I am one of many photographers searching for a suitable replacement for COSTCO. COSTCO provided good service with helpful suggestions about corrections and moderate prices.
In the course of searching for suitable replacement for Costco printing services, I recently started to use a local CVS printing facility in Del Mar, California. To date I have printed the total of about 40 digital images at CVS. I have printed Mainly pictures of birds in flight.
Images taken with either a Sony A1 or SONY A7R4, mainly using a Sony 100 to 400 GM or the Sony 200 to 600 G. images all originally captured as ARW (raw) files and processed with Adobe Lightroom classic. Processed on a Microsoft laptop with high end screen. Results of images we're compared to those viewed on a professional workstation with a calibrated BenQ 32” monitor; Modifications were limited to simple cropping, adjustment of color temperature minimal changes to exposure and other basic modifications of light balance, saturation, etc. Original exposures were generally found to be satisfactory with ISOauto ( from 100-3400)., in Manual Mode (usually shutter speed of 1/1600, f stop of f 6.3 to 8.0, White Balance of camera adjusted relative to conditions when shooting. (i.e., cloudy, sunny, etc.)

My general procedure is to export a high resolution JPEG file from Lightroom (as sRGB). I then print a copy of the same file at three sizes: 4x6 (glossy and matte). 8x12 (glossy and matte), 16 by 20 Matte finish poster size. The CVS printing facility is a Kodak commercial throughput system with different printers for each of these three major sizes. This allows me to compare the results of the exact same data file and Matt vs glossy, and different size output machines.

The results have been most disappointing. despite my best efforts to provide suitable digital files well within the gamut range with the printer saturation of the Blues and the Reds and the spectrum differing drastically with each size printer. The technicians running these printers at CVS explained that they have minimal training in modifying the resulting prints. In notable contrast to this, the technicians at Costco carefully matched the color coding in each output size. In general the 4x6 was satisfactory, and the goal was then to adjust the 8x10 and 20x 30 to matchd those those results. This allowed me to confirm that the color values in different parts of the final photo of the 4x6 closely matched that of the 20 x 30. The COSTCO technicians I was fortunate to work with we're committed to high quality results. Unfortunately I don't recall which brand of printer they were using. I vaguely recall that it may have been a Fuji printer. but they clearly knew what they were doing. In fairness to the technicians at CVS, they made every effort to try to improve things, that explained that they had not been trained in any aspects of the machines other than restocking the paper and replacing the dyes. They indicated that they ran a routine test every morning when turning on the machine, but that was the limit of their knowledge of what was going on inside the box.
in general the four by six prints provided the best results. when printing pictures of a large white egret against the blue sky on a 8 by 12 the blue sky often presented as a purple sky!
the CVS Prints were listed at the same price as the Costco, though on occasion CVS would have a reduced price sale if ordered on the Internet. But they were all printed on the same machine as the regular production item.
I would hope that other UHH people will share their experiences with CVS, COSTCO, Shutterbug (?) or other companies.
BTW, I also spoke with the photo desk at a different branch of CVS and was informed that they had the same limited training.
Many thanks
Harvey

If you use pro grade cameras, use a pro grade lab. But first:

Calibrate your monitors with a hardware and software solution (colorimeter or spectrophotometer and accompanying software kit). The kit will teach you how to use it correctly.

Be sure your monitor brightness is limited to between 85 and 120 candelas per square meter. Most of the calibration kits can help you achieve this.

Be sure your monitor gamma is 2.2.

Be sure your monitor black level is 0.5 candelas per square meter.

Be sure your monitor's starting color temperature is as recommended by the calibration software... usually between 5000K and 6500K.

While cameras come with white balance settings for "daylight," "cloudy," "shade," "flash," "incandescent," "fluorescent," etc. these are seldom completely accurate in the real world. That's why I recommend using a white balance target such as the One Shot Digital Calibration Target or a Delta-1 Gray Card or similar (there are at least fifty such products sold at major camera stores).

Photograph a suitable test target in the same light that falls on your subject. If you are making JPEGs at the camera, use that as a custom/manual/preset white balance reference. If you are recording raw data files, be sure you snap a photo of the white balance target if your camera doesn't make one when doing the custom white balance.

Unless working for an agency that requires it, don't use Adobe RGB as your color space. It is a world of hurt when you send those files to a low end lab. Use sRGB instead.

Work with your lab to get their ICC color PRINTER PROFILES to use as PROOFING PROFILES. Again, assuming you calibrate your monitor correctly, the use of proofing or simulation profiles will help you adjust your files so that what you see on the monitor is very, very close to what the lab delivers. NOTE: If the lab technician or sales clerk or customer service person does not know what an ICC color profile is, RUN!!! You don't want to deal with amateurs.

