Interesting Walgreens photo war (almost) story ...

[RJBender]

There is a difference in dealing with a "side business" in a 5 and dime store and a professional lab. I quit Sam's club as Fuji's Processing, their contractor, had become so bad. They printed an entire roll out dark and of focus. I scanned a negative, and it was in focus. Brought into the store, they sent it back out to be redone. Talked to the "quality Control person". Came back properly exposed and out of focus. The Manager of the Photo department printed some for me on his machine, and sent it and my roll back for a third try stating the pictures were all in focus. Came back, in focus, properly exposed, scratched negatives.

Do Not use Fuji Processing.

Wal-Mart in the Midwest used to be better. My negatives were handled carefully and were never scratched. I quit using them two years ago because of all the scratches I started seeing on my negatives.

I switched to Sam's Club and they were doing a great job of handling my negatives. Recently, I got two rolls that were scratched but the prints were fine. The last two rolls I took in were for processing only and they didn't scratch the negatives.

Now I think it may be the machine doing the printing that's scratching my negatives. In some places, it looks like the emulsion is chipped. I suppose most people only get one set of prints and never use the negatives again. If they order prints later, the negatives are so scratched up the prints won't be any good.

Maybe some marketing guru determined that people are more likely to order doubles at the time of processing if the lab scratches up their negatives and makes it impossible to get good reprints later. Maybe the scratches are the result of inadequate machine maintenance or sloppy handling.

BTW, if you have 120 film developed by a pro lab, tell them you DON'T want them to cut your negatives. Several years ago I participated in a figure shoot at Stan Trampe's (click) studio. A few months later, I noticed that one of my negatives was missing. Ever since then, I tell the labs not to cut the negatives. They use a plastic sleeve and roll it up with a piece of tape.

R.J.

 

[KoNickon]

My local Walgreens does a great job with my prints, and pretty consistently so. So I'm very happy with their work (Fuji equipment -- I would not be happy if they were switching to Kodak). Too bad they don't do medium format, since the prints I've been getting from my local specialty store are generally not very good. Time for a good scanner, I guess!

I was in the Walgreens last night, and they seem to be running a special promotion on their Studio 35 200 speed film -- $1 for a roll of 24. This is printed right on the box, not a store special, and it's fresh (2007) stock. Their film is made by Agfa, and I find it to be excellent. (But then, I am a cheapskate with print film and see no reason to shell out for the "professional" level stuff.)

 

[nikon_sam]

I've been going to Ritz and getting DO/CD for some time now, they're sometimes taken aback when I do ask for prints.
I was having problems with them a while back at an older Ritz store with older equipment but now there is a newer location with NEW equipment. Nice clean negs without the scratches and lint.
Just a side note...Last time at Ritz I bought some 35mm film, she grab a 24 exposure roll instead of the 36 that I was asking for and then gave me the total for the 20 rolls of film. I couldn't believe the film price and questioned her about it but she said that was the price for the film. After leaving I found a receipt for the last batch of film I had bought there and took it back to her. She then said "Well that's for the 36 exposure roll".

"WHAT??"

$3.98 for a roll of 24
$2.19 for a roll of 36

Same film, different price...???

I told her not to say a word to anyone...

 

[Heath]

Here in Australia we don't have Walgreens, but we do have small photo lbs (minilab machines) inside department stores (K-Mart, Big W, even Woolworths supermarket). Here in my suburb we have a relatively new Fuji store and I use him all the time. He has a Frontier and he knows how to use it. He used to run (still does but his wife is always there) the local Kodak store which I used to frequent all the time, but the Kodak place doesn't do 120 wheras the Fuji one does. I have recently started to have him develop and sleeve only. The saving is amazing.

35mm develop, print and CD: $20
35mm develop only: $3
120 develop, print and CD: $30
120 develop only: $5

He is more than happy doing this for me. He knows I have recently purchased a decent scanner (Epson Perfection 4490) for my negs and that is why I don'y need the prints done. He is a great guy and I will recommend him to anyone.

