What is wrong with these photos?

[NicoleScraps]

I have no idea which forum area to post these in. They are not my photos, so I didn't want to put them in the critique area...anyways.
I do the yearbook for my kids school. I got the disk of the individuals from the company that took the photos and they are very weird.
All of the kids hair looks like doll hair. It is much more pronounced in the blonds than the brunettes. And the poor teachers that have gray hair, OMG, it is horrible.
These are my two boys, I am posting only these, well for obvious reasons, because they are MY kids and I say that it is okay.

See, my youngest son (the blond) his hair is weird looking, but older son, the brunette is not as bad. I did purchase a print of these photos and they do not look like this in print. I have no idea what is wrong with these photos. What did they do to them? Should I go ahead and use them in the yearbook like this? Is there a quick and easy fix in PP that I can do to the almost 300 photos? Or should I start b*tching to the company?





Edit-here is my daughter's too. It is not just her hair, but her lip gloss and shirt (which was a plain 100% cotton white tank).



Thanks in advance!

[Niresangwa]

looks like a compression issue? maybe a clumsy sharpening job?

[troutwhisperer]

I concur with Niresangwa, post processing issue. I inadvertently created the same effect a couple a weeks ago on some family photos.

[autofocus]

What's the resolution of each...and megapixels of each? It does look like a cropping and/or resolution compression and over sharpened issue. Try printing one to about the size they'll be in the yearbook and see how that looks (set your printer to best quality when doing though)

[NicoleScraps]

Originally Posted by autofocus

What's the resolution of each...and megapixels of each? It does look like a cropping and/or resolution compression and over sharpened issue. Try printing one to about the size they'll be in the yearbook and see how that looks (set your printer to best quality when doing though)

They are 480x640 pixels and they go into the yearbook at about 1x2 inches each. I will try a test print and see how it looks.
Thanks everyone.

[autofocus]

Originally Posted by NicoleScraps

They are 480x640 pixels and they go into the yearbook at about 1x2 inches each. I will try a test print and see how it looks.
Thanks everyone.

Very small files, obviously very reduced (good enough for those small prints though) Keep us posted Nicole

[NicoleScraps]

AHHH, I showed these to the school principa (email her a few)l. She had a hissy, called the company and they are going to send us a new CD with "better" photos.
LOL.
They could not explain why this happened
So nevermind then. Thanks everyone.

[Twinpanther]

Looking at the Image Properties it says Print Size (from DPI): 4.1 x 5.4 cm; 1.6 x 2.1 inches.
Are you planning on using any of the images on a larger scale than wallet size? Could it have been agreed upon for them to supply this size only or could this be just a sample disc?

Kinda sounds like they are protecting their work by supplying only this size since the print you purchased looks fine.

[autofocus]

Originally Posted by NicoleScraps

AHHH, I showed these to the school principa (email her a few)l. She had a hissy, called the company and they are going to send us a new CD with "better" photos.
LOL.
They could not explain why this happened
So nevermind then. Thanks everyone.

I'd still love to see you print one at that 1x2 size, just to see how it looks. I think they may look OK, but we'll only know that if you print one

[Biomech]

I agree with the rest on the compression issue, but it also looks like light shine to me.