Costco printing woes - suggest an alternative

I printed a couple of my family photos at color laser printer at work, and didn't expect much, however to my surprise they came out very close to what I see on screen. I didn't even use photo paper, just the regular office paper.

I wanted to print some photos from our past vacations as the holiday gift for family. However the very first photo printed at Costco came out terrible. This is a crop of the problematic part.

Mpix and Adoramapix are good.

Thanks, will try.

I print most of my own, but I have had a bunch of regular prints and two metal prints done by Bay Photo, and they have been spot on. Their customer service is good as well.

What's the location of the Costco that you used?

color calibrate your monitor before sending the images out. Otherwise the image you get back may not be what is on your screen.

PhotosGuy wrote in post #16557084
What's the location of the Costco that you used?

Commerce, MI. I downloaded the printer profile for that specific location.

MCAsan wrote in post #16557268
color calibrate your monitor before sending the images out. Otherwise the image you get back may not be what is on your screen.

It's calibrated. Also as I said, the photo looks the same on my iPad (which is factory calibrated) and on the printout from a color laser printer using regular paper.

If you look at the crop I posted, the boy's hair is supposed to be dark brown with good detail, and the girl's face is warm with light reddish / magenta on cheeks (warm day so she got some red on her face). The ancient building behind them is colorful but not overly so. That's on my monitor. On the print I received, the boy's hair is nearly pitch black with slight detail visible in really good light, the girl's face on the right side of her face (left side of the photo) has a strong red or magenta cast, and the building is very saturated and kind of garish. Unless that's what you see, I blame the printer.

Amamba wrote in post #16557368
If you look at the crop I posted, the boy's hair is supposed to be dark brown with good detail, and the girl's face is warm with light reddish / magenta on cheeks (warm day so she got some red on her face). The ancient building behind them is colorful but not overly so. That's on my monitor.

That's pretty much what I see on my calibrated Dell IPS monitor.

We are members of Sam's Club instead of Costco so I use Sam's for low cost printing. They do a great job with my prints. They don't let you download the pinter profiles like Costco, but you can turn off the automatic color adjustments. The prints come out just like the jpeg images I upload to the website.

I use Adorama, Nations Photo or ProDpi.

Do you really think the people at Costco-Walmart or Walgreens really know what they are doing?


The people at Adorama ect are specialists in printing.

Amamba wrote in post #16555094
I printed a couple of my family photos at color laser printer at work, and didn't expect much, however to my surprise they came out very close to what I see on screen. I didn't even use photo paper, just the regular office paper.

I wanted to print some photos from our past vacations as the holiday gift for family. However the very first photo printed at Costco came out terrible. This is a crop of the problematic part.

Hosted photo: posted by Amamba in
./showthread.php?p=165​55094&i=i203769349
forum: RAW, Post Processing & Printing

The problem: everything is oversaturated, the reds on my daughter's face are too high, my son's hair appears pitch black with very hard to see details (both on my monitor, my iPad, and the test print from the laser printer it's more of a dark brown with good detail).

I specified no Auto adjustments.

I didn't used the printer profile. So I downloaded one for their Fuji printer / lustre paper, and when I apply it in LR, the blacks appear washed out and photo is less saturated than without proofing - so if I were to use it as a guide and bumped up the saturation and blacks, the photo would be even worse.

Doing a search it appears that I am not the only one having issues with Costco and their Fuji printers. Some people complain about the same problems (oversaturated, intensive reds, high contrast).

Can you recommend a reliable, and not too expensive, printing service ?

Thanks !

A now obsolete option is to purchase your own printer and learn to control its color balance.

Amamba wrote in post #16557368
Commerce, MI. I downloaded the printer profile for that specific location.

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind.

scorpio_e wrote in post #16558220
Do you really think the people at Costco-Walmart or Walgreens really know what they are doing?

The people at my Costco are excellent, & have been for 7 years. In my case, they're faster, cheaper, & every bit as good as the pro lab that I used for decades. OTOH, there have been a (very) few mentioned in the forum that don't make the grade.

mike_d wrote in post #16557414
That's pretty much what I see on my calibrated Dell IPS monitor.

Ditto on my calibrated NEC monitor.

D

PhotosGuy wrote in post #16558810
Thanks, I'll keep that in mind.

The people at my Costco are excellent, & have been for 7 years. In my case, they're faster, cheaper, & every bit as good as the pro lab that I used for decades. OTOH, there have been a (very) few mentioned in the forum that don't make the grade.

COSTCO can be hit or miss. If you have a good one, great . I was a regional manager supporting training and service for more than 7 years in the one- hour business. I have seen a few good labs in the retail environment. Most of them have clueless people working behind the counter.

Packhorse-4 wrote in post #16558161
We are members of Sam's Club instead of Costco so I use Sam's for low cost printing. They do a great job with my prints. They don't let you download the pinter profiles like Costco, but you can turn off the automatic color adjustments. The prints come out just like the jpeg images I upload to the website.

I'll try them, we have both memberships.