Costco Photo center---online orders

[threedogz]

I go to Aaron Brothers for my frames, they have good deals and always walk out with double what I expected to buy originally.
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You can never eat too much candy...

[IGO]

[Suz]

[Al_HikesAZ]

[Digital Sherpa]

One of the biggest frustrations people run into when trying to print their digital photos is that the printed image doesn't match what they see on their computer screen. Volumes upon volumes have been written about color management within Photoshop and it can be quite intimidating. Color calibrated monitors and printer profiles designed to match the specific paper and printer combination are the two areas where most people focus their efforts to ensure what they see on the CRT matches the print output.

For those of you using Photoshop and planning to print at Costco, there's good news. Dry Creek Photo has built ICC printer profiles for the EXACT printer at various Costco stores throught out the U.S.

Here's a link to their site showing stores in Arizona. They also provide information on how to use the profiles.

http://www.drycreekphoto.com/icc/Profiles/Arizona_profiles.htm#AZ

Good luck and happy printing...

[Suz]

The image I had printed at Costco matched the computer image I had exceptionally well--I was super pleased with the results....for 9.99!

Apparently the price issue comes with the matting and framing....just spent 420 bucks at Michael's to get this piece done (26x36) and that was with the 150.00 off. Geez.....that seems expensive to me.

[Matt Hoffman]

I got my three 11" x 14" prints made at Costco last week. They look awesome! I bought 3 frames at IKEA for $14.99 each. The thing that sucks about IKEA frames is that they are weird sizes. The frames are 15 3/4" x 19 3/4" and the matte was some weird size. So I needed to get new mattes. Michaels wanted about $20 to cut a matte for me for a total of $60. "Ouch!" was my initial reaction. But I figured I had to fork out the dough...I mean, I've got the prints and frames. At Michaels I noticed they had 16" x 20" mattes for about $4.99 each. Sweet! I bought 3 and trimmed 1/8" off each side. I saved $45 and you can't tell the difference! Today I took that $45 and bought a pair of Tecnica Pacmocs for myself and my girlfriend. Now we've got dry shoes to wear around camp on our upcoming Paria trip!
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"Your day-glo ballet days are over." Ancient chinese proverb.
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[Suz]

Glad you agree about the quality of the Costco prints. I'm pretty jazzed about that.

I think one of our mutual friends has the technology for mat cutting and framing at home....this might be the way to go. I'd have to find out where you buy uncut mats and the frame wood...thinking there is an art store in Tempe that stocks this stuff. Not sure what is driving the price up...maybe the studio quality glass??? Perhaps there is a cheaper way to frame nicely.

Tell me about the IKEA's frames....were they wood or metal?

So you printed and framed up 11 x14's for about 25.00 ?

[Matt Hoffman]

IKEA has a lot of frames. They have a billion different sizes, but none of them are standard sizes like 5 x 7, 8 x 10, etc. They are all a bit off. So know matter what size frame you buy at IKEA, you need to re-matte it. (Is re-matte a word?) The frames I bought are wood and they are painted black, but you can still see the grain. They also had birch and some other colors, but I can't recall what they were. I knew exactly what I wanted, so I was oblivious to everything else. I believe they had a selection of wood and metal frames, as well as frames with no frame (wrap your mind around that ). The glass clips on to the backing.
So yeah, I guess I did everything for about $23 plus tax, per picture. Not bad!
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"Your day-glo ballet days are over." Ancient chinese proverb.
http://web.mac.com/climbingsponge/Matt_Hoffman_Images/Welcome.html