Thursday 14 November 2013

Professional Photographers Say PixiFoto has no place in the market

You may think that after years of complaints PixiFoto raised their standards or anything. They didn't, read the lucid analysis of a professional photographer (a true photographer not the trainees at PixiFoto) about why it's over the PixiFoto era.

I spent 3 years with Pixi Foto and I am in no way a fan. I saw their demise coming a mile away. Their problems were operational and their business model failed them. I have 13 years experience in the photography industry, and although there were staff that didn’t have experience,[...]

Horrible PixiFoto Portraits could make you win in tribunal

Knowing how much PixiFoto sucks it's not a surprise that a woman in Melbourne, Australia took legal action against them! You can read the full story on the Herald Sun website.

Excellent article, really, that perfectly recaps what i said in my previous articles:

  • poor quality
  • unprofessional service
  • no customer care, actually most often customers feel bullied
  • bloody expensive (for the quality)

I take better shots myself

And once again we hear a customer saying she can take better photos with her camera! Let me quote the article directly:
Meanwhile, she's bought herself a digital camera: "The photos I take are much better than theirs".

So, as you should know by now, my advise is simple. Buy a camera (or borrow it from a friend), use your mobile, hire a true professional! You WILL get better results!

All that glisters is not gold

PixiFoto deception explained

Just because you'll find PixiFoto studios inside reputable stores (like Mothercare) it doesn't mean they should be blindly trusted. Although this is a perfectly reasonable thing to do i'm of the opinion that honorable businesses like Mothercare and others should begin to be concerned whether the notorious poor quality, lack of customare care of Pixifoto are damaging their brands.

Unknown price list

I went into mothercare and asked about prices, but they couldn't give me a price range because it depends on what we choose, but we wanted to know roughly how much people paid for theirs. I thought they would have done packages [...]
source: babyandbump.momtastic.com

i absolutely agree about pixie photo! when i got photos done a few years ago they wee very cagey about telling you the price!
source: www.whoseview.ie

Bullying customers

glad they went bankrupt! ive used them a few times over the years and can honestly say the qualitty deteriorated over time. the pricing is absolute ridiculous and our made to feel lke crap if you dont wnat to buy a big package
source: www.womo.com.au

Would do better myself

Id have to agree with dyoga they did the same with the dark back round and my Son even though his has drown hair it was so dark that he blended into the back round and this was my second shoot cause in the first my daughters had and foot were cut off. Thay are not professionals at all !! I dont know how there getten away with it !! People must be blind Ive taken better myself.
source: www.rollercoaster.ie

PixiFoto - A regrettable choice

Aggressive sales, Poor customer care, Felt like we were on a production line

i'll keep this factual and to the point. On booking the shoot I told the girl we didn't want posed family shots and prefer natural looking pictures of us interacting with our baby. this was not taken into account and we were told where to sit/stand smile. we didn't get a say in what the photos looked like and whether we wanted to try something different. she kept saying 'whatever you want we can do' but when i said i like the natural looking picture you have on your display, she clearly didn't have the skill or experience to take a similar shot.

We felt constantly rushed and the furthest from relaxed you could possibly be. When returning 15 minutes later, again we were completely rushed into making decisions on the spot as to which photos we'd take, with a queue of people waiting the sales girl was getting more and more anxious as we went through them and we needed her to explain all the different prices and size combinations but she clearly didn't want to. She kept repeating the sales pattern of 'if you pay £450 you can have all the prints and the disc to print off your own, rather than help us make the right decisions on the shots we wanted. it was awful and my partner was furious with the fact that when we asked for some time to think and discuss what we wanted, we were met with the ultimate in aggressive, bullying sales speak of "if you don't pay today you'll lose the 60% discount". He was so angry he refused to pay for any. if you want a friendly, professional service where you can relax and have some control over what shots you'd like to have taken - do not go to pixifoto Harlow - other pixifotos may be better but this one in particular made us feel like we were on a production line as they then tried to bully us into paying the max amount just to get rid of us quickly - it was very sad and i'll shop around next time and tell all the new mums and NCT friends not to go there.

source: Ciao.uk

Furious with PixiFoto

Another unhappy customer

I am furious with Pixifoto. I just spent over an hour queuing then a twenty minute session and didn't get one decent photo.
The offer is £4.99 for a 'studio session' (which is actually just in the middle of the shop) and a free photo.
The website makes it sound as though any of the pictures they take can be a free one as long as there are no props etc.
Of the 12 photos they took, only one was half decent but they said I couldn't have that as my free one as it had a blue background (!!!).
The free one had to be one of the first four they took which had a white background (all four had one of my children either looking away or with eyes closed or doing that screwed up face smile that 4 year olds love to do).
When i said i wasn't happy with any of the 'free' ones, the photographer said "it's not really our fault if your child doesn't know how to smile".

My advice to anyone thinking of using them is try to make sure the first ones are good ones as this is what you have to choose from if you only want to pay the £4.99 or better still, avoid them altogether!

source: Netmums.com

Tuesday 12 November 2013

You suck You get sacked

See how they left 300 people without a job in the blink of an eye.

Random comment

Maybe if they didn't charge such a ridiculous amount for their photos , people would use them more. With mobile phones and personal cameras now taking better photos a posed cheesy expensive studio photo isn't very appealing.

You can find more comments here and here

Read also the warning message of this woman

PixiFoto - A Success Story

Looks like this woman has something very good to say about Pixifoto! Did we come across a rare Pixifoto success story?

Another Pixifoto Failure

Of course no! Just look at the picture the woman is so enthusiastically reviewing. Look at it and tell me if you couldn't have taken the same picture, with the same poor quality with your ipad/iphone/point&shoot camera. The answer is that had you taken the picture with your ipad, chances are you would have gotten a better result!

High Key - Low Skill

A Closer Look

I'm sure that you don't need me to tell you that the image above is technically unacceptable. Look at the whites (highlights). Don't you notice anything strange? Can you see the daddy is disappearing in the background? Looks like he misses one shoulder?
Look at the other highlights in the picture, you'll notice that all the whites are blown out. Check the man's forehead or the girls' socks. Highlights in the subject should not be blown out, there's no artistic reason to do it here. You may think that since this is an high-key portrait it's fine the highlights are washed out. Well, it is not! This photograph technically sucks. Full stop.

Conclusion

This is the quality you are going to find if you book a sitting with Pixifoto. It's the poor quality users are talking about in the online reviews i posted in my previous articles (in case you missed them you find links at the bottom of this post). Use your mobile or entry level dslr (a point & shoot will do it) and take better images, certainly more intimate and personal. And you know what? If the image you take is bad, you can delete it and take another one, for free!

Do you too think Pixifoto is not worth the dear price they ask? Let me know in the comments.

You may want to read also

The gift portrait lie
Pixifoto downs in his own crappiness
Low quality at a high price