Target^® Stores
vs.
Walgreen's^® Stores

(If you are thinking of having your 35mm slides scanned at Walgreens,
you should take a look at a comparison we did not too long ago. Click Here.)

We do not endorse any stores in particular for any digital photo processing. This is based on a bad experience that one of our employees had when she took some digital files to her local Target^® store. She had 5 prints made at Target's "One Hour Photo^®" outlet. (By the way, the "one hour" does not apply to digital prints at Target^®. She had to wait for 9 hours before she could pick up her prints. Apparently those that have digital files are second class citizens although you will pay just as much for your prints as those with film and it is much less trouble to print them. Go figure.) When she got a look at the prints, she couldn't believe that they looked so bad.

She then went to the local Walgreen's^® store since she have used them before. They also have a One Hour Photo^® but they made the prints for her while she waited, within 15 minutes. Comparing the two sets of prints was amazing. The Walgreen's^® store's prints were much, much closer to what we knew they should look like.

She then went back to the Target^® store and talked to the manager of the Photo department. She showed her one picture made at her store and the same picture made at Walgreen's^®. She said that she wanted to continue to have her pictures printed at her store but she wanted to be assured that Target was going to fix whatever the problem was with the machinery. The manager said that digital files varied so much and that she had no control over what customers bring to her for prints. It became obvious that she was not going to change anything.

 

She put the blame on the digital files! Nothing can be more stable than a digital file. It is a standard. It doesn't vary. You can calibrate your printers and your monitors with that same digital file. I would also assume that you can calibrate a photo printer with these files. She said that none of her other customers have had any problems with their prints and so the problem must be mine. I wonder how many of her customers have looked at their digital prints and thrown their cameras away thinking that the problem was theirs and not Target's^®? 

Below, we are reproducing the original scan, a scan of the Target^® print and a scan of the Walgreen's^® print. Naturally, there is going to be a loss from the original to a scan of a print of the scan but we think you can tell very clearly that the Target^® print is seriously deficient. Look at the mountains, the sky and the water reflections.

We are not saying that every Target store is going to have an unknowledgeable photo print person but do take this into consideration before you have a large quantity of files made into prints. Have some test prints made first. We have also had bad experiences with some of the Kodak^®, stand-alone do-it-yourself printers in some stores. Your best bet is to have the same file printed out on many machines and pick the one that does the best.

Original scan:

Walgreen's® print:

Target® print: