Do you calibrate and ICC profile your photo-grade monitor monthly? That has the BIGGEST effect on whether or not you like your lab... Printing accurate color requires images adjusted to international standards. JPEG files do not have much latitude for color adjustment. Film negatives and raw files do! But JPEGs processed by the camera are like slides. Getting good ones requires proper camera settings and exposure methods.

In the early 2000s, I ran the digital imaging side of a large analog/digital portrait lab. We made all the greeting cards — about 140,000 orders of 50 cards each — for the 326 Picture People studios that were scattered all over the country. We could always tell when one of their stores' personnel didn't have a clue about digital image color management. Images would be dark and green, pale and cyan, too red... and no amount of post-processing could pull many of them back to neutral.

I spent lots of time on the phone with their operations guy, explaining those issues. Sometimes there was an improvement, but in stores run by bozos who didn't care/would not listen... none!

Folks, I see these posts by folks in search of "a good lab" or "a good printer" all the time. Many don't realize that nearly all labs in existence these days rely on technology to keep them tuned to an international standard. If your images meet that standard, they print well. If they don't, you can pay for SOME color correction, but the irony of that is that the farther off it is to begin with, the less latitude for adjustment there is.

Bay Photo is very good but take a look at the Pro Lab White House Custom Color or WHCC. They are in Minnesota and a great company with very fair pricing and extremely fast order completion (about 2 days) plus they ship everything to you free via UPS.

It's a Pro Lab but well worth using. I use them every year for consistent excellent quality printing on good stiff double sided print card stock. You can choose to have them coated as well for that gloss look and they come with envelopes and you can have them print your address on the envelope too. This was the front of our card a few years back of my two children (5 and 3) visiting with Father Christmas. I took the photo standing off to the side, while he chatted with them before their official photographer took a "Snapshot" pose of them.

On the back I created a collage of family winter images and a further message from our family to yours.