Heath

 

[Richard Black]

I have use Walgreens, Walmart, MotoPhoto, and a local photo shop here in N.W. Ok. I have all of them develop, print, and CD copy. There is a difference in each. Three use Fuji equipment and the local photo shop uses an Agfa machine. The local photo shop and MotoPhoto will do 120 in addition to 35. Quality in descending order is Photo Shop (Cliff's), MotoPhoto, Walgreens and Walmart. None have given me the problems any of you mention. 😉 And I am glad about that.
I have noticed a difference in the CDs however. The CD from Cliff's and Walgreens operates quickly and has the highest resolution. Motophoto CDs has it own software built in and it is slower and the resolution is lower. Walmart's CDs are acceptable but not the best. Has anyone else compared the CDs from other comapnies to say Walmart?

 

[johne]

I found the resolution of Cds from Walgreen to be about 120KB; not good enough for my needs [300dpi]. Johne

 

[thpook]

Now I think it may be the machine doing the printing that's scratching my negatives. In some places, it looks like the emulsion is chipped. I suppose most people only get one set of prints and never use the negatives again. If they order prints later, the negatives are so scratched up the prints won't be any good.

Maybe some marketing guru determined that people are more likely to order doubles at the time of processing if the lab scratches up their negatives and makes it impossible to get good reprints later. Maybe the scratches are the result of inadequate machine maintenance or sloppy handling.

BTW, if you have 120 film developed by a pro lab, tell them you DON'T want them to cut your negatives. Several years ago I participated in a figure shoot at Stan Trampe's (click) studio. A few months later, I noticed that one of my negatives was missing. Ever since then, I tell the labs not to cut the negatives. They use a plastic sleeve and roll it up with a piece of tape.

R.J.

Actually, the likely culprit isn't the printer, it's the processing. I used to work in a photo lab, and I was the guy who diligently cleaned the machines in the mornings. The C-41 chemistry has to be at a precise temperature, and there is evaporation. What happens is the evaporate crystallizes on the rollers in the film path, and the crystals scratch the delicate emulsion. The solutions are to go to a professional lab, drop it off for 1 hour later in the day after everyone else has gotten their negatives scratched and worn off the crystals, or talk with the manager and ask him if they clean the film path every day. If he says yes, tell him that you absolutely will not pay if the negatives are scratched (Seriously, it costs less than 5 cents to develop a roll. They aren't actually out much money if you don't pay.). If he says no, say thank you, and you have lost a customer until you begin to do that.

 

[RJBender]

My local Walgreens does a great job with my prints, and pretty consistently so. So I'm very happy with their work (Fuji equipment -- I would not be happy if they were switching to Kodak). Too bad they don't do medium format, since the prints I've been getting from my local specialty store are generally not very good. Time for a good scanner, I guess!

I was in the Walgreens last night, and they seem to be running a special promotion on their Studio 35 200 speed film -- $1 for a roll of 24. This is printed right on the box, not a store special, and it's fresh (2007) stock. Their film is made by Agfa, and I find it to be excellent. (But then, I am a cheapskate with print film and see no reason to shell out for the "professional" level stuff.)

Thanks for the tip, Nick! I picked up 6 rolls this afternoon. I've got the Rolleikin in my Rollei and 2 Kievs that need to be fed.

R.J.

 

[RJBender]

Actually, the likely culprit isn't the printer, it's the processing. I used to work in a photo lab, and I was the guy who diligently cleaned the machines in the mornings. The C-41 chemistry has to be at a precise temperature, and there is evaporation. What happens is the evaporate crystallizes on the rollers in the film path, and the crystals scratch the delicate emulsion. The solutions are to go to a professional lab, drop it off for 1 hour later in the day after everyone else has gotten their negatives scratched and worn off the crystals, or talk with the manager and ask him if they clean the film path every day. If he says yes, tell him that you absolutely will not pay if the negatives are scratched (Seriously, it costs less than 5 cents to develop a roll. They aren't actually out much money if you don't pay.). If he says no, say thank you, and you have lost a customer until you begin to do that.

