Are you getting crappy film prints? Should I blame digital?

[countspatula]

I am not a professional, but I do have a degree in motion picture filming and know what I'm doing. I have taken a lot of great pictures with my Pentax SLR, but I have been getting really frustrated over the last few years because I can't seem to get decent looking prints from a roll of film. I usually take my rolls to a 1 hour-type photo place and have had no problem with getting fine prints. Over the last 3-4 years I have not been able to get decent prints. I have lived in NYC for 3 years and this is really where I have had problems. I have taken stuff to a pro lab (L&I, C-Lab) and they turned out great but were outrageously expensive and I can't afford pro lab prices. So my question is multi-pronged:

1) I assume most little labs are using some type of digital to film system and I think this is the problem. How do these work? My biggest gripe is that at the worst, I have actually seen aliasing on 4x6 prints from a negative! At best, I have noticed that particularly skin tones have this weird look, like they have almost been solarized or a 'softening' or 'blend' tool has been used. I bet there is some kind of 'skin tone algorithm-thingy' going on, we have a similar function on higher-end video cameras.

2) Do those of you in NYC, particularly NOHO, have suggestions for a decent small lab for the amateur photographer? Once again, I have gone to L&I and C-Lab and they are great but way too expensive.

3) Am I crazy? :crazy: Is this happening to you too? I can understand this happening with cheap-o digital enlargements, but regular prints should look good. It's discouraging and makes me not want to waste money of film, but I love it and don't really like shooting digital, but it kind of freaks me out because I fear that for the average Joe, digital to film prints are going to look better than film to digital to film prints.

Thanks in advance,
Sean

[danalec99]

I can probably help you with your second query.

Manhattan Color Labs
4 West 20th St.
New York, NY 10011
Tel: 212.807.7373
manhattancolor@verizon.net
Mon-Fri: 7am - 12 Midnight
Sat/Sun: 9am - 6pm

I've been there couple of times to develop/print 4x5 chromes. Excellent service and fast turnaround. :thumbup:
I wasn't happy with their scanning though. But it wasn't a drum scan.

My scanner is not hooked up, or else I would have emailed you their price list. PM me or you can probably call them tomorrow morning.
Are we talking about C-41 or E-6 here?

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If it's C-41, I'd also ask you to test Mpix.com - Film Services (http://www.mpix.com/FilmServices.aspx).
Very economical (http://www.mpix.com/productsinfo.aspx) than the above option.

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Welcome to TPF! :)

[mysteryscribe]

The worst film problem I am having now is 120 film that either isnt taped at all or is taped crooked so it won't go through the camera.

[DocFrankenstein]

The current minilabs don't print optically anymore. Some genius thought that a good way to cut costs is to scan the neg and then expose the neg paper with a laser - just like a digital photo. The second genius desided that the consumers don't care about quality and decided not to scan at the full resolution of the scanner.

So there's a horde of people who've never seen a well exposed color neg printed properly and they are claiming that digital is god.

I print my own stuff with a durst laborator, but it takes too long, so it's reserved for the stuff I really care about.

[bigfatbadger]

Yes it is digital and cost cuttings fault, no you're not crazy.

[JamesD]

Part of my reason for boycotting various 1-hour places--Wal Mart being the worst offender. Not to name names or anything...

:madass:

[Soocom1]

First, I am in New Mexico, so I cannot answer as to where.

But here is what I can tell you as to why some things have been happening. I worked in a photo lab locally for a year, and saw the quality of the chemicals drop. In addition, I have seen many times, (though it may not be across the board here) that the operators of the machines should be working at the golden arches, not a photo lab. Many of the teen-somethings, and twenty somethings don't know jack about photography, and don't care.

As for the scanning issue, like was said above, LOWEST COMMON DENOMINATOR. If they can do it cheaply, they will.

Personally, I have seen that (THIS IS ONLY MY OWN OPINION!!!) when you run Fuji through Kodak your fine. Fuji through Fuji your fine. Kodak through Kodak your fine. Kodak through Fuji......well, go digital.

In addition, many of the 'High-Res' scans are actually 300 dpi, without allot of consideration file size, and thus the images are compressed. If done on a scanner, the file size will get over 100mb, and that will crash thier systems.

If you want high quality scans, you will have to pay for them. For the amount that you spend on this system, you might as well find your own drum scanner and do them yourself.

[Zeabned]

I've found that if I'm not in a real hurry to get the film developed, and take the roll to Wolf's Camera or even my nearest BJs (which uses the Kodak lab services), I'll get very decent prints from them. The problem with the one-hour places is that they want to cut down both on costs and also to trade off on quality vs. fast and easy (or easier). Which is another variant of the Lowest Common Denominator that someone mentioned. Or is it the Law of Minimum Effort?

[countspatula]

Thanks to all that have replied. In response to some of the questions/comments:

I'm usually processing c41.

Thanks for the Manhattan Color tip, I will defiantely check it out, as well as Mpix.

