aggiedad Loc: Corona, ca

Why not buy greeting card stock snd do the printing yourself?

laospears

I have done that in the past but I prefer this method..... When you get really old, sometimes you find easier ways of doing things 🙃

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

If you had posted sample files with the STORE ORIGINAL box checked, we could offer detailed analysis and potential solutions...

But here's the shotgun approach.

"Less vibrant" prints from a lab have several causes.

First, is your monitor calibrated and custom profiled with a hardware/software kit made for that?

Specifically, is your monitor calibrated at a color temperature around 5800K, black level 0.5 cd/m^2, and white point of 80 to 120 cd/m^2? Too-bright monitors cause you to adjust your files for too-dark prints!

Second, is your JPEG profile set to sRGB, and not Adobe RGB or ProPhoto RGB? Many labs make an assumption that every file is in the sRGB color space. Printing an Adobe RGB file with sRGB will make prints that are flat, dull, and greenish.

How much adjustment did you do to color and brightness controls in post-processing software? If your monitor isn't spot-on calibration and its profile isn't right, you'll likely see color and brightness shifts in the opposite direction.

UNSOLICITED RANT:

There is a lot of animosity toward random brands of labs here. It is highly likely that if you address the points above, you won't need to blame your lab any more! MOST photo labs at least try to maintain some reasonable standards for their output. If you send them fouled-up files, it's really hard to get what you want.

I've been on both sides of the fence, as a photographer, and as manager of a color correction department in a high volume lab. You should see some of the crap we received from customers — and they were professionals!

I spent lots of time educating customers about white balance, monitor calibration, soft proofing, and exposure. Those who understood how those affect their photos, and began to pay close attention to them, and CONTROL them, got really accurate color. The others just whined about how good film had been. (It wasn't! Pro labs just saved their butts for them. We all stopped doing that when digital imaging came of age. Labs can't get the same kind of quality by adjusting JPEGs that we got by analyzing film negs. And labs don't take raw files, because they're all proprietary, and lab software can't handle them.)

In short, color quality is UP TO YOU.

Boris77

Do you ever print the pictures you want to use on paper?
No matter how an electronic device is calibrated, transparent pictures have an advantage over flat prints. I worked many years as a graphic artist evaluating customer copy for process printing. While we all made judgements of content, color and quality on the monitor, NOTHING went to press without a paper proof signed by the customer.

1. Assuming that what you want is a good looking card, not an accurate color match, test print your pictures on a paper similar to the finished cards. Evaluate and improve them.
2. Get a test print from the source, if you can. Compare to your print as a learning experience.
Their proof may not be a finished print, but it is a commitment from the printer.
3. Repeat year after year, because there is a lot of crap out there. (That is why I print my own cards.)
If you go cheap, using a picture you satisfactorily home proofed, give yourself time to reject/have the cards reprinted, or go to another printer.
Boris

aellman Loc: Boston MA

It may depend on the specific store (or your monitor). I have had excellent results with my local Walgreens with prints from 5x7 to 20x30. They have a no-questions-asked make-good policy. If there's anything you don't like, they'll do it over until you're satisfied. They once printed 120 holiday cards a second time for me because the snow was gray instead of white. The reprints were perfect.