Shutterfly: VividPics Technology
Unless I capture an alien and ask Shutterfly to print the photograph, I want no part of green in my black and white prints. Recently this is what Shutterfly gave me in a 4×6:
Wedding Photo in Green (by Shutterfly)
Oddly, the 5×7 was about as perfect a B&W print as I could ask for (short of printing them myself). Nice blacks. The groom’s shirt is white; the wedding dress was a champagne color, so those are about right too.
Upon contacting them to request a reprint of the photos, I learned something new about Shutterfly when they sent this reply:
” I am sorry to hear that your order did not arrive as you hoped. Shutterfly analyzes your photos and automatically applies enhancements to the photos to improve the exposure and colors in the photos in order to give you the finest quality prints. This feature, which we call our VividPics technology, is applied by default to all Shutterfly prints.”
They went on to say the VividPics technology/process was what was causing the green cast and then gave me a link with instructions on how to disable it. They did NOT discuss why within the same order, the 4x6s were in green and the 5x7s weren’t… What they didn’t want to tell me was they’d hired a little green alien in their 4×6 printing line.
So I went to the link, disabled VividPics and received another order of, yup, green 4x6s. Three’s a charm they say and they got it right in the 3rd reprint. It obviously was not the VividPic process, but I learned something in the exercise. And to their credit they re-printed every time at their expense with no hassle.
If you do a bit more research, there’s a section about ICC Color Profiles: “If you turn off VividPics, all our printers will produce sRGB colors accurately.” What you have to understand is that to get the photo on your screen at home to look very similar in a printed copy, you’ve got to save your images as sRGB AND calibrate your monitor properly for sRGB output. Shutterfly mentions a spectrophotometer but only in a sentence that also includes the word “inspired.”
Screen shot of Shutterfly's Help section on color profiles
Bottom line, I learned something. And discovered the “Help” section of the site is quite extensive. Good information.
I’m working on a post comparing a Shutterfly photo book to a Blurb photo book. Good stuff.
Here are other Shutterfly posts on this site:
Shutterfly vs Snapfish, Take II
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About SRT... I’m a traveler, writer and photographer for whom the open road frequently summons. Adventurous solo road trips are a staple for me, and a curiosity. So I created this website to share them and inspire you to step out and give them a try. Welcome! 
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Comment by KKontaktlinsen — May 7, 2013 @ 6:25 am
This new VIVID pics is annoying. It has happened more recently. I didn’t know they had incorporated and order over 400 pictures that I had already processed in my nice photo processing software. I wish they would ask to do this instead of automatically doing it.
I get prints in which I did not know about their auto technology. I already told the guy in the online chat that they shouldn’t do this without telling us! The fine print of the help section is lovely, but who has time for that!
I like your comparison between the two. I compared the two in my blog too and came up with your conclusion. It wasn’t just print quality with Snapfish. It was a whole host of things. You had said in a previous blog something about the difference between paper. Snapfish does not say what kind of paper they use (I don’t think they use Kodak anymore since they are in cahoots with HP. I think they use HP paper now.), but Shutterfly is very upfront about the paper and the independent tests about the archival quality of the Fuji Crystal Archive paper. So, I am going with Shutterfly, turning off their Vidipic techology, and waiting for the sales to make the price sometimes as cheap as Snapfish.
Here is my review of the two if you are interested: http://carolhomeschool2.blogspot.com/2012/08/snapfish-versus-shutterfly.html
Thanks for your thoughtful reviews. I sigh sometimes when I remember how easy it was to shoot a roll of film and just wait to see what you got and go from there. I process so many pictures in one year simply because they are free to shoot. It is much more time consuming this way.
Comment by Carol Ann Weaver — September 6, 2012 @ 1:33 pm
[...] and I could not even tell the difference between the two photos in Solo Road Trip‘s post Shutterfly: Vividpics Technology. Not being able to see what most people can always leaves me with a sad feeling. However, [...]
Pingback by Sunday Social — July 1, 2012 @ 6:46 am
You give us helpful info! Technology is really a great help now a days. The color green in the pictures was disappear. Is that your relatives in the picture?
Comment by Mat Rats — May 2, 2012 @ 8:33 am
Glad you could fix it! Great pic!!!
Comment by Andi of My Beautiful Adventures — February 10, 2012 @ 8:37 pm
Great info! I’m glad someone has the tenacity and patience to push through and read the fine print. Keep it coming.
Comment by Pops — February 10, 2012 @ 11:52 am