Frustrated with Walgreen's photo printing!

[Pugrpooh]

I sent in 3 pictures from our January ice storm online to Walgreen's a couple of days ago. Here's one of them:

The other two were also of cardinals in the ice and snow. When I picked them up, this is what they looked like:

I asked them if the machine thought the image was overexposed because there was so much white. They said no, that's how they came over the internet. If I wanted to bring the card into the store and use the kiosk, then I could adjust the pictures there and they could print them out again. Again, I said the pictures don't need adjusting, they look fine at home.

But I went back up there tonight, put them into the kiosk, they looked fine on the screen there, but dark when they printed them out again. I ended up returning the prints for my money back and I'll have to take them somewhere else. I was going to try Mpix for the first time, but as usual, I put it off and was afraid I wouldn't have them back in time.

I had over 100 prints from Walgreen's last month of our cruise and they turned out great. I also had some of the same ones printed at Target using Shutterfly (or was it Snapfish?) and the quality at Walgreen's was much better than Target's. The ones from Target didn't seem as sharp and the colors weren't as vivid.

I'm going to stop by our local camera store tomorrow to see if they can do a better job with the ice storm prints.

 

[wdwwishes]

What a gorgeous shot! I sure hope you can get a good print. I had a similar issue with prints I ordered through iPhoto. They came back on the dark side. Reordered the same prints through Snapfish and all was well. I've read a lot of favorable reviews of mpix. They're higher than Snapfish and Shutterfly though but sometimes I don't mind paying a little more for a special shot.

 

[rtphokie]

Those machines at Walgreens, Walmart, Target, etc. automatically apply auto contrast and auto color. 99% of people love it because it makes their bad snapshots look better. These machines insist that color and contrast levels have to be adjusted.

But when you've got an artistic shot of like yours that really isn't over exposed, it's just of a very light subject, these machines go nuts and the people who run them probably cant override these automated features if they even knew how.

Take the card to camera store, even one in a mall, and have them look at it on the screen with you. You'll probably get a better result.

 

[Pugrpooh]

What a gorgeous shot! I sure hope you can get a good print. I had a similar issue with prints I ordered through iPhoto. They came back on the dark side. Reordered the same prints through Snapfish and all was well. I've read a lot of favorable reviews of mpix. They're higher than Snapfish and Shutterfly though but sometimes I don't mind paying a little more for a special shot.

Thanks! They were in my parents' backyard when we stayed with them after our power went out. They have a lot of birdfeeders and loves to watch them so I thought I would print these out and frame them for her for Mother's Day. Of course, I've known I was going to do this for a few weeks, but always put things off til the last minute.

Those machines at Walgreens, Walmart, Target, etc. automatically apply auto contrast and auto color. 99% of people love it because it makes their bad snapshots look better. These machines insist that color and contrast levels have to be adjusted.

That's what I figured, but they insisted the machine just prints out what it receives. Anyway, I've been trying to order the free 8x10 today from them and I keep getting error messages. I finally got to the submit my order button and then it got hung up, so I don't know if it went through or not. Too much trouble for 3 bucks.