Costco Printing

I've been using costco for the past year and have been pretty happy. I'm probably there once or twice a week getting prints done for different clients - usually 8x12's.

So, I'm visiting a Black's photography (Canadian franchise). They just upgraded their facilty here locally to be more digital friendly. I ask them about their pricing because it's 30% to 40% more for print processing than costco.

When I ask why it's more dough... they tell me costco's fujinon printing process is about one level up from using an inkjet printer... basically their claim is costco prints will be faded within years.... non-extistent within a decade!!

So, is this true? Can anyone shed some light on this?

I don't know about the fading issue, personally I think it's unlikely. I've had film prints from Costco for several years and not had a problem, I assume digital is the same print process.

I get most of my everyday printing done at Costco, it's cheaper than using an inkjet but for something special I would use a speciallist lab.

Sounds like sour grapes to me, but I'm not a printing expert so I might be VERY wrong!!

I might be wrong but doesn't Fuji make the Frontier series printer???
I think the Frontier prints on photo emulsion paper, same as film prints, and they have been time tested. So the guy at Black's is blow clouds up your where the sun don't shine.

And which inkjet prints was he referring to? Certain new inks now are rated at 100-200 years. Sounds like he told you something to try and justify their higher prices. Anything you buy from a camera/photo store is going to be a lot higher than if bought at a discount store.

i think he's full of BS. i talked to one of my professors who specializes in printing and he told me that the prints at costco would last a lot longer than a decade, probably more like a century, and for sure wouldnt fade in a couple of years. he uses costco himself.

Good to hear that pros are not too proud to admit that they have their prints done in Costco.

Just as I thought... the salesguy was full of it. *s*

I use Costco. They print on high quality paper. It's not like cheap piece of crap.

And from what I have heard, there printers are made by Fuji.

I have tried MANY different places to get my prints done. Costco, Wal-Mart, Fred-Meyer, Rite-Aide Kits (or Ritz) Cameras.....by far Costco seems to do the best job.
Pictures at places like wal-mart and fred meyer seem to be done on cheap paper that warps in a frame. Ritz, which is supposedly a "PHOTO STORE" wanted $9 for an 8x10, and costco does it for $2. I asked the guy at Ritz and he said it was more expensive because the quality is so much better, which is crap. I have printed there three or four times before discovering costco and the prints never looked that good and they were always inconsistant as far as colors go...sometimes they would be washed out, other times too dark...dont ask me how they managed to do that.

Anyways, those are my thoughts....

I ran a test some years back against CostCo, the local camera shop and one other place (can't remember now). CostCo beat everyone then. Now I have WHCC and another pro shop I can use and I find myself using CostCo still. Great pricess, good, quality product and ease of use are the reasons.

Take care,

I just picked up four 12x18 digital enlargements from my neighborhood Costco, and I must say, they are excellent.

I used two images, shot at full-resolution (6.3Mp) with my 10D, cleaned up and fine tuned in PSCS2, then I saved the TIFF files and then made two duplicates of each.

The first of each shot I converted to 8bit, JPG, changed color space to sRBG, and saved at max resolution, size 12 JPG.

The second I did the same thing, but used view proof setup, changed it to the custon ICC profile supplied by DryCreek Photo for my local Costco's Noritsu printer, and saved it with the applied profile (no ICC profile embedded, the Noritsu can't read it).

Both sets of images were uploaded separately, as two orders, to my local Costco Photo dept., and "lustre" paper was selected, as was "no enhancement".

The plain old JPG files came out beautifully, and if I did not have the other two with the custom ICC profile applied to compare against, I would say they were perfect.
The ones using the costom profile for the Noritsu are fantastic. I don't think I'll ever waste paper, ink and time printing anything bigger than 8.5x11 on my i9100 again. I can't see any difference between the Costco "best" prints and the same image created on my Canon i9100 on Ilford Gallerie Classic Pearl (with appropriate custom ICC profile), which is my "benchmark" combination.

I would highly recommend following the workflow described on DryCreek Photo's site, and using Costco for hardcopy, at least up to 12x18.

Just my $.02

I don't get Costco print that much any more. It's ok, but for the price different, I think MPix.com is a whole lot better. Everytime I ever tried using the luster paper at Costco they were just dim looking compared to the glossy...and the glossy paper was so smooth that it stuck to the glass (maybe my apartment has too much humitity. Costco is alright though, I wouldn't think twice about getting prints to family since they probably wouldn't tell the difference.

The std paper at Mpix is more like the luster texture...but it's as bright and colorful as the glossy at costco and the color do seems richer. I was a huge fan of Costco prints until I got some prints from MPix. I do think for the price, it's hard to beat Costco tough. Oh, and as far as being better then inkjet prints, by far Costco is way better. I have a problem with "nicking" my inkjet prints and the ink just scraps right off...I know when I print on the inkjet it won't be around too long unless it gets framed right away.

So Costco is great, but mpix is worth the extra cost especially if you don't client work I think.

Sounds like your Ritz is ripping you off! Ritz published price for 8x10 is $4.99! Never had a print issue at my local ritz.

I second SWPhotos comments regarding use of Dry Creek Photos's profiles with Costco Noritsu printers and following Dry Creek Photos printing instructions.

www.drycreekphoto.com

Costco uses Fuji Crystal paper.

And then there is speed!
Today, at about 1:30pm my time (on a Sunday), I uploaded three 11x14 images to Costco for printing.

Within seconds, I got the usual automated e-mail saying my prints would be ready the next day (8/1-Monday) at 2pm.

24 minutes later, I got a second e-mail, saying my prints were finished and ready for pickup.

That's way less than 1-hr service, on a custom enlargement order.

They came out great, too.