Pro lab vs Boots developing

steveo_mcg said:
That could just as easily be the film or the scanner settings. Its why, I think, most people end up buying their own scanner you can make your own decisions as to how the file looks.
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The film was all portra
 
medwaygreen said:
Why oh why are you guys not using Photo express in Hull for your Dev and scan, we TP members get a discount after the first two rolls of .50p per roll and the results have never been in question.
Unfortunately they only do C41 B&W, but have a look and the turn around time is as little as 24 Hours, 36 at the most.

http://www.photo-express.co.uk/
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I'm sure if I shot a lot of 35mm C41 film I would happily use them but I usually have a mixture of 35mm/120/5x4 and very rarely shoot colour neg unless it's for testing purposes and although they only charge £2 to process only, by the time I've paid postage I may as well drop it into Tesco or Asda.
 
RaglanSurf said:
I'm sure if I shot a lot of 35mm C41 film I would happily use them but I usually have a mixture of 35mm/120/5x4 and very rarely shoot colour neg unless it's for testing purposes and although they only charge £2 to process only, by the time I've paid postage I may as well drop it into Tesco or Asda.
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How much does Tesco charge these day for dev and CD only....also what does Asda charge for dev and CD? As the girl at my Asda said it's 1.99 for dev and it's gone up to £1.98 for the CD :shrug:
 
excalibur2 said:
How much does Tesco charge these day for dev and CD only....also what does Asda charge for dev and CD? As the girl at my Asda said it's 1.99 for dev and it's gone up to £1.98 for the CD :shrug:
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I'm not totally sure Brian, haven't used them since last year, I think the last time it was 2.99 for process and scan at Asda and and £1.99 at Tesco but the Tesco ops were less conscientious than Asda's. But these prices always varied from branch to branch.
 
Robclarke said:
Isn't it better to get a print from the negative rather than a print from a scan of the negative?
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As said above, optical printing from negatives is pretty much dead these days, I only know of one lab that still does it exclusively that way. The main advantage of scan and laser/LED printing is that you can easily correct for white balance, underexposure etc whilst with the traditional optical method it was possible to correct for both but for it took much longer and was more difficult so few labs offered it except for pro labs (hence why you used to get little notes back with the prints about it being the 'wrong film' when you shot daylight film under tungsten lights and got an orange cast)

These days the scanners used by pro labs and in minilabs are so good (much better than anything consumer based) that its usually not possible to tell the difference between an optical and laser/LED print.
 
s162216 said:
As said above, optical printing from negatives is pretty much dead these days, I only know of one lab that still does it exclusively that way. The main advantage of scan and laser/LED printing is that you can easily correct for white balance, underexposure etc whilst with the traditional optical method it was possible to correct for both but for it took much longer and was more difficult so few labs offered it except for pro labs (hence why you used to get little notes back with the prints about it being the 'wrong film' when you shot daylight film under tungsten lights and got an orange cast)

These days the scanners used by pro labs and in minilabs are so good (much better than anything consumer based) that its usually not possible to tell the difference between an optical and laser/LED print.
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Goodness I hadn't realised that. Just to confirm do you mean that most labs don't print from the negative but scan the neg and then print from the digital image from the scan?
 
Robclarke said:
Goodness I hadn't realised that. Just to confirm do you mean that most labs don't print from the negative but scan the neg and then print from the digital image from the scan?
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That's correct.

RA-4 enlarging (printing directly from the negative) is costly and needs a reasonably skilled operator to do.
 
Robclarke said:
Goodness I hadn't realised that. Just to confirm do you mean that most labs don't print from the negative but scan the neg and then print from the digital image from the scan?
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Yes, although once again the quality that you get will depend on the skill of the operator and the reason why branch to branch quality varies so much on the high street. Whilst some minilab operators may have good skills in adjusting the scan for optimal quality (WB, exposure, sharpness etc), sadly a lot just let the computer apply the automatic settings which can result in the image quality being degraded. At a pro lab you can guarantee that the scan/print quality should be high as they will manually optimise the scanned negative to get the best quality out of it.
 
High street labs us roller processing machines that can cause some horrific damage to you're negatives if they get out of alignment, pro labs use dip and dunk, or nitrogen burst machines that can't cause any mechanical damage to your negs. that are much more closely monitored for temperature consistency throughout the process the machines can even detect a persons body heat if you stand close to the machine and adjust the processing time to compensate.
Generally speaking about processing you get what you pay for.
 
