In my original posting "Bad processing of film driving people to digital?"
(sent 26 August 2002) I blamed all the problems on the printing, and assumed
that the C-41 processing was OK because it was done by a machine. Bad
assumption:
The first test was to take the negatives (developed by Konica) to be reprinted
at a local CVS drugstore that has a one-hour setup right in the store. The
prints were noticably better than from Konica Premium processing.
The second test was to have the same CVS do the entire develop and print job.
Bingo! These prints didn't look so overexposed. In fact, the looked right on.
I have had this CVS store process several rolls since then, and all have been
properly color-balanced and sharp.
Conclusion. Konica is screwing the developing up, yielding negatives that
cannot be printed correctly. This is a surprise. I thought that because the
developing is done by a more or less standardized machine, C-41 processing
would be reliable just about anywhere, and the printing was the problem, and
this was the reason to purchase their premium service. Not so, it appears.
Cost me a lot of ruined photos to figure this out.
Joe Gwinn
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