Rating: 3.5 stars Picture People is a fairly average mall photography studio for family photos. Pricing is quite steep but since our family takes family photos every 5-10 years it's not too bad as a splurge cost. The photo qualities are ok but poses are pretty generic. However, our photographer was very friendly and willing to work with us. She spent a lot of time with us because the store had fairly low traffic and so we had lots of time to figure out our packages etc. We were in the store for around 2 hours in total and there was no one else there at the time except for the photographer when we were there Monday morning and afternoon. read more

I've been going here for almost two years and am just about done. They take great photos but they simply don't value your time. Also, as they are not a franchise you need to bring your photo program enrollment card in every time and hope you don't lose it if you want to use it. Night or day, weekday or weekend they are understaffed and overbooked. Expect to wait an extra 20-60 minutes past your appointment time to be seen and another 20-40 minutes after that to review your photos. Then another 15 minutes or so to pick up your pictures (the only reasonable part). read more

I Havent been to Picture People since they reopened and I'm so disappointed in how my pics turned out. When I got home my husband was livid and wants me to return them because be said we could of taken better pics on our phone. So disappointing read more

I decided to try The Picture People at the Fox Valley Mall after reading some reviews on another review site for Zach. I was a bit skeptical as these were First Communion portraits and I really wanted some special poses. Zack did not dissapoint. My daughter was happy, I was happy, and we cam home with some great pictures...for a great price. Comparable quality to the professional shots I had taken of my son the year prior. read more

Prop city at this popular mall photography spot. I noticed several of the plastic ducks, flowers and firetrucks the youngsters pose with are dirty - it really shows in the pictures. Long waits for walk-ins, so get an appointment. Prints cost as much as they do anywhere else, so think seriously about how much the results mean to you in the long run. Here, the photographers take about 12 shots and you're outta there - not very many of mine turned out all that great. So you might get lucky, or you might want to spend a couple hundred to an awesome photographer who will give you 60-90 minutes and photos you'll love. read more

It doens't get any worse Simply put the guarantee on their website stating that you will receive professional photographs taken by a highly skilled professional and it comes with a 100% satisfaction guarantee is some BS!##. This is absolutely the worse photo experience that my family and I have ever had. If you want professional pictures then trust me don't waste your time or money you don't want to go here hated it two thumbs down I would not recommend this place to my enemy if I had one. - An Extremely Unsatisfied Customer| Fox Valley Mall| Aurora, IL read more

I bought a coupon from Living Social for $18 and it lets me choose one pose and sheets of photos with multiple sizes. The photographer takes about 12 poses though and I get to choose the one that I like best. The overall experience was good. The photographer and the staff were accommodating. I did not feel like I was being rushed at all. Sure, they are not your regular professional photo studio where you pay a ton of money. They pretty much took the digital copies from their camera and fed them through a software and printed them. The pictures came out great though and comparable to some other established studios. The service was great and they know what they are doing. I would come back but I heard they were closing. read more

Went here only because the Groupon was too good to good to pass up. Kristal, was our photographer and really exceeded all expectations of a stand alone portrait place. She's a mother of 4 and you can tell she has a special way with the kiddos. My one year old was not warming up right away, but she allowed me to leave for awhile and get him to perk up. The pics came out great. They have a fair selection of props and you can also bring some in. My suggestion is to get a nice calm week day appt if your schedule allows. Lots of personal attention. Short wait for the selected photo prints and a discount on all purchases if you came in with groupon. Glad I tried this place out! read more

Continuing with my Groupon obsession, I purchased a Groupon for an $18 portrait package. I went in with low expectations knowing this place is expensive and they just try to up sell you the whole time. We arrived really early for our appointment and they were quick to get us in. My son has a short attention span and the photographer was quick and attentive. As predicted the extras were crazy expensive $20 for a sheet of pictures. In the past you had to wait for the pictures to be processed, now they print in seconds and there is no need come back. The pictures better than expected and the people are really nice. read more

