The Print Shop — Local services in Houghton

Not professional. Not cooperative. Poor printer. Expensive service. I was in a hurry and lazy doing the color calibration job on my work, so I went to the print shop in downtown. It looks pro because it does everything on printing. First time I entered the shop, gives me a vintage feeling that I go back to 90s, any way, I just want some good prints. I told them this is for a show so hope it gives me a good quality. It seems the paper quality is OKay, however the assistant's kind of not professional. He just opened my photo with windows viewer(not some more professional program of printer's dedicate program) and directly clicked print in the veiwer, and checked fit to the page(this actually changed the right ratio of my photos, my 46 photos are forced to print in 811, I don't know about this function after I went back home and checked it myself) and my square photo becomes rectangle. The resolution of the print is low, and the assisstant doubt its my file's resolution causing a problem. The photos are taken with a7r, some may know it is one of the top line camera with incredible high resolution. In addition, the color and contrast can be tell that they are different from the photo(that is why professional photo labs calibrate their printers.). They tell me that they don't calibrate the color for the xerox. I looked at the printer, it seems it is a printer for enterprise use which is good at handling heavy jobs, but not dedicate for art works. When I discover the ratio of the photo is really twisted and resolution is really low, they make the explanation that it could only be fixed by photoshop. They could only do it by schedule. Hey, you just need to establish a canvas and adjust the image size if you do it with photoshop. He insist he can't do it now. The print price is around 60cents each, the service fee is 5 dollar, and trimming cost another 5 dollar. I made 15 prints and totally cost me 19 dollars. Strongly don't recommend if you want to make delicate prints in this so called "the Print Shop". If you are not in a hurry, there's plenty of good online photo lab with fast production, fast delivery, high quality...

Short version: They seem really shady.Wouldn't give me a refund for an order they weren't sure they could finish and it was a lot of work to get my money refunded. Long version: They weren't sure if they could get my rush order done (what kind of print shop runs out of black ink?) so I pushed it back. Then, they "accidentally" charged me the full amount instead of the holding fee, which made me wonder if I was being scammed. When they sent me the proof... It was wrong, so I never approved it. Super common issues with a bad printer, but it gets worse. I try to just cancel the order and go with another printer. But when I tried to cancel, BJ said they had moved other clients around to make room for me and were going to print my order ASAP. How? I never approved the proof. I tried to soften the blow by saying it was my organization's mistake, which wasn't true, and she used that insult me, saying she was "sorry my organization was so disorganized" and she was just "being real" with me. Funny. She insisted that she be payed for her time making alternations I never asked for or approved. I never agreed to this, but said she was welcome to call me and tell me what it would be. I called my credit card company and almost disputed the charge right then and there, but decided to see where this went. After a week, I hadn't heard anything. I emailed her back and she said she was (conveniently) just about to get back to me. She said she was refunding all but the cost to them to charge and refund my card. She acted like she was being gracious, but I'm guessing she talked to whoever processes cards for her and they told her she couldn't win a case against me if she kept any of that money. There are other printers....

What an awful shop, the fact that they're even in business is amazing.

They have no idea how to use technology, or even their own printers. Even asking them to print a simple resume take a minimum of 20 minutes, it incredible how someone can work with a single printer all day and have no clue how to use it.

Even the employees are slow and lazy. There was a line of a few people, one person tried to help the first customer by aimlessly walking around and chatting. While the other lady sat on the computer browsing Facebook.

It's not that hard to load paper, open a file, and press print. But they sure do make it seem like an almost impossible task. I would never return there, and I'll be sure they never see a...