand...
--
TonyK
http://www.pbase.com/tonyk
 
I'm curious what profile you use in PS to match the Costco output? Do you just stick to Adobe RGB?
kstaab said:
I have the opposite problem. When I brought a picture to my local
photoshop to print for an invitation, It was totally off. I usually
use Costco but this print needed to be a special size and I needed
80 copies. When I picked up the prints, the colors were all washed
out and the picture was overall too bright. I specified that I
wanted no corrections done as I had already photoshopped the print
to where I wanted it. I brought them in a print that I did on my
$80.00 HP 5550 (with the photo cartridge installed) and it blew
their print away. The re-did the batch and the results were a
little better but not as good as he one I did on my home printer.
They argued with me that my printer was off and not there equipment.

When I bring a disk to Costco for printing I always get my prints
back just like the way they looked in Photoshop. I haven't had a
problem with them yet!!!

--
Ineptitude: If you can't learn to do something well, learn to enjoy
doing it poorly
Click to expand...
 
Maybe I'm a bit dense....but this is the Canon EOS 20D/10D/D60/D30 forum. I'm wondering why one with good equipment is having a minilab print snapshots from digital files? Surely you can do just as good or better with a cheap $100 printer.
jra111 said:
When ever I get pictures done at Costco it is hit or miss. Usually
it's about 2 stops too bright and anything resembling a high light
is blown ,But this time I went to print a picture and the colors
and brightness are way off. The manager tells me that all auto
corrections are off unless for special request. Does any one else
hve this problem ? The top is printed at home on HP all in one and
the bottom is Costco . Costco's sky is purple and the picture too
bright and the skin is red ,not actually as red as ti shows but
really red . I love Costco prices and convienence.

Help?



--
Warning !
All my photos will have 1 or more of the following,
Softness,OOF,Under Exposure,Over Exposure,
and a poor attempt at Photoshopping.
http://www.pbase.com/jra111
Click to expand...
 
IMO, 4x6's in mass qty...I go to the lab. However, if anything less than say a dozen, I'll trade the few bucks in costs for my control. Unless I'm giving them to friends who may prefer lab prints.

On larger sizes, I find it much more cost effective to have them done at home. AGain, more control and overall better results....well worth doing myself.

Just me perhaps.
TonyK_in_Texas said:
And to date I have had no problems in the color of my CostCo
prints. Sometimes I have had issues with cropping and sizing.
Once I found out how their printer works (320 dpi) I have had no
more problems there.
PhotoMan said:
I derive a great deal of pleasure doing my own printing. I use a
Canon i960 ink jet printer and now an Olympus P440 dye sub. When
the prints come out of the dye sub printer, I am VERY PLEASED!
Don't deprive yourself of the greatest pleasure.....doing it
yourself. Photo Man.
Click to expand...
--
TonyK
http://www.pbase.com/tonyk
Click to expand...
--
-tim
http://www.pbase.com/pdqgp
 
I really don't have that problem. I recently decided to try out my Costco a shot here in a Toronto (Canada) suburb, and the results that I got were magnificent. EXACTLY as on my screen, and that is not what I would get at Black's. I had a bunch of 4X6's done, and a number of 8X12's as well (I had never seen 8X12 offered before). They were all bang on. And get this, the 8X12's were only $2.99 CDN for the 1 hour service, and $1.99 CDN for the 48 hour. No complaints here.
jra111 said:
When ever I get pictures done at Costco it is hit or miss. Usually
it's about 2 stops too bright and anything resembling a high light
is blown ,But this time I went to print a picture and the colors
and brightness are way off. The manager tells me that all auto
corrections are off unless for special request. Does any one else
hve this problem ? The top is printed at home on HP all in one and
the bottom is Costco . Costco's sky is purple and the picture too
bright and the skin is red ,not actually as red as ti shows but
really red . I love Costco prices and convienence.

Help?



--
Warning !
All my photos will have 1 or more of the following,
Softness,OOF,Under Exposure,Over Exposure,
and a poor attempt at Photoshopping.
http://www.pbase.com/jra111
Click to expand...
 
The next time you need some important enlargements, simply do a test run at 4 by 6 size, then adjust accordingly. Last time, for me, the pics were too red despite using the appropriate printer profile. All that was then needed was a 23 point cyan color shift in photoshop, and voila. Perfect results.

