budget minilab printing questions

[ampguy]

Couple of questions for you experts -- when a roll comes back on photocd and the images aren't as sharp as you know they should be, can you take the negatives to another lab and have them rescanned to photocd or is the lack of sharpness in the negatives?

what are other options for budget big prints other than costco (e.g. big prints < $10) ?? thanks.

 

[Stephanie Brim]

Believe it or not, and even I feel a little dirty for saying this, Wal-Mart near my home does excellent work with my color film. I take it in when a certain person is working and she knows exactly what I want done with it...I just have to drop off the film now. I haven't been shooting as much color lately, but I've only had a bad experience there once...and that was when some idiot did my film instead of the person I always have do it and they cut the film for the protectors directly *through the frame*...that person is no longer working there, IIRC.

And yes, take them to get them rescanned. It can't hurt...and some places have better scanners than others.

About big prints...I wouldn't trust them to a lab I didn't already know did good work. For prints I use a one hour place in a mall 20 miles from here...they do excellent work with enlargements and the prices aren't ungodly. I think it was around $5 for an 8x10 and $10 for an 11x14. They can also do digital prints of black and white in an hour.

 

[ClaremontPhoto]

Do the images need to be sharper, or do they need to be higher resolution?

Because the scanning resolution is only as much as the prints the opertaor expects to be - even though they are not actually printing. I took some back and asked for them to be scanned at maximum resolution and was pleased with the results.

One last thing, take a note of the manufacturer and model number of their printer, then find the manual online. This gives you the opportunity to say 'Yes, you can do it if you...' and tell them how to run their own machine.

 

[wlewisiii]

Walgreens does a good job for me. Plus an 8x10 from them is $3.99. The catch is you need to be certain that the operator actually knows the front from the back of the Fuji Frontier. I have two good operators at the one I use - strangely enough both shoot film 😉

William

 

[RayPA]

I think that most of the one-hour labs apply some sharpening when they scan to CD (they certainly apply their own "texturing" [scratches!]). You may want to ask one of the more competent ones what they do--regarding sharpening. It's possible that they didn't apply the sharpening or messed-up the AF.

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[ampguy]

Thanks all, this is great info. It's good to know that it's possible to go back to the negatives and possibly get sharper scans.

I agree that it's the operator, and not so much the chain or location. I am fortunate that at the walgreens I use for sale 8x10's (this week $1.99), they do a great job with the Frontier 340. Not as cheap as dual 8x10's for $2.99 at Costco, but more convenient.

Jon -- I think you're addressing 2 things. The latter, getting high res JPG's I envision as tricker than you say. Many labs around the west coast are shutting down negatives and CD for $3.99 and the few times I've asked a minilab operator if they could output larger jpg files, some said they didn't know how, and the ones that did know how said that not for the basic price, so apparently turning the knobs or entering the settings for larger scans costs more, as it does with online labs.

 

[venchka]

Yep, shop around with non-critical rolls of film. Case in point: Walgreens & Wolf Camera side by side and walking distance from the house. The Walgreens has machine & operator problems. Wolf Camera, for twice as much $$$ does a great job.

Scan size: Wolf does charge more for high-res scans (13.8 megapixels) simply because the scans take much longer to make. I was able to get them to match Walgreens 1800 x 1215 standard scans.

My latest "find" is Sam's Club. Last night I got processing, a CD with 2125 x 1523 scans, 2 index prints AND an index print on the CD for $2.90. However, the scans don't look as nice as the Wolf scans.

I need to try the local Wal-Mart & Target with some test rolls.

Current plan: Sam's for non-critical, highly experimental rolls of film and Wolf for critical work.

One more tip: 36 exposure rolls, processing & CD only, are the same price as 24 exposure rolls. Do the math. I get 3 rolls of 24 exposures for the price of 2! The problem is finding 36 exposure rolls of film. I guess I shall have to get my film in the mail.

ATTENTION: If you're shooting C-41 process B&W, make sure the operator knows where the B&W switch is. The folks at my Walgreens don't know. I quit going there.

Good luck!

 

[RayPA]

For color, I use Long's and Wolf/Ritz. The Long's is near my house, the Wolf/Ritz is near my work. I pay twice as much for develop-only/no cut/sleeve at Wolf/Ritz as I do for the same service at Long's, but then it's worth it to pay for the convenience.

I will not allow either to scan or print my negatives (it's bad enough just thinking about them putting my negatives in a no-cut sleeve). Longs did a great job of scanning but the negs were always scratched, the scans were always lower res and sometimes the sharpening was a little excessive/deceiving.



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