Thanks for the inside information, Pook. I'll talk to the manager and see what kind of cleaning schedule they have for the processor. If that doesn't resolve the problem, I'll contact Fuji. Afterall, if the labs aren't following the proper maintenance procedures it will eventually hurt Fuji's reputation.

R.J.

 

[cbass]

As a follow up to my eariler post, I talked to the photo techs at my local CVS and found that they will do DO/CD orders if asked. The tech I spoke with was pretty well-versed in the process but I guess not all of the CVS photo employees know how to complete DO/CD requests.

Price was $2.50 for processing and $1.99 for the CD (24 exposures). I gave them a roll of color and a roll of c-41 B&W. The chromogenic B&W scans all looked good, the color were so-so. Sample below is from the C-41 B&W.

I didn't ask directly, but I got the impression that CVS doesn't advertise the DO/CD service but will happily perform it if asked.

Thanks for the great topic. I learned something new 🙂 .

 

[dmr]

I didn't ask directly, but I got the impression that CVS doesn't advertise the DO/CD service but will happily perform it if asked.

That's always been my impression about Walgreens. I'm sure that prints are very high markup, but I'm sure they are not losing $$$ on a DO/CD job.

OBTW, I took a roll over to the Walgreens where Jack got thrown out of and asked for a DO/CD. I didn't give my phone number until I asked if they do it -- this was a different lady than was there last week -- and she didn't even bat an eye, just asked me when I wanted to pick it up. 🙂 I described her to Jack and he said this was most likely the lady who refused to do it for him. I guess the word was effectively passed down from corporate. 🙂

 

[dmr]

Has anyone else compared the CDs from other comapnies to say Walmart?

At least at the stores I regularly use, Walgreens and Wally World, they all use similar Fuji Frontier machines. Their standard scan comes out to just over a megabyte in a .jpg file. If I resample at 300dpi and don't crop too much, I can get an acceptable almost 8x10 print off of most photos, but I can tell the difference in quality when I scan myself at 3200dpi and make an 8x10 out of about 1 7 megabyte .jpg file or about 18 megabyte .tif file.

A local independent lab does fairly decent 3+ megabyte .jpg scans, what they call "medium res", and I have a hard time telling them from the Walgreens 1 mb scans.

I gave up on Target' after they changed personnel, started scratching negatives (I actually blamed the power-rewind on the little Olympus for a while) and doing really nasty jobs on the scans. I think this Target' used Kodak equipment.

 

[ben]

Hey, no giving away the secret about CVS. It's generally the best deal I've found, with one glaring exception:

I dropped off 16 rolls for DO/CD at the Diversey and Western (Chicago) CVS. Lots of scratches on the film. The scans were abysmal, there is something seriously wrong with their scanner. I called to complain and didn't get a call back.

Ben

 

[George S.]

If anyone has the choice, I'd like to suggest using a store in your area that DOESN'T have their own machines. I know it'll add a day to the time it takes, and you may feel they can possibly lose the film, but I go directly to the large Fuji "outlet" store near where I live. It's a huge warehouse where they process film they pick up from and deliver to hundreds of stores, like supermarkets, drug stores, etc. Never had a problem like scratched negs, balled-up negs, weird colors on prints, etc. Only had them "lose" 1 roll in many years, and they even found it after a while and properly processed it. (This one's in New Jersey)

 

[RJBender]

If anyone has the choice, I'd like to suggest using a store in your area that DOESN'T have their own machines. I know it'll add a day to the time it takes, and you may feel they can possibly lose the film, but I go directly to the large Fuji "outlet" store near where I live. It's a huge warehouse where they process film they pick up from and deliver to hundreds of stores, like supermarkets, drug stores, etc. Never had a problem like scratched negs, balled-up negs, weird colors on prints, etc. Only had them "lose" 1 roll in many years, and they even found it after a while and properly processed it. (This one's in New Jersey)

Hi George,

I used the 1-2 day service at Sam' Club several years ago and they never scratched my negatives. What I didn't like was that they didn't use plastic sleeves for the negatives. They just stuffed them in the envelope behind the prints. Is your lab putting your negatives in sleeves?

R.J.