Ok, I got my 12x12-resized-to-8x8-dropped-on-an-8x10-canvas LO back today and it came out AWFUL!
It looks like the resolution is wrong. It reminds me of a photo copied and saved off the Internet and then printed. The size is right; I have two inches of white space at the bottom of my LO, but the LO is really dark. I asked the girl working at the photo counter why it came out so poorly if I created and saved at 300 dpi. She looked at me like I was from the moon, so I figured she had no idea what I was talking about.
She said, "Maybe you should set it higher."
I'm going to re-read Maryanne's post. Maybe I'll try her suggestion and see what happens.