I went in to try this place because of a groupon I bought. I called the morning of and asked about walk in or appointment and the girl said I should definitely book an appointment and gave me a 1pm time slot. I showed up (on a Thursday) and the photographer was ready for me, I had no wait, which is great since I was getting kid pics of a 1 year old and 4 year old. I asked how long the session is and she said the groupon photo session is about 20 minutes. However the photographer was so nice, she did go way over that. There was no one else waiting though, so if someone was waiting I'm sure she would have stuck to the 20 minutes. I was glad we had more time since the 1 year old wasn't being easy. The photo props they had weren't that great so I would recommend bringing your own props if possible. I really had no idea what to expect but I think next time I'll bring a suitcase of stuff and just see what my kids are willing to pose with. At the end of the session, I waited just a few minutes while she loaded up the photos and we went through the pics on a monitor. I was really surprised how many actually turned out even though my 1 year old was crying so much! I did buy the CD and 2 extra sheets, but honestly I wasn't that impressed with the printing quality of the sheets. You do get them right away but I am very picky about quality so that's why I didn't give this 5 stars. pros- my photographer, no wait, easy to do, not that expensive cons- quality of prints, quality of props available read more

I still love the pictures but honestly the back and forth is annoying. I've had the membership and used it three times. Two of those three times they called with very little notice to tell me they couldn't accommodate my appointment. The other time was the fiasco with their decision to close that location and then their just as quick decision to keep it. So technically they rescheduled all three of my appointments. Then one day they tell me I can use a Groupon with my order and the next time they tell me I can't. I'm disappointed with this membership and will not be purchasing it next year. read more

Session at 1110am , cd was supposed to be ready in 20 minutes and no one could find it when I came to pick up at 4pm. Had to wait for them to make a new one. What is especially interesting was that literally no one was there this morning so I don't understand why this was not done earlier. Also aggravated that they took a photo of my son with a new green screen but failed to tell me that if I want that picture I have to pay an extra $5 to set a backdrop. What a scam, won't be back. read more

Unexpected Experience ... Today I had an appointment for retakes and when I arrived no one was there and the lights were off. I was confused about what to do until I read a sign saying to go to JCP for portraits. I called JCP portraits and they informed me that the company is no longer in business and they were sorry for the mishap. Now I'm stuck with pictures I'm not satisfied with, no retakes, and photos I can't even order. I'm pissed read more

I went there yesterday for my sons fall photos and they failed to offer me different backgrounds, the fall props (I had to ask for them), and the photographer seemed extremely tired or like she absolutely hated her job. She didn't make any noises to grab my 11 month old's attention, and she just sat there on the floor. THEN! When I went to check out, they printed my photos with the dirty floor not photoshopped out (like EVERY OTHER picture people does) so now my nice 11x13 you can see black streaks from the dirty floor. The people working there are uneducated on basic retail and crabby. I wish I would have went to the Orland store where I ALWAYS leave a happy customer. PS, my name is Samantha Schwenn and I have no problem disclosing that I can be contacted at samantha.schwenn@yahoo.com by the Picture People company for resolution with this issue. Otherwise, everyone I know will be recommended to stay far away from this store. read more

I loved going to the Picture People in Oakbrook mall and was never disappointed. I decided to try a last minute appointment in the Sears department of Fox Valley mall since I live closer to there. I will start by saying I will never go to that location again! The photographer completely ignored every simple request we had. I told her from the beginning that I did not like the red and brown wood background with brown carpet. She continued to keep taking tons of pictures with that background. We had to ask her three times to change it and she finally did to plain white and took a only few photos then changed to black. All the cute poses were with the background we didn't like. We also asked that she include my daughters bunny in the photo and she kept taking the bunny out of the photos. She must have taken a 100 pictures at least and at the end only gave us about 10 to choose from. To top it off, we asked what picture packages they had and she said $18/sheet. I asked for a pricing sheet to show us different options and she said there was not one! We bought two sheets and left. read more

Very Disappointing!!!! A new company bought them, and got rid of all internet viewing of pictures, a reason I go there, so family out of state can look at them and order them. As part of the picture club, you were guaranteed a year of holding the photos, and now you get only 24 hour viewing at the store. Go to Sears, JC Penney or a small studio. You will get better customer service and pictures. Unhappy that I am stuck with the picture club membership that we don't even get to use. read more

Poor customer experience and amateur photographers! My husband and I went in with our 6 month old daughter and in laws for a session and had a disappointing experience. The photographer, Tn, used the wrong backgrounds and pose which made the photos look bad. We trusted his expertise and clearly that didn't work well. I called the manager of the store the next day to provide formal feedback and she did nothing to address my issues except express shock that I was disappointed with the pictures. This was our second visit the store and I had gone in based on the wonderful experience I had with Silka the first time. I wouldn't recommend this studio to anyone moving forward. When scheduling photo shoots with infants, I'd expect the studio personnel to understand the efforts it takes to prepare for it. read more

Very disappointed. they did not tell us to take off the glasses and remind us they are using flashing shot.