Aside from that, I strongly recommend two more things:

Record raw files and post-process them on a calibrated monitor. Once you learn the power of raw, you will prefer it for certain types of photography.

Use a professional color lab for processing and printing. Bay Photo, H&H, WHCC (White House Custom Color), Full Color, American Color Lab, Nations Photo, PCL West Imaging, UPI Lab, mPix/Millers, and probably 100 others can be found by doing an Internet search for "professional color lab". These folks all offer varying product lines and serve different types of customers. Printique and Shutterfly are a couple of others to look at. Shutterfly is a mass market photofinisher.

There is a completely different attitude at good pro labs from what you'll find at CVS. I managed many roles at one for three decades, and I met folks from most of the labs I listed at Kodak Professional conferences and other photo industry conventions and conferences.

The most important thing of all is to open a good line of communication with a pro lab's technical service representative you can understand and trust. A good TSR can help you get the absolute most out of your lab.

Many thanks to the various UHH participants for their useful hints, judgments and evaluations.
I am considering pursuing the purchase of a suitable printer, but am a bit hesitant because of the steep learning curve. Do any of you have suitable beginner's level primer on color printing that you might recommend?

With apologies to the people who point out the paradox of spending a lot of money on gear, and hesitating on spending money on printing, my goal is to find the most economical protocol for my everyday images. I might suggest that the vast majority of digital images of field photographers are posted on internet sites, and are only very rarely actually printed as hard copies. Under the critical assessment of evaluating hard copies of seemingly desireable photos, I am benefitting from learning about a totally novel aspects of looking, learning and finally seeing yet another set of skills associated with photography.
As an example of such a learning curve, I delight in realizing that my photos have greatly improved as a result of shifting from film to digital images. This is partly due to the major difference, when shooting a bird in flight, in the cost of shooting 30 to 50 photos on film, versus shootiing that many photos of a bird with a digital camera. The digital images are essentially a "free" set of images. This encourages exploration, and is evident to my various bird watching photographer-friends, as they all comment on how their photos are greatly improved since the introduction of the latest generation of mirrorless digital cameras. As I now greatly increase the number of photos that I consider worthy of printing, it includes consideration of what I should be looking to see in the final prints. One of the many points that I now include, when assessing my images, is a far more critical attention to white balance, ISO, noise levels, background, color contrast, focus, tracking, etc. THe use of inexpensive 4x6 prints, (even from CVS) has been helpful. I don't think it requires an apology for trying to keep costs down while pursuing my learning curve.

All of my earlier suggestions apply equally to home and lab printing. The absolute first step is calibrating and custom profiling a good monitor. If you can't see, accurately on the monitor, what you want to print, you'll waste a lot of money on processing or ink and paper, and you'll blame your lab or printer for something that is not their fault!

I'm partial to Epson color, especially that from their pigment ink printers in the P-Series. However, if you never print borderless*, their 8500 and 8550 Ecotank dye ink printers are a good value. Use larger paper than the print requires, and use software to make best use of your paper. *I never print borderless with inkjet. They say it can do it, but at the cost of over-spraying ink all over the inside of the printer, which ruins subsequent prints!

> Print 12x18 or 11x14 or four 6x9s or 5x7s on 13x19 paper.
> Print any combination of 8x10, 4x5, 5x7, 4x6, 3.5x5, and wallet-size prints that will fit, on 8.5x11 paper.

I strongly recommend Adobe Lightroom Classic for printing, because it allows you to create layouts for any combination of prints you want. It also allows direct conversion of Raw files you've adjusted, straight to the printer/paper/ink profile needed for best output with the widest possible color gamut.

At the same time, NEVER, EVER think you will save money by printing at home unless you make very large prints that labs charge a small fortune to make!

Printing your own work is for:

> Control freaks who understand color management and want the very best color and tone they can get.
> Privacy... Sensitive subject matter doesn't get viewed by lab personnel.
> Immediacy... You can go from camera to post-processing to print in minutes.
> LARGE prints... If you are a pro or artist selling museum-quality prints larger than 11x14, rolling your own makes far more sense than labs. You get to choose the paper surface and size, make small tests before committing large amounts of paper and ink, and then control the quality of output directly.
> CHOICE of paper weights, surfaces, and textures... DOZENS of different brands and paper surfaces are available, along with generic ICC profiles for most higher end inkjet printers from Canon and Epson. A few exotic papers may require custom profiles (and a profiling kit to make them).

I hope that helps...

Many thanks to the various UHH participants for their useful hints, judgments and evaluations.
I am considering pursuing the purchase of a suitable printer, but am a bit hesitant because of the steep learning curve. Do any of you have suitable beginner's level primer on color printing that you might recommend?

