I would call this not an "urban legend" but rather the case of the
"clueless clerk". No matter how many times you copy a digital file from
device to device it will remain unaltered. But I can certainly believe
that the clerk sees grainy 8x10's as a result of initially low
resolution images (I choose the small size because I can get 10,000
shots on one card :-)), extreme ISO on a camera that's already noisy at
ISO 80, too aggressive cropping by the owner at the editing kiosk or,
more likely at home if on a thumbdrive, images aggressively sharpened
in-camera for a 4x6 standard size print... and probably many more.
A well exposed, conservatively sized image from a DSLR is probably the
exception at the Wallyworld counter.
Chuck Norcutt
Willie Wonka wrote:
> Going back to the old country in two days and as part of gifts for
> friends, I decided to bring a few prints.
>
> I brought my pictures on a thumbdrive to the photo center at Walmart
> and before started to print, was approached by the girl working
> there, and told that "pictures that come off flash drives come out
> grainy on 8x10, it has something to do with how many times picture is
> transfered through different devices...It is best if you print
> straight out of the camera card"
>
> Being an adventurous guy and having hard time believing, I stuck the
> nerd chip (there is some slango for ya...), and went tthrough the
> process...Ten minutes later, I returned and she greeted me with a
> smile saying: "I think I know which picture is yours and it did not
> turn grainy..."
>
> So, whats the story...? I am thinking that there are several
> plausible explanations and all of them have sompin to do with
> processing within the machine. First comes to mind size and second
> noise in crappy digicams, third-sharpening and noise.
>
> I have no idea how this urban legend was started...it is an urban
> legend, right?
>
> Boris
>
> P.S. My picture was saved in .tiff and .jpeg formats. I printed ot
> of the tiff...
>
>
>
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