For any prints that I make for myself, I use my Espon 1290, which I've had profiled for a couple of different papers, and get good results. However, injet prints from it are not 100% lightfast and will fade over time. So when ever I do I shoot for other people I have the prints produced professionally and can strongly recommend
ProAm Imaging, particularly for big enlargements as their prices are fantastac and the quality excellent.
Recently I did some portraits for a friend of mine and sent my disk off to ProAm and sure enough, I got an excellent set of prints back. When she saw them she was so pleased she wanted some extra 6x4s to send to friends & family. For small numbers of reprints, the postage cost of sending them to ProAm make it more economical to have them done locally, so... I went to Tesco's
The results were dreadful - a horrible green cast so that she looked seasick. I've attached the original, and a copy that I've adjusted to look like the prints I got back from Tesco.
Now Ok they gave me a refund, but what really anoyed me was their attitude. At first they claimed that they could only judge if the colours were wrong by seeing the original - I mean - as if anyone is that colour unless they are really ill
Anyway I went home and came back with a copy from ProAm, and a copy of a test print (attached) I use for checking colour which is available full size
from here. They printed the test image and looked at my originals and did agree theirs were "a little bit green" Then I was met with comments like " there's nothing we can do", the engineer calibrated it the week before last", "I'm not technically minded" & "I'm not compensating you" (for my wasted two hours visiting their store three times for no result)
Now I was not going to bother to complain. However like most of us here I’m quite passionate about my photography. So I thought I owed to all their customers who either don’t know any different and have never seen the true colours, or are thinking that the poor colour is their fault or down to their lack of skill as a photographer, to raise it with them to give them the opportunity to address the issues. So I wrote the the store manager.
And guess what their reponse was. Nothing. Zilch. Zip. Not a dicky bird. So I guess they dont care
Rant over - just don't say you havent been warned