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How to Get Black and White Photos on Shutterfly

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In the 21 Day Photo Fix, I offer a very short list of recommendations for which photo labs to use.  Shutterfly seems to be such a popular choice by many moms and dads.  And I can see why.  A huge product lineup along with a great value goes a long way.
But there have been many times in the past several years where I'd get back prints from Shutterfly that were … well, below par … to put it mildly.  But then I found out why.  I made a simple change, and voila!

[callout] I'm giving away a $100 Gift Card to Shutterfly.  It ends today.  And the odds are phenom (as far as free, easy, giveaways are concerned).  Scroll to bottom of post to enter. [/callout]

The little hidden box.

What was the change?  I simply deactivated the "auto-enhance" default.  Shutterfly calls this auto-enhance feature " VividPics. "  Here's what VividPics does, quoted straight from Shutterfly themselves:

Shutterfly analyzes your photo and automatically applies enhancements to the picture to improve the exposure and colors in the photo 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.

This is a fine and dandy feature to probably 99% of the pics the typical parent might upload to Shutterfly.  That is, snapshots uploaded straight from a camera phone or even a fancy camera, but with no editing whatsoever.
But what if you've hand edited your photo in a program like Lightroom, Photoshop, or PicMonkey?  In this case, you want your print to look exactly like it did on your (calibrated) screen.  I mean, you just spent time hand tuning the brightness, contrast, saturation, and color grade.  In this case, we definitely do not want any auto-algorithms applied.  Otherwise there could be shifts in that hand tuned brightness, contrast, and yes, color.
And was there ever.

Ever since making a simple change, the print consistency from Shutterfly has been a night n day difference.

So much so that I'm happy to give them my full recommendation .  Their product line and value minded prices / deals are a perfect fit for so many of the folks that tune into Shultz Photo School.
So, here's how to disable the VividPics feature when ordering from Shutterfly:

  1. In your account, go into an album and select the desired pictures.  Like ya normally do.
  2. Click the "Edit" drop-down, then "Apply effect".  Here's a screenshot:Screen_Shot_2014-08-29_at_1_51_06_PM
  3. For each picture (scrolling arrows are on the right), click "Don't apply automatic corrections to picture." This will disable VividPics on the image.  Here's another screenshot for ya:Screen_Shot_2014-08-29_at_1_52_43_PM


So there ya have it.  Now Shutterfly will still print your photos with tender lovin' care, but without messing up any of your own tender lovin' care.  Makes me happy.  And I know it'll make you happy.

Speaking of Happy.  I'm Giving Away a $100 Gift Card to Shutterfly.

Yep.  Entry is fast.  Free.  Easy.  And ends TODAY.  Here ya go:
Shultz Photo School $100 Shutterfly Gift Card Giveaway

Thoughts? Pipe up and leave them below in the comments!

How to Get Black and White Photos on Shutterfly

Source: https://shultzphotoschool.com/a-lil-secret-to-get-pro-prints-from-shutterfly/