Need advice on printing pictures

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   Angelique Newmanposted 12 years ago

   I'm making my family a photo album; I searched through years of photos and put them on Microsoft Word; I did this because I was drawn to the great options it has concerning writing style and adding your personal touch with clip art and such.
   
   Now that it's finished I had it printed and ringed at staples but the color is way too saturated, most of the pictures are so dark I can't make them out whereas (a few...very few the colors look true.) I don't understand.  Is their printer faulty?  Or is it  the paper I selected which is semi gloss?  I printed a few pages of the album on my ink jet printer to compare and the difference is like daylight is from darkness.
   
   Any help would be greatly appreciated; I really want to give my family these albums.  Thanks.

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2. 66

   2uesdayposted 12 years ago

   Do you think it would be worth getting one or two of the pictures printed elsewhere, so that you can make a comparison of how they turn out?
   
   That way if they come out how you expected them to, you would be able to return to the original printers and ask them for a reason why they are not as expected. If they blame your photos you would have a bit of back up with the 'new prints' being OK. Just an idea and someone might have a more technical solution, than this.

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   1. 60

      Angelique Newmanposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks 2uesday, I'm going to show Staples the difference of the one I printed out and their's.  Perhaps it's just a matter of a setting on the printer, if not I'm planning to take it to Walmart and see if they can print them out.   Hopefully the pictures will turn out better if not I may have to print them out myself.  I just dislike the thought of the wear and tear on my printer.  Oh well.

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3. 0

   SaritaJBonitaposted 12 years ago

   I've always had good luck at Walmart, and I always look at my photos before I pay for them to make sure I'm satisfied.  I would take the pictures back to Staples and get my money back anyways.  And when you say you printed them at home and the difference was "between daylight and darkness," does that mean that the printed picture matched what you see on the computer monitor?  Sometimes the color settings on your computer monitor can go screwy and you end up printing something totally different from what you see.
   
   Hope this helps!

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   1. 60

      Angelique Newmanposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks SaritaJBonita, I really hope staples can fix the problem when I show them the difference between the ones I printed out and theirs; if not Walmart is the place I'm going.
      
      The color of the pictures I printed were almost exact to the images on my computer monitor.  So it's definitely a printer issue.

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4. 81

   timorousposted 12 years ago

   Depending on your budget, you would likely have better success at a print shop. They can at least match the printed 'proofs' you made on your own printer. If you can save the images/pages in PDF format, most print shops will be able to print directly, rather than have to do conversions.
   
   Stores like Walmart and Staples just use the same process for everything. The staff are not really trained in printing, and what to look for.
   
   Best of luck, Angelique.

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