Hi. My apologies if this is not the correct forum for this post--please help me redirect appropriately if not!
As a recently-retired empty nester, I decided to catch up on my scrapbooking, which has been left idle for 10 years now. In the process, I decided to make a scrapbook of my garden over the years. I went to my electronic photo folders, saw gorgeous, brilliant colors, and finally decided to just print them all en masse. This ended up being 2500 garden photos that I've taken since 2013. I haven't printed photos--or sent them out to be printed--since 2013.

So, I sent them to the 2 major online photo printing retailers that I'm familiar with--some to one and some to the other, so I could compare quality, etc. I've gotten them back and am so incredibly disappointed in the quality. The colors are grayish, and the focus isn't as sharp--eg, online I can see that a bee in one of my photos is a bee, but in these photos to be honest I'm not always sure--i just see a lump. The first batch I looked at was also the smallest batch (about 160 photos) and I was so disappointed I ended up calling the company. They were very nice about it and said they would reprint that batch for me (I haven't received the re-order yet). She said that 'prints will always be darker than online' because of a smaller number of colors used. However, in the photos I had printed prior to 2013 (the last year I was regularly printing photos till now), the blossom colors are beautiful and true to life--and this was the same company! I can only surmise that, to save money, the company has downgraded the quality of its general printing since then. I know it's not the camera because the photos are beautiful online--plus I had even worse cameras before 2013 and the colors on those are lovely. It is definitely the quality of the printing process itself.

I've had time to look at the other 2340 prints by now, and the color is terrible on all of them. Some batches are a little better than others, but overall very heartbreaking for what I had hoped would be a beautiful garden album.

I am just wondering if I'm the only one who has noticed a decline in the color quality of prints over time from major retailers, or if others have noticed this as well? Also, given this, where can I get these printed so they are truly beautiful again? (I don't like the 'online' albums that some websites offer--they usually are only for a small number of photos with very little opportunity for creativity in the templates used. The albums I create at home hold about 450-500 photos each, and of course there are endless opportunities for creativity... I have used my own printer to print some photos--usually with better results than these retail prints!-- but never more than 20 at a time, and these are *2500* photos. I understand of course that a person can take tons of photos and have only a fraction of them turn out beautiful, but even my most beautiful photos online have poor quality color as received by the retailers....)
Well, thanks for any ideas or

It has been years since I printed any photos myself. I have hundreds of photos in albums, but they never get looked at unless the grandkids pull them out to get a good laugh. I keep all my photos in folders on my computer and they are taken with such a low resolution that they would probably never print very well (usually 4 to 8 mb). but they look great as long as they are being viewed digitally. But, I am surprised to learn that commercial printers are turning out such poor quality work, when the great progress printers have made over the years. Did they not offer any explanations, or even some excuses?
So I can't recommend any sources to get your pictures printed.

When it comes to prints you are generally at the mercy of various automatic corrections. These corrections may very well work better for some photos than others.

To get a print that actually matches what you see on screen you must have a monitor of good quality that is calibrated for printing. Most monitors are too bright and have too vivid colors out of the box. Color casts are also common.

Then you need to use colormanaged software to view and edit your photos.

This step also involves resizing and adding printsharpening, because prints need much more sharpening as compared to viewing photos on screen.

While not absolutely necessery you ideally also need to get a printer profile so you can softproof your photo and match it as close as you can to the limitations of the print. Just as monitors, printers have differences and limitations between them, and this is true both for home printing and commercial options.

So there are unfortunately lots of things that can go wrong.

Some commercial printers may allow you to take control of all, or part of this process, but being located in Sweden I'm afraid I can't make any specific recommendations.

I would think that if you already use a calibrated monitor, then simply finding a commercial printer that allows you to turn of automatic corrections would go a long way.

I have had better luck using a local photographic print vendor where I can actually walk into the facility and talk with the person who does the printing and can make adjustments on his printer. There are not many of these places left because of the proliferation of large online vendors but if you can find one in your area, it's worth the extra time spent.

that's really interesting--thanks for those suggestions! I didn't realize automatic corrections would make such a difference, but it makes sense, since a typical garden photo has an array of not only colors but also variations in brightness across the leaves and blossoms--this could definitely throw off anything automatic! Good idea to find a specific local place and talk to them about it-- 'look, these are all photos of green things and things that bloom in a variety of different lights, brightness levels, and colors!'

well, I talked to online vendor #2 yesterday and they also are reprinting their large order for me. they said if I'm not happy with the second attempt we can talk about 'other options'. The 2nd large batch (from online vendor #1) is borderline in its quality-- overall better than the first small batch was, though not great -- I'm going to wait and see what their replacement order looks like before talking to them about the large order-- whether to try again with it or just leave it be. I'll definitely keep local printers in mind for future orders...

I would suggest you contact a professional lab if you haven't already done so (not sure who you are using.) I use Mpix- https://www.mpix.com/

Walmart, pharmacies, etc are not pro labs. They just run your files through automated machines and put the prints in an envelope.

Something to remember: What you see on your screen is very bright because monitors are back lit. A print is front lit by whatever light is available. Therefore, you need to adjust the file you send to the printer to prevent dark prints - that usually means brightening by 20% or so. Do you use Lightroom for photo processing? If so, the Print module has an option for such brightening that you can set to a percentage. You may have to print a few test images to get everything right. Mpix will work with you. They have great customer service you can converse with via email. They will also email you a test image, but again remember you are looking at it on a monitor, not on a wall in available light.

wow, that's great to know about! thanks for the info!