Does anywhere (shops/online) still do wet printing?

dan_yell

dan_yell

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It's been a good few years since I got photos printed and it seems in that time that most of the usual suspects have moved into dry labs and away from traditional wet printing.

I'm aware that quality of dry labs has improved hence the switch but visually I am just not that keen. Does anyone know anywhere that still does wet printing? Either a shop or online - I'd like to get some prints done, even if just to compare what Snappy snaps have just provided for me to see if it's all in my head. Annoyingly I asked them if it was traditional printing (I meant wet lab but did not refer to it as such) and they said yes but clearly I was not specific enough as I could tell it wasn't. I need to get reprints anyway as I think the image has distorted via their software as well so need to get a comparison.

Realise I am stuck in the past (used to work in labs about 20 years) but wondered if anyone had any recommendations

Thanks
 
I've no idea, but might it be worth trying a better 'dry' lab than snappy snaps first?
I imagine it'll be a lot cheaper and I'm sure you'll get several recommendations from people here, such as dscl who I'd suggest are a notch up from snappy snaps and I doubt they are much more expensive..
To be honest here I'm not sure what a wet lab is for printing from digital (I did have a darkroom back in the day so understand that part of it)
 
dan_yell said:
It's been a good few years since I got photos printed and it seems in that time that most of the usual suspects have moved into dry labs and away from traditional wet printing.

I'm aware that quality of dry labs has improved hence the switch but visually I am just not that keen. Does anyone know anywhere that still does wet printing? Either a shop or online - I'd like to get some prints done, even if just to compare what Snappy snaps have just provided for me to see if it's all in my head. Annoyingly I asked them if it was traditional printing (I meant wet lab but did not refer to it as such) and they said yes but clearly I was not specific enough as I could tell it wasn't. I need to get reprints anyway as I think the image has distorted via their software as well so need to get a comparison.

Realise I am stuck in the past (used to work in labs about 20 years) but wondered if anyone had any recommendations

Thanks
Click to expand...

Your are fortunate that you have the necessary experience.

I have read of a company in Manchester which will rent out darkroom space by the half day, providing chemicals and paper also IIRC.

I will be interested in replies to this as I want "real" prints of a negative.
 
Nik and Trick in the "Old High St" (Folkestone) are "Excellent" with anything analogue, Developing, Printing, Film & Chemical Sales, etc, etc and are very reliable. I know them well as when I'm not at my London place I live in the Folkestone area. Check out their website I'm pretty sure you'll find everything you want.
 
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stevewestern said:
I've no idea, but might it be worth trying a better 'dry' lab than snappy snaps first?
I imagine it'll be a lot cheaper and I'm sure you'll get several recommendations from people here, such as dscl who I'd suggest are a notch up from snappy snaps and I doubt they are much more expensive..
To be honest here I'm not sure what a wet lab is for printing from digital (I did have a darkroom back in the day so understand that part of it)
Click to expand...

When i worked in a couple of high street developers back in the early/mid 2000s, and then in a photography job around 2007-2012, the labs we had were printing from digital using wet labs/chemicals - the last machine in the high street job i used processed the film and printed the photos, and had an input in the front for cds and digital media to print from - the move away to dry labs seemed to be starting just the 2007-2012 stint, and it seems the full switch has become more the norm now.

i can see why high street places would move away from it (it was not fun cleaning the machine, emptying the machine of the waste chemicals which then had to be collected as they contained silver, having my head buried in the side of the machine when the belts went wonky etc etc) because of the improvement in technology but theres just something missing in the look of them for me.

and i do take your point that Snappy Snaps are not the pinnacle of quality so might not be the best example, though they did rave about the Epson they were using.
 
dan_yell said:
When i worked in a couple of high street developers back in the early/mid 2000s, and then in a photography job around 2007-2012, the labs we had were printing from digital using wet labs/chemicals - the last machine in the high street job i used processed the film and printed the photos, and had an input in the front for cds and digital media to print from - the move away to dry labs seemed to be starting just the 2007-2012 stint, and it seems the full switch has become more the norm now.

i can see why high street places would move away from it (it was not fun cleaning the machine, emptying the machine of the waste chemicals which then had to be collected as they contained silver, having my head buried in the side of the machine when the belts went wonky etc etc) because of the improvement in technology but theres just something missing in the look of them for me.

and i do take your point that Snappy Snaps are not the pinnacle of quality so might not be the best example, though they did rave about the Epson they were using.
Click to expand...
I never knew about this, always thought that when digital arrived that using chemicals and trays (OK, machines too) just disappeared.
Thanks for that!
 
I reprinted a couple of the least liked photos from snappy snaps using photobox (I realise this is also not the optimity of quality) and they look better - the snappy prints are darker and to me looks like a colour photocopy because the darkness muddies the print. But the squishedness I noticed I'm not sure if is better.

Not sure I can bothered to go and argue the point and the bulk of the photos were for a specific purpose and don't have the energy to deal with it but I just won't be using them again!
 
AG photo in Birmingham still operate their C41/E6 labs as well as B&W. Also try NIk&Trick in Folkestone are just 2. That answers the question but have you tried Googling to find others?
 
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