I print very little - my wife doesn't think that lots of framed prints on the wall is the best interior decoration strategy.
When I do print (typically at the local Costco), getting the colors can sometimes be a challenge (although typically they come out OK), but getting the shadows right is always a challenge. More often than not they come out darker than I expect.
Just today, I printed four photos of my family to hang on the walls of my office at work. Using Windows photo viewer, a regular office color laser printer (Ricoh me thinks) and regular white copy paper.
They came out perfect. Just perfect. Color, luminance, shadows are exactly as I see them on screen of my (home) calibrated monitor.
Go figure.
