After I hose off the processing ladies... and stop busting Roger's bowling balls... I revert to the grim reality of only shooting 4x5 C-41 and having my friend Edgar process it (
http://4photolab.com, best lab in the world). Mostly I scan it on an Epson 700 and make prints on 11x17 Baryta inkjet paper using a balky Epson R3000 with the excellent Harrington Quadtone RIP for B&W. However my Epson recently bit the dust and I am reluctant to get another because my printing has fallen off along with Epson's quality control, so I happily use Eric at
http://www.booksmartstudio.com to print my portfolio and for sale prints as needed. I have fooled many people once these prints are under glass ~ but no digital print with ink on top of the paper will surpass a silver/fiber print in the nude.
If it is an especially worthy image then I will get a drum scan from Lenny at
http://www.eigerphoto.com in LA. And I have made some wonderful digital to Ilford silver-nitrate wet prints (i.e. conventional fiber-based, selenium toned photo paper) with Bob Carnie at
http://www.elevatordigital.ca in Toronto. All these people mentioned are world-class artists and craftsmen. They do not come as cheap as processing at Walgreens though....
I've had full Zone System calibrated darkrooms and used to work in labs, used to own an Iris printer, studied with Jon Cone, and did prepress for a living. Less and less I find the need to actually print anything unless I have sold it or need to hang it up. Prints in boxes do nothing and I have thrown 90% of mine away in the trash. I like making Blurb or MILK books (HP Indigo) for family and casual portfolios. I know how to print and what a good print looks like, and I highly recommend learning how to print... but you do need an outlet and there are less and less of them. I expect the craft to dwindle and die out since what I've seen from hobbyists are really muddy grey prints and the photo schools are not even teaching it anymore, so there is no criteria to measure quality... people pass absolutely horrible prints off as art and brag about using a roll of film, dust spots and sprocket marks are now a sign of authenticity rather than incompetence.
Same thing happened with Wet Plate printing 100 years ago... if you see a master print from the late 1800s the collidion pours are perfect and the plates are very even and clean. But today, the fine "artists" can't manage to do nearly as well and they go out of their way to muck it up, add twigs and lice to the emulsion... because they are too lazy to do it right IMHO. Then they call it art instead of what it really is... BS. This is what is happening with film photography as it becomes a novelty and artistic tic.
As for 35mm film, I had the revelation that the only reason I was using it was for the pleasure of handling a lovely old Leica or maybe getting something funky out of a Nikon, which wasn't much different than using an Instagram filter except that the dust and scratches were organic. Frankly it seems rather pointless to use 35mm film at all, once you get over the loss of using those wonderful old cameras. But you can always dry fire them without ammo ;-p
