Photo Lab Prints - Questions

So I decided to experiment today with getting some of my LO's printed in the photo lab. I have always used Wal-Mart for my regular pictures because they are affordable and I am there a lot to grocery shop anyway. I haven't had many problems, but maybe it's just that I've never taken notice before.

I had 4 8x10's printed out. I always save a copy of my LO's in 8x8 just incase I want to print them (I also bought an 8x8 album today, woohoo ). So what I did was add a little border to the top and bottom of each one to make the dimensions equal 8x10. I learned the hard way that if you don't resize your digital images first their machine will crop and stretch however "they" see fit, lol.

Anyway...so I did 1 hr. and picked up my prints. I was really bummed because 2 were perfect and 2 were really dark. I know nothing about photo developing so I don't know if it is something that can be controlled, or just par for the course that some are gonna be darker than others. I mean I used exactly the same gray border for all the pics and in the two dark ones the gray was totally different as well. I really wanted to take them back but I am soooo super shy IRL that I was scared to, hahaha.

So I am wondering if anyone else has ever experienced something like that, if you took the pictures back were they able to fix it? Or do you think I should just try getting the messed up ones done somewhere else?

This is what they looked like (sorry I didn't have access to my scanner earlier so I just took pics):

In this one the one on the left turned out great, and the one on the right is so dark the photo looks awful!


And these are the other two, again the one on the left looks very much like what I saw on my screen, and the one on the right is seriously messed up (note the differences in the gray border). The colors in this one are suposed to be very pastel-ly (lol) but they are like super-saturated neon, and the photo is so dark.


WWYD? TIA.

-Diana

I would take them back and see if they can redo them. If it's the same machine, and you processed the files the same (e.g., didn't change the color profile on your computer or anything between pages) they should be printing the same colors the same. A possible problem is that a lot of labs do an automatic color "correction" on all photos -- so it may be attempting to do that, which could result in some results that are different between pages. I always tell them that I do not want any changes to the files for printing.

I am sorry they turned out like that! That really stinks. I have never had any of my pages printed at walmart so I don't know about the quality. I have had reagular photos done and they seemed fine to me. I always have my pages printed at scrapbookpictures.com the quality is amazing and I upload there at 12x12 and when I am placing my order I have them printed at 8x8. When they resize them I have never had anything cut off and I can't say enough about the crispness and fantastic quality there. They actually look even better when printed than what they did on my screen. Prices are good to me also and shipping is $2 no matter if you order 2 or 102. Maybe try one of the online places and see how you like it.

I am not sure what I would do about the ones that turned out bad at Walmart. I would like to say I would march myself right back in there and make them fix it but in reality I am to timid to do that so I would just stew at home to my husband about it I'm sure LOL!

Thanks for the advice. Well, I chickened out and did not bring them back, and just put them in my album, however I am gonna try another batch next week, and try asking about the automatic color correction next time, and hope that I am not met with blank stares, lmao. I realize that Wal-Mart employess are not paid enough to give a crap about my little scrapbook, lol. If I have no success then I will seek out an alternative. Hopefully DH will be with me and he will be my assertiveness! But I did want to say thanks for the advice!

-Diana

my thought was automatic color correcting too. I try to remember to turn that off when I print pages but sometimes it's not an obvious option (have never printed at Wal-mart though).

Would not hurt to try to talk with the photo person. Hope your next batch works out better.

Your pages look really cute .

I have had excellent luck with Walgreens so far ... is there one nearby? I think their prices are similar, too, and they offer mailing them also.

I have had ok and not so great experiences with Wal-Mart. I sent them brag-book pages to print, and they were way too dark. Probably the same problem you had.

Good luck with your re-print!

I've had some things print dark at Walmart too. I think it's just their process. I get my printing done at scrapbookpictures.com, and most of it looks good, but a few are dark. I honestly don't think it's something I've done because I do all LOs the same, and only some are dark.

I don't know. That's not really all that helpful, but yeah, it's happened to me too.