I have thoroughly enjoyed each and every image of this long thread.
Some thoughts:
I agree that Kodachrome processed by Kodak was best. It had the deepest blacks, the most subtle tonalities, the best detail and finest grain.
Many independent labs processed Kodachrome up until the late 80s/early 90s, including some pretty low end "grocery store" labs with very lax quality control. These types of labs could make Kodachrome look pedestrian, and even downright ugly, with poor color rendition, grain, and dirt. Kodak, being forced by anti-trust legislation into allowing independent labs to proliferate (and operate on an honor system) was a large reason why Kodachrome fell out of favor in the 70s-90s in my view. (Well, that...and newer films, like Velvia).
This was a conundrum that left Kodachrome, with its complicated processing regimen, in a difficult position. People also were becoming more and more accustomed to the near-instant gratification of 1-hour and overnight processing and Kodachrome would surely have died even faster if they hadn't allowed other labs to process it. Back then film developing was a competitive business driven largely by price. (I remember our local grocery chain, King Soopers, charged $1.59 to process either Super 8 or a roll of Kodachrome or Ektachrome slides, and continued to do so for well over a decade until the early 90s). The K-lab in the late 90s was Kodak's attempt to reign this problem in and provide faster turnaround with better quality, but it was too little too late.
As a youngun' in the 80s I didn't know much about processing qualities, and by the time I figured it out, Kodak had all but closed their labs.
Dwayne's got their K-14 processing machine from Kodak Dallas which was the last Kodak lab in the USA. The Kodak Lab in Lausanne, Switzerland held out for a couple more years (after Dallas) and was the last Kodak lab in the world. Then it was all Dwayne's game until the end.
Up until the early 80s there was an official Kodak K-14 lab in every US region: Seattle, Palo Alto, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, Atlanta, Fairlawn, NJ, Honolulu and probably several others I've forgotten.
Kodachrome II and the K-12 process from approx 1960-1972 was the most beautiful IMO and proudly displays all the most iconic qualities of Kodachrome. A big reason for that is the more stringent processing quality control, mostly all performed by Kodak, of that period.
When Kodachrome was revamped with K-14 processing in 1972, it seems their processing formulas became "open source" and up until the 80s, one could buy Kodachrome II "knock off" films made by Ferrania (sold as 'Dynachrome' and under the Kmart "Focal" brand in the US). GAF/Ansco had their version as well. These K-12 process films should exhibit the same dye stability of Kodachrome II. There is one roll of "Focal Chrome" K-12 Super 8mm in my archive from about 1983 and it looks just as lovely as Kodachrome.
OK, that's all for now...Please keep those beautiful images coming!
