Post Processing & Printing

I have just finished Post processing a large batch of digital photos
taken by my during her recent holiday. Almost all were in need of
attention - some needed 'rescuing'as they looked unprintable straight
from the camera.

To my relief - and satisfaction - it was possible to make more than 90%
of the photos very printable. I uploaded these to Ofoto(Kodak) and the
7"x5"prints were back in 3 days and of excellent quality - printed on
Kodak DuraLife paper which is nice and contrasty.

Presumably, if non post- processed digital photos are sent to a digital
printing lab the prints would look just as indifferent/awful as the
unedited images, with no improvement of any sort being applied.

This makes me wonder what the large numbers of 'happy snappers') (of
which my daughter is one) who have no idea of the need or benefits of
post processing- or of how to achieve them - think of digital
photography when they have their prints back from the lab.

With film processing, it seems that although the printing may be by
machine,some 'improvement process'takes place, so that even poor
negatives can produce reasonable prints.

Isn't there a huge problem here, with the marketing of digital cameras
across the whole spectrum of photgraphers - from holiday
'snappers'/keen amateurs/ to professionals?
Denis Boisclair
Cheshire, England.