PictureMe Portrait Studios (Inside WalMart) Misrepresentation of product!!! Mount Dora, Florida
I went to Pictureme Portrait Studios in Wal-Mart to have some pictures taken for me to use in marketing materials. I am a realtor and need Hi Resolution photos for signs and other marketing stuff. They sell a Hi Resolution photo CD with copyright release for $119.99 ($128.39 with tax). When I got the CD home, the pictures were between 200 and 300KB (No where close to "Hi Resolution"). I was told by the graphic artist I am working with that Hi Resolution photos start at 3MB and go up from there. NOTE: Before I purchased, I told the clerk what I needed the photos for and specifically that they needed to be large file size high resolution photos. She said, "The cover says they are hi resolution, I don't know how large they are, but they would'nt sell them that way if they were'nt hi resolution". So I called the studio. They told me to bring in the CD and the receipt and they would make a new CD. They did, when I got it home, it was the same file size as before.
I called again, waited on hold 15 minutes, and was told I would receive a call back. 3 days later I called again (waited 15 minutes) and was told I would receive a call back from the district manager. Well, the pictures were taken on 8/5/09, today is 8/28/09, I still have not received a call back. I called again, waited another 15 minutes and was told I will receive a call back from the district manager. Same run around as before. NEVER NEVER BUY FROM PICTUREME PORTRAIT STUDIOS!!! Pictureme Portrait Studios has the worst customer service I have ever dealt with... Comcast comes close, but pictureme portrait studios takes the cake for the worst customer serivce on the planet. I beg you, please do not buy from them under any circumstances. Pictureme Portrait studios has the most horrible customer service on the planet. I hope they go out of business soon, or that Wal-mart evicts them for leaving such a bitter taste in the mouth of Wal-mart's customers. So far I have waisted 3 trips to the store, and over 1.5 hours on the phone (45 minutes listening to elevater music before reaching a live person). It is no worth it! Don't use Pictureme Portrait Studios, no matter what.
2 Updates & Rebuttals
Firestriker
USAFire your graphic design artist
#3UPDATE Employee
Thu, October 15, 2009
Three things,
1. You may want to fire your graphic design artist. You are paying him to do your marketing materials, but yet he is sending you to a Portrait Studio to get your portraits done. I've never met any graphic design artist who would do that. Most have their own photography equipment and could take the pictures for you, and then they would hold the copyright release, not PictureMe.
2. Anyway on to the actual subject, the pictures on that CD are high resolution. They are actually capable of being printed out at 30x40 sizes. While I work for this company, I also have my families portraits done here, and as a result have one of our HRCDs, and have printed various sizes up to 30x40.
3. Hate to keep going back to your design artist, but how he could justify telling someone a JPG is only HR if it is 4MB or higher is beyond me. The size of the image varies based on the compression, size, and format of the image. While a High Res Tiff, PNG or DNG is going to be over 4MB under any circumstances a High Res JPG can be as low as 250kbs.
Just for reference, our High Res CD images are 300kbs to 100kbs, the default dimensions are 2592x3888 at this size the resolution is 72 DPI. Which is High Resolution for an image of that size. Most people think that High Resolution is 300 DPI, this is not true, the DPI is in relation to the actual size of the photo, at this size 72 DPI is high resolution. When an image is increased in size, the DPI also decreases to compensate, it is still High Res, however the DPI and Size must change together for the final product to be correct. If you take that same image from that CD, scale it to the size of an 8x10, change the DPI to 300 and resample it, you will then have an 8x10 at 300 DPI which for that size is High Res, which shows that the image is actually a high resolution image. Perhaps your artist needs to learn what high resolution is for different sizes.
ANY Graphic Design Artist worth having will have either Corel or Adobe. They will also know the correlation between size (pixels) and resolution (DPI). Most importantly however they will be able to resize, and resample the pictures from the PictureMe CD to fit their needs, unless they are trying to print something bigger than a 24x36. It is a 30 second process, if they know what they are doing.
Sorry for my long spill, however working for PictureMe and having a wife who is a graphic design artist, I felt the need to clear the air.
ReactorCore
Victoria,British Columbia,
Canada
Want less headaches?
#3
Sat, August 29, 2009
Instead of all this running around, making calls and frustration, you should simply go to an electronics store and buy your own digital camera. Especially if you're a realtor.
Many digital cameras now take high res photos (5.1 Megapixels and up) and are reasonably priced too. Not only can you produce your own headshots, using a neutral backdrop, but you can use the camera to produce high res shots of properties you're selling too... and you don't have to fiddle around with a third party or a "copyright release" (whut??)
As an added bonus, since you're using the camera mostly for your profession, you can likely write it off on your taxes.
I'm rather surprised that your graphic designer didn't offer to use his own equipment to do this. In fact, I'm inclined to look sideways at any graphic designer who doesn't have access to at least a 3.1 Megapixel camera.