This disaster began when we first received our daughter's pose proofing form from the company after her initial photos were taken. It contained not our daughter's poses, but another individual entirely with our daughter's name on the photos. I called in to the service line to inform the company that this was not our daughter on the photo form. It initially seemed that the people at the company had little clue as to what was going on, because it took them 2 days before they could return the call and state that a new proof packet would be on the way to us. They could not explain why we were sent pictures of a BOY with a prominent female name on them.
I had asked about the company's digital photo retouching process they offered for additional costs, and was persuaded into believing that the company could remove our daughter's braces on her teeth to produce a good looking smile using a digital computer program in the photos. Somewhat uncertain about this process myself, it was discussed with our daughter, and she wanted to try the poses this way. What a mistake this was going to turn out to be.
After paying a good amount of money for the proofed poses we approved of, the photo package that we received looked horrendous and nothing like what we approved. Our daughters mouth was completely dis-figured. It looked like the company simply used another persons mouth and pasted it in. The teeth were much bigger than her own that were under the braces. I don't know if a computer performed this process or if a human was actually involved, but it didn't appear so. Our daughter was nearly in tears after seeing these photos.
That would not be the only edited mistake made by the service. She was also born with a dark birth mark on her left cheek that should be visible in the photos. This birthmark had been swiped clean from her face in the pictures. We surely did not ask of this in the retouch. Looking at the photos we received, you would literally not believe it was the same girl as our daughter.
I called in shortly after to express our disgust with the photo retouching service. I was treated over the phone as if this was our fault for "choosing the service". It was like we were supposed to expect the photos to be this bad or something. The woman finally acknowledged that the birthmark was gone although we didn't request it to be removed. Sick of the company attitude during the conversation, I merely wanted the issue resolved so we could just get some normal pictures. We were now offered a replacement package without the retouching service, and get this, a MERE REFUND for the retouching service alone. Even though all of this was done wrong by the company, we were not given any sort of compensation or upgrade for the troubles and delays. Talk about a STINGY company.
More waiting games were played and our daughter finally received the untouched photo package. We open them expecting normal pictures (how hard can it be?) and immediately notice the lighting in these photos is not the same. The lighting was much darker than the first screwed up package we had just received, almost like these new photos were now underexposed. I was in utter disgust. At this point, we decided it would be in our best interests to eat the loss and save ourselves from wasting any more time with this photo company.
My word of advice to anyone considering HR Imaging is to steer clear of this company's services if you want to avoid a possible disaster to your child's photo memories.
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