Enough whining about "incompetent" Costco staff. If You don't know what you're doing, it's your own fault. In the case of the original poster, without using the appropriate profile and making color shift adjustments, getting good results is going to be a crapshoot....pure luck if he find a place that "does a good job".

At $2 for an 8 by 12, Costco is cheaper than tweaking my own printer, and I'm more than happy with the quality/price ratio.
Victor Engel said:
Actually, the prints I get are too red if I use the Drycreek
profile. If I use sRGB, I usually get better results. Note that
this is not in comparison to my monitor but in comparison to prints
made with my Epson 1280 on Epson Colorlife paper using Epson's
Colorlife paper profiles (I use both the 1440 and 2880 dpi
profiles).
GCam said:
Costco uses Noritsu mini-labs(which have improved slightly in the
last three years); Walmart and Sams use the Fuji Frontier mini-lab
which is the best with the possible exception of the AGFA. All of
them are used by pro labs, so you should be able to get the same
quality from any of the labs. The difference is in how far the
staff is willing to go to assist you, and whether you are using
their profiles. The samples shown look like there is a chemistry
problem, most likely with the bleach fix. If it gets weak, or low,
the whites start turning red first, then at its worst, the entire
print will have a red tint, sometimes by as much as 20 to 30 points
red. gc
Click to expand...
--
http://www.pbase.com/victorengel/



Calendar: http://the-light.com/cal/ve28293.htm
Click to expand...
 
cannot be overcome, but if it is consistent, as in constantly having to make corrections, then there is a problem that needs to be addressed. No responsible lab would want to go through those corrections each time and most would certainly have some advice for the customer if the problem was with the customer. I for one do not consider the staff at Costco incompetent, but...many of them, while well intentioned, do not receive the training that most pro lab employees receive, and they do not stay on the job as long as most pro lab employees. And I have seen many a post in many of the forums about the employees saying that they do not receive enough training on the printers or the operating controls(computer program). gc
 
GCam said:
cannot be overcome, but if it is consistent, as in constantly
having to make corrections, then there is a problem that needs to
be addressed. No responsible lab would want to go through those
corrections each time and most would certainly have some advice for
the customer if the problem was with the customer. I for one do
not consider the staff at Costco incompetent, but...many of them,
while well intentioned, do not receive the training that most pro
lab employees receive, and they do not stay on the job as long as
most pro lab employees. And I have seen many a post in many of the
forums about the employees saying that they do not receive enough
training on the printers or the operating controls(computer
program). gc
Click to expand...
I agree with you. The best results would be obtained if the photographer did his own printing (assuming the photographer knows what he's doing!).

I think the basic problem here is unreasonable expectations. What a person sees on his computer screen is never what he will see in print. 5 times out of 10, it will be waaaay off. 4 times out of 10, it will be reasonably off. And 1 time out of 10, it might actually be close - by pure luck. Every printer will produce a different print, just like every monitor will display a different image... and it's unreasonable to expect otherwise. Printer profiles help tremendously, but even then, what you see on your screen will never be exactly what you see in print. The best one can do is to use profiles and adjustments to come as close as possible. Without doing so, you can expect your results to be off 9 times out of 10.
Sorry, but it's probably not completely Costco's fault.
 
those are pretty bad odds. That's 90 out of 100. I agree the problem is not all Costco. I think I did say they do as good a job as a lot of pro labs using the same equipment. But if I had a 90 percent failure rate, I would certainly want to do something about it, no matter whether I was the photographer or the lab. The important thing for the photographer to remember is that he/she should ask as many questions of the staff as possible, speak to the lab manager, speak to the store manager, until satisfied. And I know of no pro lab that would not go to any length to satisfy a customer. Can't say the same for the amateur labs, but that is a matter of philosophy and economics, even though they will give their best effort until the point of diminishing returns is reached. gc
 
When I use a profile built specifically for the printer I'm using, I expect consistent results. That doesn't seem like too tall an order. I do get such consistent results without tweaking on my own printer at home.
JC JC said:
I agree with you. The best results would be obtained if the
photographer did his own printing (assuming the photographer knows
what he's doing!).
Click to expand...
Also assuming he has media and hardware up to the task.
JC JC said:
I think the basic problem here is unreasonable expectations. What a
person sees on his computer screen is never what he will see in
print. 5 times out of 10, it will be waaaay off.
Click to expand...
If 5 times out of 10 it is way off, there is a serious problem. With calibrated and profiled equipment, the results should be very consistent.
JC JC said:
4 times out of 10,
it will be reasonably off. And 1 time out of 10, it might actually
be close - by pure luck. Every printer will produce a different
print, just like every monitor will display a different image...
and it's unreasonable to expect otherwise.
Click to expand...
No it's not, subject to gamut limitations, of course.
JC JC said:
Printer profiles help
tremendously, but even then, what you see on your screen will
never be exactly what you see in print.
Click to expand...
Of course not, that's not possible.