Awful. To say the absolute least. They did have a package deal for $18. Made and appointment at 3:10 for Sunday. We arrived at 3. Expecting to get taken in earlier we were wrong. There was absolutely no seating for myself and boyfriend due to the amount of people packed in. We didn't even get started until 3:30. The photographer was EXTREMELY inexperienced. She didn't even try to get my children's attention, or make them smile, she seemed to be annoyed with them. I said I did not want pictures of my boys separated and pretty much told me too bad she would be doing it. After the pictures were done, we were told uploading them would take maybe 10 minutes. It took 20-25. The woman selecting out pictures with us was in "training." So I expected her to be slow, but someone should have been assisting her. We left and said we'd be back in and hour to pick up the pictures. We came back and thank god they were done, but unfortunately they were all awful. WAY too dark. Every single one of them. When I asked them to reprint them and lighten them I was told "to reprint them it will be added on to the price." Seriously? I freaked out and they reprinted the largest picture and we got the hell out of there. If you want SHITTY pictures and awful service sure, go here. We will never go back. read more

We just tried this location again for the 3rd time in the interest of time effort to be more budget conscious for holiday photos. I agree with the other review, the props are very dirty, the photographers rush the session and ours was NOT good at all with kids. I did purchase some shots for our Christmas cards, but will not be going back. The first time I visited this location in 2006, we had a great photographer. The second session, a poor photographer and I vowed not to go back. This time the shots were not good and the sales person (not photog) was very pushy and impatient. I understand they are busy. However, they could definitely increase sales with more patient and experienced photographers who can get a smile out of kids who are intimidated by the bustling atmosphere and the big lights. It's a little more pricey, but last year we did our shots at Flash! Digital Photography on the 2nd level of the mall. We loved the photos and it was worth the 1-week wait to pick them up. They do a great job and the photographers are much more experienced and get much better results. I saw that the wonderful photographer we first used at Picture People now works there. I'll be going there next time for sure. read more

I was in for picture not to long ago and it was awful. We weren't payed any attention at all! I'm not sure if it's because we didn't have an appointment but there was only 1 mother there with her 1 child. There were 2 employees working that day. 1 was taking pictures of the child that was there before us and the other employee was just standing at the front entrance, not doing anything. She didn't even acknowledge us as we arrived and walked in. I asked if the head manager of the store was working. I couldn't remember his name, but last time we were there he was so friendly and great with my kids. She said that he no longer worked there and that means he was holding that place together. Now that he is gone, so are we. read more

I have gone to the Picture People for the last 14 years for pictures and unfortunately because of poor customer service I will not be returning. When we got there we checked in and were asked if we had any coupons. I stated that we had a 25% of coupon and she noted it with our session information. We then waited 45 minutes past our appt time which is definitely not fun with 7 children in our group. When we were finally called back there was no, "thank you for your patience" or anything. However I didn't let it run our night. The photographer was fine. Not fantastic but friendly. Afterwards she said it would be 10-15 minutes to view pictures and of course it turned out to be 25. Then when we sat down with "Crystal" if that is even her real name, she sounded disgusted when I wasn't interested in spending $500 on pictures. When we finally decided on a package and were being rung up I asked if they needed the coupon code and she said, "oh that's not valid for this package". When we asked why they were trying to sell us a package that wasn't included they couldn't respond. Only saying that we could start over and do just sheets instead. REALLY?! and waste now of our time? I was prepared to buy the package anyway but when we spoke with the so called manager and there was still no apology for the wait or the misunderstanding I was done. I chose to just buy the cd (saving about $125). Even then there was no apology. When being rung up for the CD I told them that this was poor customer service and at the very least I thought that we deserved an apology. I was answered with a "here's your cd, have a good night". I truly don't mind that we couldn't use the coupon, but I've worked in customer service most of my life and I was disgusted by the attitudes that we experienced. I hope the corporate office addresses these employees appropriately or their stores will continue to close. I have left a message with them as well. We'll see if I hear back...... read more