With apologies to the people who point out the paradox of spending a lot of money on gear, and hesitating on spending money on printing, my goal is to find the most economical protocol for my everyday images. I might suggest that the vast majority of digital images of field photographers are posted on internet sites, and are only very rarely actually printed as hard copies. Under the critical assessment of evaluating hard copies of seemingly desireable photos, I am benefitting from learning about a totally novel aspects of looking, learning and finally seeing yet another set of skills associated with photography.
As an example of such a learning curve, I delight in realizing that my photos have greatly improved as a result of shifting from film to digital images. This is partly due to the major difference, when shooting a bird in flight, in the cost of shooting 30 to 50 photos on film, versus shootiing that many photos of a bird with a digital camera. The digital images are essentially a "free" set of images. This encourages exploration, and is evident to my various bird watching photographer-friends, as they all comment on how their photos are greatly improved since the introduction of the latest generation of mirrorless digital cameras. As I now greatly increase the number of photos that I consider worthy of printing, it includes consideration of what I should be looking to see in the final prints. One of the many points that I now include, when assessing my images, is a far more critical attention to white balance, ISO, noise levels, background, color contrast, focus, tracking, etc. THe use of inexpensive 4x6 prints, (even from CVS) has been helpful. I don't think it requires an apology for trying to keep costs down while pursuing my learning curve.

If you use pro grade cameras, use a pro grade lab. But first:

Calibrate your monitors with a hardware and software solution (colorimeter or spectrophotometer and accompanying software kit). The kit will teach you how to use it correctly.

Be sure your monitor brightness is limited to between 85 and 120 candelas per square meter. Most of the calibration kits can help you achieve this.

Be sure your monitor gamma is 2.2.

Be sure your monitor black level is 0.5 candelas per square meter.

Be sure your monitor's starting color temperature is as recommended by the calibration software... usually between 5000K and 6500K.

While cameras come with white balance settings for "daylight," "cloudy," "shade," "flash," "incandescent," "fluorescent," etc. these are seldom completely accurate in the real world. That's why I recommend using a white balance target such as the One Shot Digital Calibration Target or a Delta-1 Gray Card or similar (there are at least fifty such products sold at major camera stores).

Photograph a suitable test target in the same light that falls on your subject. If you are making JPEGs at the camera, use that as a custom/manual/preset white balance reference. If you are recording raw data files, be sure you snap a photo of the white balance target if your camera doesn't make one when doing the custom white balance.

Unless working for an agency that requires it, don't use Adobe RGB as your color space. It is a world of hurt when you send those files to a low end lab. Use sRGB instead.

Work with your lab to get their ICC color PRINTER PROFILES to use as PROOFING PROFILES. Again, assuming you calibrate your monitor correctly, the use of proofing or simulation profiles will help you adjust your files so that what you see on the monitor is very, very close to what the lab delivers. NOTE: If the lab technician or sales clerk or customer service person does not know what an ICC color profile is, RUN!!! You don't want to deal with amateurs.

Aside from that, I strongly recommend two more things:

Record raw files and post-process them on a calibrated monitor. Once you learn the power of raw, you will prefer it for certain types of photography.

Use a professional color lab for processing and printing. Bay Photo, H&H, WHCC (White House Custom Color), Full Color, American Color Lab, Nations Photo, PCL West Imaging, UPI Lab, mPix/Millers, and probably 100 others can be found by doing an Internet search for "professional color lab". These folks all offer varying product lines and serve different types of customers. Printique and Shutterfly are a couple of others to look at. Shutterfly is a mass market photofinisher.

There is a completely different attitude at good pro labs from what you'll find at CVS. I managed many roles at one for three decades, and I met folks from most of the labs I listed at Kodak Professional conferences and other photo industry conventions and conferences.

The most important thing of all is to open a good line of communication with a pro lab's technical service representative you can understand and trust. A good TSR can help you get the absolute most out of your lab.

The thing to remember is the printing technology and the process of keeping it calibrated.
When Costco centralized their printing process they had already transitioned to ink jet technology. However, I believe they kept a level of expertise in their printing facilities.
CVS on the other hand, probably has some kid making minimum wage snd just doing his job. Also, it makes a difference in the volume they process and my guess is, Costco processed many times more than CVS. This is all speculation on my part but being an ex photo lab owner I know the challenges.
All printing services are not alike. I proved this out when I opened a lab right across the street from a Fox photo/Wolf camera. I had superior printing technology and snatched 80% of their business.
My suggestion is try to find a service that maybe still uses silver halide printing technology or has high volume.
Good luck!