John,
As a former custom lab owner and as a photographer somewhat at the mercy of
labs, I can tell you that the young man quoted below is for the most part
right. When it comes to neg film (i.e. C41), film processing is pretty
much standard -- bad equipment generally results in ruined batches of film,
encouraging all labs to keep equipment clean. Any minor variations in the
C41 process results in color shifts in the neg but these can be printed out
if they're not too extreme. E6 is a different matter -- if you find a good
E6 lab, stick with 'em!
When it comes to printing, almost everything depends on the expertise &
attitude of the person doing the printing. Most of the equipment in use
today will provide excellent results. In any lab, with techs wiith a
professional attitude, mediocre or bad prints will be redone as necessary
until they're good. With a bad attitude, regardless of the lab, you're
going to get crappy prints with an attitude of "they're machine prints --
take what we give you". In my experience, print quality has nothing to do
with the size or perceived prestige of the lab. It has everything to do
with the attitude of the printer and whether the printer's "view" of a
print matches yours. Some like 'em cold and some like 'em warm...
I personally use the one-hour lab inside the local grocery store for
processing & proofing (I print my own for the finished product). The
service and the quality standards the lab manager has is excellent! I've
tried the local pro labs and, while their service/quality is good, I tend
to pay more for the product than I do at the one-hour.
Pro labs come in to their own in several scenarios. Wedding packages where
you've got 15 rolls of film that all need to be proofed/printed with the
same color balance & exposure. Portrait packages where the 4x5 BETTER
match the 8x10 in balance & density EXACTLY. Large size prints -- 16x20,
20x24, etc. Or, you can always do the $900 5x7 custom print so you can
tell everyone you had it custom printed at the local pro lab... :op In my
experience, machine prints up to 8x10 would all look the same regardless of
the machine/lab they come from if the same printer-person did them, and
custom prints are for the a) photographer with too much money, b) negs that
need custom cropping, c) negs with crazy color balances, or d) negs needing
burning or dodging during printing.
I'd say that your best bet might be to pick a lab small enough where you
can speak with the printer one on one, and establish a relationship with
them to the point where when they're printing your negs, they're printing
"John's negs" rather than "Batch 39372". A quick conversation with the
printer along the lines of "This is what you're getting in the negs, this
is what I'm afraid of in the negs, this is what I'm looking for in the
prints." can go a looooong way towards getting you the results you
want/need.
Hope this helps!
Rgds,
Dave
-----Original Message-----
From: John Hudson [SMTP:jahudson@xxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Wednesday, February 17, 1999 9:56 PM
To: leica-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [OM] Photo processors
I am reliant upon photo processors to develop and print my colour
photographs.
<snip>
Am I alone or are the so called professional labs which charge premium
prices something of a con job? The young man who oversees the place I now
frequent tells me that the game is all in the printer person, the state of
the art equipment, the cleanliness of the chemicals, and whether the
printer person can imagine standing in the shoes of the photographer at the
time the photo was taken.
<snip>
< This message was delivered via the Olympus Mailing List >
< For questions, mailto:owner-olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx >
< Web Page: http://Zuiko.sls.bc.ca/swright/olympuslist.html >
|