What the duece?

So I sent some pictures to Costco electronically on their website. I sent them a 78.4MB file in TIF format. (yep, they do print those.)I got the print back and it looks ok. But, it also shows this, which is interesting, right on the summary portion. It says 5MB. Do they severely downsample the photos when they print??

I should amend this by saying I can't ask them about it because they "just work here", and likely don't even know what that portion means. They're never really that helpful when I ask them things and pretty dismissive about everything like working there is such a chore..

That's the problem with stores, nobody knows anything or even knows were to find the answer (if they even cared to). If you do get an answer from anyone about that you'll have to wonder if it's the truth!

Nations photo is great price and quality wise, for future reference.

i hate how I have to sign up and give info away just to see their pricing schema though..

Yes, but I find it's worth it, even if it costs more. When you think about it, with all we spend on cameras, lenses, gear, do we really want a big box store printing our artwork to save a couple bucks? I like knowing that what I am getting is as good as I can produce and not degraded in anyway by a second rate printer.

This is very true. And, I don't print that often. I was just curious what that "5MB" stamp on it meant. Perhaps it indeed is as large a file that was printed as I sent to them, I just don't know. It's a very strange thing to see on a file that you know you didn't take with your cell phone!