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| - Terrible, terrible experience at Portrait Innovations today. My family has been loyal to this studio since 2010, initially starting out at their now closed Scottsdale location and moving with them way down south to Chandler - 35 mins drive. We were happy with their backgrounds, props, staff (especially Kelly), and prints.
All this is sadly a thing of the past. Their 2014 Christmas special brought us in and our photographer was John - a cool guy who got several nice shots. The people at the front desk obviously weren't paid to smile - why should they, it's only a photo place, right? They neither made us feel welcome or at ease.
While waiting our turn, we noticed how dirty and gross the furniture was. Absolutely disgusting. What a way to welcome your customers.
Their monitors you view the photos on are really poor. Old Pioneer TVs - very grainy, pixelated. Neither 720 or 1080 HD, probably just 480 resolution - like your old tube TVs. They are pretty crappy to view photos on - you can't tell if the shot is in focus, lightning overexposed, or if the contrast is right.
When we got the prints, the trouble really began. The quality was abysmal - even the prints I get at Walgreens are better! There was no contrast, the picture was overexposed, skin tones were grey, the color temperature was way cold with very little saturation. I would be embarrassed to send those Christmas cards to family or hang the prints on the wall.
Even worse, the attitude from the staff was ice-cold and completely arrogant. The prints were awesome, in their opinion. Yes, they didn't match the examples they have available on the counter because "those had been photoshopped" (which they don't offer to customers), they were with a different background, and with different lighting. I even spoke to a manager, which was like speaking to a robot. Repeated the same empty rhetoric, essentially putting the blame on us for choosing the snowflake background.
Eventually, we ended up (reluctantly) asking for a refund. I even asked twice if there wasn't ANYTHING they could do (maybe calibrate the printer?) but no. Loyalty and past experiences didn't matter to them. No offer to retake the shots, nothing.
Needless to say, I recommend staying far away from these amateurs. Choose quality. It's photos and memories - they deserve better than grainy, pixelated, overexposed photos with weird color tones.
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