Had two Asda films done today at Asda and thought "Oh no" as my regular girl had a new assistant and the scans were absolute crap... full of spots and hairs all over the place and now I'll have to scan them myself, lets hope the negs are ok. :(
 
excalibur2 said:
Had two Asda films done today at Asda and thought "Oh no" as my regular girl had a new assistant and the scans were absolute crap... full of spots and hairs all over the place and now I'll have to scan them myself, lets hope the negs are ok. :(
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I feel your pain. Had the same experience at Tesco. I can cope with the dust by a rescan. Problem was they were badly scratched.
 
A newbie doing the scanning at Asda, I've just adjusting the gamma to darken the shot:-



 
^^^^^^^^

That is very bad, very bad indeed.
 
You would think the Fuji designers would have invented a sorta vacuum cleaner or blower to clean the negs before scanning....erm their version of "digital ice" for prints wont clean that lot off if it's stuck to the neg.

A lot of work in Photoshop...this scene needs MF I'll have to get the big guns out.
 
Brian, this is precisely why we don't usually recommend supermarket processing for anything other than snapshots, because the results that you usually get are an anomaly rather than the quality rule of thumb!

My Asda negatives were scratched beyond acceptability, you learn once, never again.
 
freecom2 said:
Brian, this is precisely why we don't usually recommend supermarket processing for anything other than snapshots, because the results that you usually get are an anomaly rather than the quality rule of thumb!

My Asda negatives were scratched beyond acceptability, you learn once, never again.
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Well I agree you can't beat a good lab, but get the right Asda and girl doing the work and it's done in 40 mins while you shop....it's sooo convenient and I might as well get a digital camera if I have to wait up to a week for results.
My real love is for medium format for many years and am only temporarily using 35mm film and with the quality of digital now.....still might use a combo of 35mm digital camera and medium format film, so I can have instant shots and wont mind waiting for those quality shots from MF to be dev.
 
excalibur2 said:
Well I agree you can't beat a good lab, but get the right Asda and girl doing the work and it's done in 40 mins while you shop....it's sooo convenient and I might as well get a digital camera if I have to wait up to a week for results.
My real love is for medium format for many years and am only temporarily using 35mm film and with the quality of digital now.....still might use a combo of 35mm digital camera and medium format film, so I can have instant shots and wont mind waiting for those quality shots from MF to be dev.
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Indeed, not only more convenient but in my example a third of the price. However I would hate to end up with scratches like some of the examples posted.
 
Robclarke said:
Indeed, not only more convenient but in my example a third of the price. However I would hate to end up with scratches like some of the examples posted.
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Yep. I'm now sending even my snaps to AG instead of Tesco. Do my Black and White at home.
 
This is why I'll only use the supermarkets for test rolls, it's not just the inconsistency it's the appalling quality when you do get the operator who has no idea what they're doing.
 
Robclarke said:
Indeed, not only more convenient but in my example a third of the price. However I would hate to end up with scratches like some of the examples posted.
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Just a few spots on the negs, but my hat's off to the Asda machine as I scanned the neg with a V750 and it was carp..colours all over the place and very bad grain and it's Kodak gold 100 ISO :eek: I bought a lot off the bay cheap :'( so either the dev was not the best or I have a batch of what I call "unscannable negs" :thumbsdown:
Anyway re scanned with grain reduction and dust removal and it's better but the colours are still all over the place.....so there you go, V750 vers £20,000 machine and the machine wins.
 
That is probably 90% software and about 10% hardware (if that) at play.
 
freecom2 said:
That is probably 90% software and about 10% hardware (if that) at play.
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..or conspiracy:- Japanese Epson scanners don't like American Kodak ;)

The first film (out of two) must have been done by the regular girl at Asda and it was OK being Fuji Superia 200 :thumbs:

Fuji superia 200
 
I've been using Genie Imaging and always had spot on results, fast turnaround by post and very clean. I have no lab/boots service local and the 2 labs I've tried localish in Belfast have been utterly useless. I scan them myself with a 750Pro.
 
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excalibur2 said:
..or conspiracy:- Japanese Epson scanners don't like American Kodak ;)

The first film (out of two) must have been done by the regular girl at Asda and it was OK being Fuji Superia 200 :thumbs:
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The big problem with C-41 is that the palette basically comes down to user and software interpretation, which is basically just colour adjusting in post.
 
freecom2 said:
The big problem with C-41 is that the palette basically comes down to user and software interpretation, which is basically just colour adjusting in post.
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Interesting old article about scanning and most complaints were about Kodak gold 200...also forgot about scanner noise and grain aliasing etc which for me, reinforces my view that home scanning for 35mm is a a waste of time.

http://www.normankoren.com/Tutorials/MTF8.html
 
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