I didn’t think it would be too much to ask.  All I wanted was a print of a photo I took of my sister and me last Christmas (click to enlarge):

My sister and me (Source image)

In normal situations, I would have ordered prints from Adorama in New York.  They have always produced outstanding results, but they are far away, and I didn’t feel like paying $2.95 for shipping $0.50 worth of photos.  Instead, I went local.

There are many local shops that print digital photos.  I decided to go to the Target in San Mateo due to its proximity to an ice arena.  I dropped off my images, played some ice hockey, and the picked up the prints.

Decent, except too bright and really blurry (Target in San Mateo)

At first glance, they looked OK.  It was clear that Target had brightened the image against my wishes — maybe an extra half-stop or so.

Unfortunately, upon closer inspection, the registration (the alignment of the colors) was clearly off, resulting in a blurry print:

Really poor registration (Target in San Mateo)

Everything is aligned (Source image)

Specifically, the red channel is off by almost a half-millimeter compared to the green and blue channels.

Disappointed, I went to a different store.  The next one I tried was the Long’s Drugs in Redwood City.  The result there?  Well, Long’s had also brightened the image against my wishes, but at least the result was sharp:

Holy green cast, Batman!

Wow, that’s some crap color.  There was a strong green cast, which you can see by comparing the color calibration card I had printed there against the reference:

No, it isn’t your monitor or my scanner — the print really is that green (Long’s RWC)

Reference card

Ug.  Next stop?  The Long’s Drugs in Palo Alto on University Avenue.  Let’s see how they did:

Too bright, but otherwise decent (Long’s on University in PA)

Success!  Or at least, close enough.  Like everybody else, they lightened the image against my wishes (I made sure not to select any of the image “enhancement” options while uploading my images), but at least the prints came out sharp and with good color. The blue channel is actually slightly off, but the human eye is relatively insensitive to errors in the blue channel, so that isn’t too noticeable.

For reference, here’s the color calibration print from the PA Long’s:

Good color (Longs on University in PA)

Decent.  Note how the different gamut of the photographic process produces slightly altered colors.  Compare the rendition of red, green, and blue on the Long’s PA card versus the reference card.  That’s a function of the medium, so further improvement would require one to print using a different process, such as dye sublimation.  Not worth the hassle in most cases.

What’s the moral of this story?  If you want high-quality prints from digital files, order them online from a reputable outfit.  If you absolutely must have them printed locally, be prepared to deal with highly variable image quality.