Costco photofinishing - your thoughts

I've been getting my prints done at Costco, but recently I've noticed that the quality has gone down hill. All my recent prints have a kind of grey hue to them. People look grey and colours are not vibrant.

I do my pics at Costco in Calgary and I usually wait for when they have 10 free or reduced price.

As far as I can tell Costco has the cheapest photofinishing price of any place I've looked at.

I was wondering if anyone else has had experiences like mine. Or please recommend a low-cost printing solution.

Thank you,
...al

Is your display calibrated? Have you compared hard copy results to soft proofing using Costco's color profiles? Have you tried any other places?

Originally Posted by volan

I've been getting my prints done at Costco, but recently I've noticed that the quality has gone down hill. All my recent prints have a kind of grey hue to them. People look grey and colours are not vibrant.l

This can sometimes be attributed to the technician who was colour-correcting the photos... though I don't know what process Costco uses, so it may be all automated anyway.

I think the photos are automatically color-corrected. My print outs are always more 'yellowdish' than the photos really are. But for the price I can live with it.

I use the colour profiles and turn off colour correction. I've gotten excellent results.

I guess I'll have to learn how to use the colour profiles.

Thanks!!!

http://www.drycreekphoto.com/

Get your ICC profile for proofing there.

You chances of getting completely accurate prints also relies on how accurately your monitor is set as well.

Turn off the correction option when uploading prints as well.

By doing the proofing and turning off the color correction, the prints I receive are very very close to what I see on my screen.

Don't forget to do your own crops too depending on your print size.