--
http://www.pbase.com/victorengel/



Calendar: http://the-light.com/cal/ve28293.htm
 
Victor Engel said:
Victor Engel said:
I think the basic problem here is unreasonable expectations. What a
person sees on his computer screen is never what he will see in
print. 5 times out of 10, it will be waaaay off.
Click to expand...
If 5 times out of 10 it is way off, there is a serious problem.
With calibrated and profiled equipment, the results should be very
consistent.
Click to expand...
True, but when posting these odds, I was referring to non calibrated/non profiled equipment.
 
You realize that Costco is using the same type of printers that most of your "pro labs" don't you? Also all on Fuji Crystal Archive photo paper?
david kohn said:
jra111 said:
When ever I get pictures done at Costco it is hit or miss. Usually
it's about 2 stops too bright and anything resembling a high light
is blown ,But this time I went to print a picture and the colors
and brightness are way off. The manager tells me that all auto
corrections are off unless for special request. Does any one else
hve this problem ? The top is printed at home on HP all in one and
the bottom is Costco . Costco's sky is purple and the picture too
bright and the skin is red ,not actually as red as ti shows but
really red . I love Costco prices and convienence.

Help?



--
Warning !
All my photos will have 1 or more of the following,
Softness,OOF,Under Exposure,Over Exposure,
and a poor attempt at Photoshopping.
http://www.pbase.com/jra111
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
--
http://public.fotki.com/joesimages/
 
Victor Engel said:
JC JC said:
True, but when posting these odds, I was referring to non
calibrated/non profiled equipment.
Click to expand...
Why? The whole point of using Costco is that they have profiles
available for download, presumably precisely so that we'd know what
to expect.

That and good value....
Click to expand...
The whole point of this thread is that the original poster did NOT use the profiles and expected perfect results.
Comprende?
 
what color space did you send the image to costo in?
jra111 said:
When ever I get pictures done at Costco it is hit or miss. Usually
it's about 2 stops too bright and anything resembling a high light
is blown ,But this time I went to print a picture and the colors
and brightness are way off. The manager tells me that all auto
corrections are off unless for special request. Does any one else
hve this problem ? The top is printed at home on HP all in one and
the bottom is Costco . Costco's sky is purple and the picture too
bright and the skin is red ,not actually as red as ti shows but
really red . I love Costco prices and convienence.

Help?



--
Warning !
All my photos will have 1 or more of the following,
Softness,OOF,Under Exposure,Over Exposure,
and a poor attempt at Photoshopping.
http://www.pbase.com/jra111
Click to expand...
--
http://public.fotki.com/joesimages/
 
Had initial teething problems when Costco offered digital printing 2-3 years ago

Now I have NO problems up to 12 X18(the largest costco does here)

Checked out costco product by printing at the best local lab - by printing a 8 X 10(8 X12 at costo)

they were the same except it cost more than 4X as much at the lab and the picture was cropped to 8 X 10

Have printed at costco's in 2 cities 1000 miles apart - no problems
jra111 said:
When ever I get pictures done at Costco it is hit or miss. Usually
it's about 2 stops too bright and anything resembling a high light
is blown ,But this time I went to print a picture and the colors
and brightness are way off. The manager tells me that all auto
corrections are off unless for special request. Does any one else
hve this problem ? The top is printed at home on HP all in one and
the bottom is Costco . Costco's sky is purple and the picture too
bright and the skin is red ,not actually as red as ti shows but
really red . I love Costco prices and convienence.

Help?



