Anyway, none of the photos have come in yet, but Apple’s pulling some serious shenanigans with their prices. Because I wanted to see a large shot, I ordered a 5×7 and an 8×10. Apparently, though, you pay for convenience (or possibly Apple shiny), because Apple’s pricing is comparatively outrageous—$0.99 for the 5×7, $3.99 for the 8×10, and $2.49 for shipping. Honestly, I probably won’t order from Apple again because it’s so outrageous.

Anyway, the original total was $7.93, because Tennessee sales tax sucks.

When I got the followup receipt (the one that says the order has shipped), the price increased to $8.16. I managed to track down that difference—the first receipt didn’t charge tax on the shipping. Now, while I don’t like my orders increasing in price without my approval, I can understand this sort of difference.

But it gets worse. The charge to my bank account is currently reading $8.72. And I have no idea why.

Hopefully there will be a happier resolution to this, but right now I’m kind of ticked off at Apple.

Also, when I first created my Apple account (which I use for iTunes, along with everything else), I used my Mom’s credit card number, and Apple uses as the name for the account the name on the credit card number. Of course, I changed it as soon as I got my debit card, but about half of the Apple website is still convinced that I’m my mom. It’s moderately annoying, and I can’t find anywhere to change it.

I just sent my canal photo off to Flickr, Kodak (via iPhoto), Shutterfly, Club Photo, Sony ImageStation, and Snapfish and requested at least one (and in some cases two) copies from each. They should all arrive within the next week, and hopefully at least one of them will look the way I want.

For those that are curious, Snapfish was the cheapest, but that’s mostly because you get 20 free 4×6 prints with a new account.

Does anyone else have experience with online photo printing services? CNET ran a review, but didn’t provide much information, especially about color, which I’m particularly interested in (I’m willing to assume that most of the printers will use decent quality paper and all that jazz).

So today I was trying to print out a photo I took in Italy for a photography contest that Mom thinks I should enter.

Here’s the one I picked:

Now, one would think this would be a simple process. You edit the photo, you print the photo, and the print looks like what you see on the screen.

Wrong!

It’s actually worse than that. Not only is it all but impossible to get a print to look like what you see on the screen, but because of how Photoshop handles color, the colors change depending on whether or not you’re inside Photoshop. That is, if you open it outside of Photoshop, the colors are different, and those colors are different from what you get in the print.

Did I mention that things look really different depending on if you’re using Windows or Mac?

This is such a basic problem that you’d think it would have been dealt with years ago. I don’t think it’s an unusual expectation for my photos to look the same anywhere I open them.

Ok. There’s my rant for the day.

Edit: Did I mention that, just as I had a more or less acceptable solution, our printer ran out of ink?

Also, as part of the photo contest, we have to title the photo. Any suggestions?

Speaking of photos, I’ve edited and uploaded the photos from Vienna. You’ll get your post soon.