I recently did the make-up date portraits for my daughter's dance school. The original photographer couldn't make it back in time to do them as they were waiting for some costumes that had not come in yet. I have found out that I now have the contract for to do the whole thing for next year. 
Anyway.. that's a different story and thread.
I sent my files to group photographers, a lab out of Washington state that specializes in team sports photos and products. The prices were good and the products were pretty decent, but my original order came back very poor. The photos looked HORRIBLE and that's an understatement. I called them up to resolve the issue and found that they do all sorts of color corrections and sharpness adjustments which on my already processed files looked extremely bad. They said, "you have to submit the files pretty much as they are out of the camera. I did and had them reprint the order and the prints looked "better" and ok to give my customers, but still not to the level of AWESOME that I have seen through WHCC and Mpix. So out of curiosity, I sent a few of the ORIGINAL processed files that came back looking so badly from GPA to WHCC. I even had one (of my daughter) printed up at 12x18 and I have to say I'm utterly floored by the difference. The WHCC prints look AMAZING and fantastic, which I'm used to seeing from them. But having the prints from GPA come back like they did, I was having doubts about my color management and workflow. I do not doubt now. The files were perfect, the printing was not. From now on, I send all my work to WHCC and just get the key chains and magnets from another vendor.
The reason I got the gig for next year is because the instructor found out what happened(I told her when she called to find out when she would get the photos) and she was impressed by the fact that I refused to try and pass off an inferior product and wanted to make it right, even at the risk of incurring extra expense. The other photographer did not do that. Fortunately, I didn't pay to have them reprinted which was good on GPA's part. I just think their digital workflow is just too far behind compared to WHCC, so the print quality suffers for it. When I did film with them, they were awesome.
