Costco printing woes - suggest an alternative

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.

Which one are you printing at ? I work in Warren so I pretty much cover half the Metro area on my drive from work anyway.

I occasionally print at the Costco in Commerce. I softproof as well with Costco's profile. I've always had good results with color correction off, however, one time a few years ago, they did autocorrect when I had specified not to. It's just something to watch out for. They reprinted the batch for me for free (of course).

Amamba wrote in post #16559785
Which one are you printing at ? I work in Warren so I pretty much cover half the Metro area on my drive from work anyway.

The one on Stephenson just S. of 13 Mile. (Madison Heights).

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 !

It's a fairly common issue with Fuji printing and film-you have to be real carefull with your white balance and saturuation.

Not all Costco's have Fuji printers. Some have Noritsu Printers.

It's my impression that not all of the printers at all Cosco locations are profiled the same...might be worth spending time talking to the folks to see
which printer is profiled and in the future, insist on that one be used, once you have Downloaded those profiles and soft-proofed your images.

scorpio_e wrote in post #16561638
Not all Costco's have Fuji printers. Some have Noritsu Printers.

I believe my Costco uses Noritsu and I've been generally happy with the results.

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.

Another vote for Sam's Club. Don't have a Costco so I use Sam's and am very pleased with the results. I turn off the auto correct option and for the money, nobody I know comes close. Hard to beat good 16x20 prints for 6 bucks.

PhotosGuy wrote in post #16560795
The one on Stephenson just S. of 13 Mile. (Madison Heights).

Cool, this one is relatively close to work. Will check it out. Thanks !

chauncey wrote in post #16561754
It's my impression that not all of the printers at all Cosco locations are profiled the same...might be worth spending time talking to the folks to see
which printer is profiled and in the future, insist on that one be used, once you have Downloaded those profiles and soft-proofed your images.

They actually provide profiles not only for a particular printer, but even for a particular type of paper. The only problem is, they seem to be wrong...

Amamba wrote in post #16563254
They actually provide profiles not only for a particular printer, but even for a particular type of paper. The only problem is, they seem to be wrong...

Maybe you used an old profile? Each store has their own profiles, & they're updated about once a year. Mine does it in the Fall. Click on the locations at the left in: http://www.drycreekpho​to.com/Frontier/index.​html

cheryltee wrote in post #16560512
I occasionally print at the Costco in Commerce. I softproof as well with Costco's profile. I've always had good results with color correction off, however, one time a few years ago, they did autocorrect when I had specified not to. It's just something to watch out for. They reprinted the batch for me for free (of course).

This was my thought too - see if you can somehow verify that they didn't "correct" the image for you. Even though you specified not to, it may have inadvertently been done anyway.

nathancarter wrote in post #16564147
This was my thought too - see if you can somehow verify that they didn't "correct" the image for you. Even though you specified not to, it may have inadvertently been done anyway.

It had a bunch of NNN's on the back which I assume means "No auto adjustments".

I will try the one in Sterling Heights, it's on my way from work anyway.

My favorite:
http://www.whcc.com/

If their prices aren't what you are looking for adoramapix is a good option. When it comes to printing, you usually get what you pay for

I'm happy with the Phoenix Costco (and the Peoria one) as long as I brighten the photo (usually +10) before uploading it to them. Otherwise I have experienced the same too dark problems. Besides that, their quality is very good across a wide variety of my prints.