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naomikritzer...but Proex has probably managed it.
Edited to add cut before looooooooooong rant. *sigh*.
Proex is a film developing / camera / portrait studio store in my area; I think they're owned by Wolf Camera. It costs more to have your film developed at Proex but it's always been worth the extra, to me, because the pictures come out looking so much better. I had some pictures developed at a grocery store in New England this summer, and they looked terrible -- washed out, overexposed. I had my favorite pictures reprinted at Proex when I got home and they were much better.
However, they can be a serious hassle to deal with. For example, they sell this annually renewable Platinum Membership card or something like that, which gets you discounts; you're not supposed to have to carry the card around with you, it's supposed to be electronic, but the computers are not connected across stores, and since there are two Proex stores near me in different directions, I end up getting told over and over again that actually, my membership has expired, even when it hasn't. Worse, their computer system is totally incapable of dealing with the fact that my husband and I do not share a last name. The discount card has to be attached to either my name OR his name, not both. Apparently Proex considers women keeping their last name after marriage to be some freaky new trend.
In addition to getting film developed there, we've used their portrait studio every year since Molly was a baby. I like doing the formal, all-dressed-up once-a-year formal photo, and although I've tried doing something similar myself (I take pretty good pictures of my kids), I lack the lighting and neutral backdrop that's part of what I like about formal photos.
When we first started going there for portraits, they actually had two staff people to do them: one danced around trying to get Molly to giggle while the other snapped the pictures. At some point they stopped having two staff people, but the photographers were clearly trained to get little kids to crack up; I remember one putting a stuffed Elmo on her head, telling Molly to blow it off, and then snapping the photos as Molly cracked up. She has excellent timing.
This year, however, the photographer just set them in a pose and told them to smile. When Molly gave her the fixed grimace that she often gives cameras these days, the photographer turned to me and said, "Do you know how to get them to smile, Mom?" I borrowed a squeaking chicken and got them to giggle, and we got some decent shots.
In past years, they've given you a set of proofs as part of the sitting. (I'll note that unlike a lot of the discount stores and department stores with photo studios, Proex charges for their sittings. Not as much as you'd pay for a sitting with an independent photographer, but Proex quality is not competetive with good independent photographers -- it's competetive with the department store studios.) Now, it's all digital, and the proofs have a Proex watermark on them so you can't just take them to Kinko's and have them duplicated there. Which is fair enough, honestly.
We wanted a couple of prints, but the main thing we wanted this year was Christmas cards. Either before or after the sitting, I asked about Christmas cards and was handed several brochures of various options. I have the brochures on my desk right now: one says, "Add sparkle to your holidays....with photo gifts from PROEX!" and says Portrait Studio on it. It includes a variety of "designer" cards, most sized slightly differently from the photo cards I like to call the "card on a stick" style (you know, the long, skinny kind you get from about half your friends) (the local State Fair sells everything -- really, everything -- on a stick, hence my term). The cards in the Photo Gifts brochure are also much more colorful and fancy than your typical card-on-a-stick, and are priced at 99 cents each. The other brochure says "Send a Picture Perfect Greeting Card!" and has cards-on-a-stick inside, with 24 different designs. These are 50 cents each.
We wanted cheap cards this year -- you can probably guess why -- so we picked a design for a card-on-a-stick, chose our favorite of the portraits, and I went into Proex this afternoon to place the order.
Well, it turns out that you can only have a set of cheap cards made if you bring in your own snapshot. If they took the picture, you can buy that same design, if you want, but they will charge you 99 cents for it, rather than 50 cents.
Yes, it is apparently official Proex policy that they screw their customers. If you paid Proex to take your picture, and you wish to pay Proex to make Christmas cards from the picture they took, they will charge you twice as much.
I pointed out that they are not exactly the only store in the world who makes photo greeting cards. Oh, but they put a Proex watermark on the back saying not to copy it. Now, it is possible -- dimly -- that the person at Kinko's will notice and care, but in that case, I own a scanner.
I'm absolutely infuriated by this, nonetheless.
I will definitely never use the Proex portrait studio again. If I can find somewhere else that can do a decent job at developing my film, I'm going to stop using Proex.
I was tempted to demand a refund for the portrait sitting and get nothing printed. But one of the pictures was very cute, and getting Kiera dressed (in anything at all -- she spend all of today in her PJs) is such a hassle I couldn't face the idea of going elsewhere for another set of studio pictures.
Edited to add cut before looooooooooong rant. *sigh*.