--
Warning !
All my photos will have 1 or more of the following,
Softness,OOF,Under Exposure,Over Exposure,
and a poor attempt at Photoshopping.
http://www.pbase.com/jra111
Click to expand...
 
jra111 said:
When ever I get pictures done at Costco it is hit or miss. Usually
it's about 2 stops too bright and anything resembling a high light
is blown ,But this time I went to print a picture and the colors
and brightness are way off. The manager tells me that all auto
corrections are off unless for special request. Does any one else
hve this problem ? The top is printed at home on HP all in one and
the bottom is Costco . Costco's sky is purple and the picture too
bright and the skin is red ,not actually as red as ti shows but
really red . I love Costco prices and convienence.
Click to expand...
Photographic printer actually renders LESS color than a dedicated home CMYK photo printer. Costco uses the Fuji Frontier which happens to be a good quality printer set up to handle the 35mm film's color gamut. It cannot handle the wider gamut of a Photoshop's aRGB file. Thus, you get the color shift and dark spots when the printer attempt to translate the out of range colors to it's own color space. The home printer, on the other hand, was designed from the ground up to handle the 24-bit color space and is very adept in converting between gamuts. It's CMYK inks were designed to produce far more colors than a film printer as well. Costco print department wasn't set up to cater to pros and the price reflects that goal. If you want better quality out of Costco, you have to prepare your image correctly before handing it to Costco. Otherwise, pay a little more at other labs and they will do the leg work for you.

On the subject of Auto Correction, Costco print dept's managers have a wide lattitude in setting up the rules. Some will accept CDs, keep the Auto Correction on, etc.; Others don't. You have to check with the technician and find out what the local policy is.

Other posters were correct about profile and ICC. Go to Drycreek.com, read up on their articles about color calibration, and your photo prints at Costco will look at their best; Because YOU have the complete control of the image all the way to the last step.
--
Alan
 
Interestingly, my Costco does not use a Fuji Frontier, it uses a Noritsu.
VideoProduction said:
jra111 said:
When ever I get pictures done at Costco it is hit or miss. Usually
it's about 2 stops too bright and anything resembling a high light
is blown ,But this time I went to print a picture and the colors
and brightness are way off. The manager tells me that all auto
corrections are off unless for special request. Does any one else
hve this problem ? The top is printed at home on HP all in one and
the bottom is Costco . Costco's sky is purple and the picture too
bright and the skin is red ,not actually as red as ti shows but
really red . I love Costco prices and convienence.
Click to expand...
Photographic printer actually renders LESS color than a dedicated
home CMYK photo printer. Costco uses the Fuji Frontier which
happens to be a good quality printer set up to handle the 35mm
film's color gamut. It cannot handle the wider gamut of a
Photoshop's aRGB file. Thus, you get the color shift and dark spots
when the printer attempt to translate the out of range colors to
it's own color space. The home printer, on the other hand, was
designed from the ground up to handle the 24-bit color space and is
very adept in converting between gamuts. It's CMYK inks were
designed to produce far more colors than a film printer as well.
Costco print department wasn't set up to cater to pros and the
price reflects that goal. If you want better quality out of Costco,
you have to prepare your image correctly before handing it to
Costco. Otherwise, pay a little more at other labs and they will do
the leg work for you.
On the subject of Auto Correction, Costco print dept's managers
have a wide lattitude in setting up the rules. Some will accept
CDs, keep the Auto Correction on, etc.; Others don't. You have to
check with the technician and find out what the local policy is.
Other posters were correct about profile and ICC. Go to
Drycreek.com, read up on their articles about color calibration,
and your photo prints at Costco will look at their best; Because
YOU have the complete control of the image all the way to the last
step.
--
Alan
Click to expand...
 
With the cost of paper and ink I find it cheaper to have all prints done at CostCo.

And the fact the CostCo prints are true photographic prints and not ink jet means I don't have to worry about fading / gas effects of ink and paper.
Tim Lauro said:
On larger sizes, I find it much more cost effective to have them
done at home. AGain, more control and overall better
results....well worth doing myself.

Just me perhaps.
TonyK_in_Texas said:
And to date I have had no problems in the color of my CostCo
prints. Sometimes I have had issues with cropping and sizing.
Once I found out how their printer works (320 dpi) I have had no
more problems there.
PhotoMan said:
I derive a great deal of pleasure doing my own printing. I use a
Canon i960 ink jet printer and now an Olympus P440 dye sub. When
the prints come out of the dye sub printer, I am VERY PLEASED!
Don't deprive yourself of the greatest pleasure.....doing it
yourself. Photo Man.
Click to expand...
--
TonyK
http://www.pbase.com/tonyk
Click to expand...
--
-tim
http://www.pbase.com/pdqgp
Click to expand...
--
TonyK
http://www.pbase.com/tonyk
 
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