Walmart Sucks

[c hurd]

Costco is good and they're even cheaper than Wal-Mart. I've never had a problem and I've had professional photos printed there (taken by a friend of mine). You click on an agreement when you first sign into their kiosk or online, that says you have permission, etc..

[WhidbeyPix]

I had the same experience with Walmart. The first time I was flattered, but after that it started getting pretty damn annoying, especially having to deal with this old idiotic manager that replaced the excellent person they had in there before. I finally thought I had found the perfect setup with a wonderful photo technician at Walmart who loved what she was doing and it showed (like she actually tweaked the machines to do what I wanted). Well the Walmart people couldn't stand watching someone enjoying their job and making customers happy, they had to move her to a more brainless job lest she might make a good impression on a customer. So now we have this old guy that couldn't tell photoshop work from machine shop work and he's about as flexible as a brick. I just try to get stuff printed there when he's not around.
I agree, Costco can be very good, in fact I think they're better than Walmart and less hassle, but unfortunatelly they're 35 miles away from us so we don't get to go there too often.

[AdamZx3]

I can relate the hassle as well, though after being a recent employee they know I do photoshop work and photography and I no longer have any hassels with them, though my mom can not reproduce pics from the 20'-30's because they are "profesional"....even though the photographer is deceased.

*Things to know about walmart photo labs*

(speaking from my store not every walmart)

1. While the photo employees are nice, none of them have any photography experiance further than using the point and shoot on vacation, and dont even have a clue about colorspace, what a histogram is etc.. the extent of their training is on a kiosk computer program, while this serves the purpose you cant expect profesional results from a store that you can pickup a bag of dorito's while you buy your shotgun, only after you have your oil changed in the store.

2. They dont care about there employee's and will fire them in a heartbeat just to get them out of there hair, like swatting a fly. example: The one kid in the photo center was changing the chemicals and had the tank explode in his face buring his eyes due to the dept. manager not securing some tank properly, not only where they hassling him while his eyes where burning they tried to get him to sign some papers before he went to the eye rinse station, after saying a few choice words he had a fellow associate lead him to the eyewasher, then to the hospital. He was out of work for a month or so and walmart would not compinsate him for his ER visit or the time off, he had to hire a lawyer to get his compensation, a similar act happened to two differant people, both falling accidents, one was by herself and didnt get workers comp, while the other fell in front of a manager and she recieved workers comp promptly, both on the clock. anyway my point is they dont even care about there employee's let alone there customers, with managment like this quality in all aspects suffer.

3. I tried transfering from electronics to the photolab and was denied several times for various BS excuses, despite selling hundreds of dollars in camera sales and accesorys which is out of my dept; helping in the lab when its understaffed, can hand develop photos, and have photgraphy experience, I was not hired even though the dept manager (suposably) talked to the store manager about the transfer, even 4 out of 5 employee's and the 2nd dept manager begged for me to come over there.

guess who they hired instead? she said she had to first hire outside the company, so after several applicants they hired an elderly lady who had 0 experiance at all, and slowed down the lab for months untill she was sufficently trained to operate the equipment....thats walmart for you, hire someone else to do it for 6.60 an hour rather than hire me on at aprox. 7.50-8.00 an hr. ...........so I got fed up and quit rather soon, and am currently sweating my buns off in a dusty bodyshop to put myself through school to major in grafx design, which is ok by me because the poor work ethic enviroment, poor managment, and stuckup managers was getting old and while I cant say I love my work just yet at least my 2nd hobby is custom painitng/airbrushing so its tollerable...


but now im just rambling...sorry had to let off some steam

[dusteos]

Hi, Im a photographer that started with film..and went to digital 5 years ago...

One photog to another......STOP using walmart!

I dont want to offend anyone that uses walmart or anyone that works there...but walmart is pretty low on the quality side of things. I suggest finding another lab..a professional lab...not only to get past the copyright protection issues your having...but more importantly for quality issues.
Professional labs like Millers or their Mpix branch are pretty fairly priced...and their quality and customer service is top notch..

You wont ever have a problem with copyright issues due to your images looking profesional..because they are used to seeing professional images...while walmart is used to seeing grandma Sally's family snapshots.

Try printing a high key or a low key image at walmart.....you probably wont like the look of your images after they try to adjust the overall image to %18 grey.

It will cost you only pennies more per print but the quality is worth much more than that.