Proex is a film developing / camera / portrait studio store in my area; I think they're owned by Wolf Camera. It costs more to have your film developed at Proex but it's always been worth the extra, to me, because the pictures come out looking so much better. I had some pictures developed at a grocery store in New England this summer, and they looked terrible -- washed out, overexposed. I had my favorite pictures reprinted at Proex when I got home and they were much better.
However, they can be a serious hassle to deal with. For example, they sell this annually renewable Platinum Membership card or something like that, which gets you discounts; you're not supposed to have to carry the card around with you, it's supposed to be electronic, but the computers are not connected across stores, and since there are two Proex stores near me in different directions, I end up getting told over and over again that actually, my membership has expired, even when it hasn't. Worse, their computer system is totally incapable of dealing with the fact that my husband and I do not share a last name. The discount card has to be attached to either my name OR his name, not both. Apparently Proex considers women keeping their last name after marriage to be some freaky new trend.
In addition to getting film developed there, we've used their portrait studio every year since Molly was a baby. I like doing the formal, all-dressed-up once-a-year formal photo, and although I've tried doing something similar myself (I take pretty good pictures of my kids), I lack the lighting and neutral backdrop that's part of what I like about formal photos.
When we first started going there for portraits, they actually had two staff people to do them: one danced around trying to get Molly to giggle while the other snapped the pictures. At some point they stopped having two staff people, but the photographers were clearly trained to get little kids to crack up; I remember one putting a stuffed Elmo on her head, telling Molly to blow it off, and then snapping the photos as Molly cracked up. She has excellent timing.
This year, however, the photographer just set them in a pose and told them to smile. When Molly gave her the fixed grimace that she often gives cameras these days, the photographer turned to me and said, "Do you know how to get them to smile, Mom?" I borrowed a squeaking chicken and got them to giggle, and we got some decent shots.
In past years, they've given you a set of proofs as part of the sitting. (I'll note that unlike a lot of the discount stores and department stores with photo studios, Proex charges for their sittings. Not as much as you'd pay for a sitting with an independent photographer, but Proex quality is not competetive with good independent photographers -- it's competetive with the department store studios.) Now, it's all digital, and the proofs have a Proex watermark on them so you can't just take them to Kinko's and have them duplicated there. Which is fair enough, honestly.
We wanted a couple of prints, but the main thing we wanted this year was Christmas cards. Either before or after the sitting, I asked about Christmas cards and was handed several brochures of various options. I have the brochures on my desk right now: one says, "Add sparkle to your holidays....with photo gifts from PROEX!" and says Portrait Studio on it. It includes a variety of "designer" cards, most sized slightly differently from the photo cards I like to call the "card on a stick" style (you know, the long, skinny kind you get from about half your friends) (the local State Fair sells everything -- really, everything -- on a stick, hence my term). The cards in the Photo Gifts brochure are also much more colorful and fancy than your typical card-on-a-stick, and are priced at 99 cents each. The other brochure says "Send a Picture Perfect Greeting Card!" and has cards-on-a-stick inside, with 24 different designs. These are 50 cents each.
We wanted cheap cards this year -- you can probably guess why -- so we picked a design for a card-on-a-stick, chose our favorite of the portraits, and I went into Proex this afternoon to place the order.
Well, it turns out that you can only have a set of cheap cards made if you bring in your own snapshot. If they took the picture, you can buy that same design, if you want, but they will charge you 99 cents for it, rather than 50 cents.
Yes, it is apparently official Proex policy that they screw their customers. If you paid Proex to take your picture, and you wish to pay Proex to make Christmas cards from the picture they took, they will charge you twice as much.
I pointed out that they are not exactly the only store in the world who makes photo greeting cards. Oh, but they put a Proex watermark on the back saying not to copy it. Now, it is possible -- dimly -- that the person at Kinko's will notice and care, but in that case, I own a scanner.
I'm absolutely infuriated by this, nonetheless.
I will definitely never use the Proex portrait studio again. If I can find somewhere else that can do a decent job at developing my film, I'm going to stop using Proex.
I was tempted to demand a refund for the portrait sitting and get nothing printed. But one of the pictures was very cute, and getting Kiera dressed (in anything at all -- she spend all of today in her PJs) is such a hassle I couldn't face the idea of going elsewhere for another set of studio pictures.
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no subject
Date: 2005-12-11 02:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-11 03:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-11 02:08 pm (UTC)she's also getting married in february, so right now she does a lot of wedding planning, too. =)