I get asked all the time about digital files and to be honest I hate selling them because I have no control over where they are printed and like most things all labs are not created equal.

My lab is a professional only lab. All prints are on Kodak Endura professional paper and are created with printers that expose light sensitive paper that is then run through a chemical process. These are real photographs, not inkjet prints and will last well over 100 years. Each file is sent to the lab with a color profile so I can guarantee the colors are correct. My lab does not color correct your prints. They are processed according to the color profile I send them.

Color correction is a dirty word to professional photographers. We work really hard to get the colors perfect in each image and color correction changes them to what the computer thinks is best. All non-professional labs use color correction.

Here is the same image printed at my lab (first), Wal-Mart (middle) & Walgreens (last).

Notice how orange the skin is and how much darker the one at Walgreens was printed. That is from color correction.

Here is another example.

These were printed at my lab (top), CVS (first), Wolf (second).

And again the color correction makes a good photo look really bad.

The last thing I would like to address is paper thickness, and the ability to resist fingerprints. The Kodak Endura paper is thicker than standard weight photo paper. The luster finish also helps in resist finger prints unlike standard prints.