Several months ago, I took an intro to PS CS3 course at the local community college. The instructor told me to download the ICC profiles for the specific printer/paper for optimal color management. For non-critical work, he suggested downloading the ICC profile for the printer at Costco since Costco offers its ICC profile online. So I downloaded the Costco ICC profile, calibrated my monitor with the SpyderExpress2 kit, soft proofed the pics in ps, uploaded the pics to Costco in jpg format (I don't think they accept any other format), and turned off Costco's automatic color correction feature. I did several test runs but always found the prints to be rather flat, lacking contrast and saturation (4x6 size).
I am a newbie hobbyist and don't print that many pics to justify buying a good printer/paper/ink. It seems to me that when I send the pics to Costco online, my PS is not in control of their printer and even though I have Costco's ICC profile, it is only for soft proofing. Is this correct?
Is there any way I can get consistent and good quality prints from an online service? or am I limited to buying a good quality printer or take my pics to the local professional lab?
Chuong