Printer Profiles from Costco

Many of you have asked me lately about how when you print a picture off at Costco, it's darker than what is on your screen. I'm going to give you a brief explanation of how to download a profile thus calibrating your monitor with Costco's and hopefully giving you the picture you want.

What you need to do is go to costco.com and click on "photos" at the top. Once you have signed in, you will see an option for "printer profiles" somewhere in the middle of the page in blue lettering. Click on it. Then, under "option 1" click "continue" (or just go to this link: http://www.drycreekphoto.com/icc/). On the left hand side, find your state and then find your city in the middle column. For example, I clicked on "ohio" on the left hand side and scrolled down until I saw "Cleveland:".

I know not all the Costco's offer the same options so you may have to kind of figure it out for yourself from here if it's not the same as mine. But, under "Cleveland:" there is an option for "Glossy paper profile, October 1, 2007" and "Lustre paper profile, October 1, 2007". You then need to click on one of these options (depending on whether you do glossy or lustre) and save it in the following extension: \Windows\system32\spool\drivers\color. If that doesn't make sense, what you do is go to your C: drive > Windows >system32 > and so on. I can't promise that all of your computers will be in those exact locations either (or go here:http://www.drycreekphoto.com/Learn/profile_install.htm to see other options). You can see how to use your profiles and apply them to your pictures by going here: http://www.drycreekphoto.com/Learn/profiles.htm

That's a whole lot of information but I hope it helps.