Heads Up on Costco print prices

We were discussing cheap print prices on a thread on "Casual Conversations" and

we got down to discussing the prices at Sam's Club and Costco. I normally use

the Sam's Club close to me but our local Costco offers some prices and more

importantly some sizes that Sam's Club doesn't offer.</p>

If your monitor is calibrated and you have run some test prints to check

against your finished files- then this is the DEAL!</p>

<a

href=http://www.costcophotocenter.com/>http://www.costcophotocenter.com/</a><br>

<img src=http://i18.tinypic.com/53756pt.jpg>

I use costco, you certainly can't beat their prices. You just have to remember to check "do not auto-correct my prints" before you check out, cause their auto-correct can be pretty funky- I have forgotten to check that before and was not pleased!

Don't forget that you can go online and get hold of ICC profile info for the printing hardware used at many Costco locations. This will allow you to square your on-screen images to the expected real output. The font of all profiles is

<br><br>

  <a href="http://www.drycreekphoto.com/icc/" target="_blank"><b>DrycreekPhoto.com</b></a>

Several things to note here- drycreekphoto has a lot of really out of date profiles for Costco printers, and is also missing many of the newer printers they've installed.

 

If you use the Snapfish based web interface for costcophotocenter.com, you can't guarantee which printer your location will print your print job on (making it tough to assign the appropriate profile).

 

Regardless of the profile you assign to your .jpg files, or whether you choose the autocorrect option, different Costcos have wildly different outputs. I've printed at more than a dozen Costcos, some of which give drab, undersaturated, low contrast prints, and they seem unable to correct the problem regardless of the number of times they try to reprint.

 

Of the Costcos that I've used, only two have had what I consider to be acceptable fidelity to the original, and only one has been exceptional. Several print on the same model of Noritsu printer as well, but have differing outputs. Perhaps they haven't calibrated their printer in a year.

 

Furthermore, I find it extremely irritating that they (snapfish, basically) do not have a "no crop" or "white border" option so that you can print photos with an aspect ratio other than 1.5:1 without having large portions of the photo cropped off. You need to include this type of "canvas resizing" in your workflow if you want to print anything but typical 8x12" or 4x6" photos.

 

I think Costco's turnaround time and pricing are excellent, but you have to be extremely careful with what you submit to them as well as do extensive testing with a particular location and printer before you submit any type of important work.

Is it true that you have to be a CostCo member (that is, pay a yearly fee) to use their print service?

For Kurt:

 

Yes.

Kurt: Yes. But if you pony up for a membership, and do nothing at their stores but get your prints made and buy romaine lettuce, you'll still be WAY ahead of the game. To say nothing of buying one set of tires, etc. My annual membership pays for itself at least once a month.

With our higher end Photo grade "color copier"; it cost 22 grand and the CMYK copy click is about 7 cents; the high end thick acid free paper about 2 cents for an 11x17. Thus if I went to Costco I would pay abit more than my own costs; and not have a fiery or a calibrated machine that i calibrate thru the whole chain.

but Flanigan- you spent $22k on the printer- I can get a lot of prints at Costco for the capital expenditure of your printer!

I have been very pleased with the quality of my local Costco. They pay their people well enough to keep employee turnover low, do continuing training with them, and maintain the equipment regularly.

 

Recently I have had two mildly annoying experiences that may have been more a problem because I moved and am now using a costco where they don't recognize me as a pro shooter.

 

First, I got a somewhat terse note that my file sizes were far too large when picking up 100 proofs (shot with a 5d). And they were pretty large, as I don't compress even when saving as a JPEG. However, they aren't any larger than any of the 10 times I did the same thing previously this year. Second, I couldn't find my prints in the "done" bin. The counter people searched all over and finally a manager came over and gave me the third degree about if I had permission to reprint these images. I guess they looked "professional". I said they had better look professional, or my clients were going to be very annoyed. I had to fill out some paperwork that in theory, will keep that from happening in the future. Again, this isn't the sort of thing that has ever happened in the past 50 trips to costco to do the same thing. I understand that they are trying to protect photographer's copyright. But they could have approached it with a little more tact.

I use Costco for prints with very good results.

 

Once I forgot to uncheck the color correction, but it was still good.

 

The ICC profiles will ask you what location Costco and you can download it for that one location.

 

I have not downloaded any ICC profiles though, just and color correction in PS.

 

And as stated above, it's tough to beat their prices for the quality...

 

-Mario

You can't beat Costco, and they pay their employees a decent wage and benefits. You can return anything you are not satisfied with. I usually use their "photo in an hour" service. Make friends with the employees and they will go out of their way for you. I gave one of the young ladies an FD zoom lens I rarely used. Fit her AE-1, of course, and I get wonderful support. You can bring in negatives, CDs, memory cards, etc. as the source for the photos. Most convenient is to email them the photo, and that way you can get it done in just one trip.