Also the comment that was made about Kodak on a Fuji kind of makes sense. Two of the places that I tried seemed really promising: they were nice, reasonably priced and seemed to know what they were doing, but they both had Fuji machines. I seem to recall that after I got a Fuji roll done and it looked pretty good, I did another Kodak which didn't look so hot, just like the first one I took there. I think you may be on to something.

Glad I'm not crazy,
Sean

[Bob_McBob]

There is nothing wrong with the method Fuji Frontier and other such systems use to make prints. In fact, it eliminates many of the issues of colour printing and older optical printing methods in general. The reason you are getting crappy prints from film is because it has to be scanned first to be printed this way, and if they have their system set up poorly or on low quality settings, the print will not be very good.

You can try asking them to increase the quality of the scans, but it's likely they just have it set up for speed and will not want to make any changes (or won't know how to). You could also try scanning your own film (my choice) or taking it to another lab. I am mostly using Costco at the moment, because they are very cheap, and have their printer profiles available online. The results are as good as any expensive lab I've tried, so I am sticking with them. I have a Nikon Coolscan V for doing film scans.

[markc]

If you do a search here you should be able to find some good threads on finding a lab. I don't use them any more, but my rule was to always get to know the people doing your work.

[summers_enemy]

If you do a search here you should be able to find some good threads on finding a lab. I don't use them any more, but my rule was to always get to know the people doing your work.
Couldn't agree more there. I run the lab at the only local custom camera shop here in town. We use an Agfa D Lab, purchased 2 months before Agfa went under. :roll: It is a very nice piece of equipment, far better than the Fuji Frontiers I used to use. However, what looks like a nice print to me may not look so hot to you. The customers that get to know me, let me know what they like to see in their prints and I take that into account and do the proper color and density adjusting to make the prints pleasing to them. I can't do this if I don't know what you like. :)

If you're not happy with the prints you're getting; take them back into the store and explain. Any decent lab will redo them for you at no charge, and this is a good time to get to know the lab people doing your work. Odds are, they'll remember you and do your film "right" next time around so that they don't have to do it a second time.

Lab girls are people too, come get to know us! :-p

[selmerdave]

Sean,

I would switch to slide film. $6 a roll for processing and mounting at L&I and done in 2 hours. Then pay $10 when you have a photo that you want to make a good 8 x 10 out of. Plus there are many other benefits of slide film.

Dave

[markc]

If you are going to be making prints, personally I'd stick to negative film. If you are going to take the time and spend the money to find a lab that can make a good print from slides, the same effort can be applied to making a print from negatives.

[selmerdave]

I guess the difference being that it's still affordable to get processing at a pro lab with slides, I don't think you'll find a pro lab that will do a roll of prints for less than $15 (almost triple). Sure the cost of an enlargement will be the same.

Dave

[Jeff Canes]

I’ve had no problems with getting prints made from film with these laser jet printers that everybody is using these days.

The problem is like dirtily labs

[VSx]

1) I assume most little labs are using some type of digital to film system and I think this is the problem. How do these work?
Fuji Frontier. It's not the first but it may be the most prevalent digital mini-lab out there. Basic concept: all film gets scanned by a scanner, then sent to a laser section that paints the image on the photographic paper. Digital, electronic, all kinds of algorithms for all kinds of things, the main thing is it's NOT optical or even remotely close to being a direct from film to paper process. Newer Frontiers are using LEDs as the light source as opposed to a traditional lamp. I have no idea if the ones using LEDs are better or worse for the quirks of the digital minilab setup, the Frontier I'm familiar with still uses a traditional lamp. The paper process is no different than it was with the optical minilabs. It's still multi-contrast photographic stuff going through developer, bleach and fix. Frontier prints should still beat the pants off of any ink based print... like those Kodak picturemaker things or any home/office printer...

The Frontier isn't the only mini-lab that works this way I would imagine since the concept in itself isn't bad. It can make really nice prints from C-41 35mm if the operator knows how to tweak various settings and if it's totally dialed in for film types. I can't make a guess as to what percentage of Frontiers would be totally dialed in, but I can guarantee you that one being operated by someone who's being paid minimum wage or close to it doesn't have much of a chance of making beautiful prints from different film types consistantly. Wal*Mart uses Fuji Frontiers exclusively AFAIK and they may be pretty well dialed in but I don't know that from experience. Frontiers were one of the first digital mini-labs to get it right according to my boss. It's very idiot-proof but it's not perfect. I suspect the Kodak on Fuji thing may be a case of the machine not being balanced for the film type you are bringing them but I could be wrong. With minilabs (digital as well as optical in my experience) you balance the paper, and then you'll also have 'channels' for different film types basically... and those channels are balanced using control negatives for each film type/stock. That costs money to keep those control negs up to date, you can't just buy a set of them and keep using them for years... speaking of cost cutting measures...

I speak from the operator side of things. I would never have larger than 35mm formats printed on a frontier (of my own) based on what I've seen personally. I'm not even really crazy about real B&W 35mm prints from the frontier but those are more acceptible to me than the 120 prints I've seen C-41 and B&W. I'm extremely picky. I'm not a photographer, just someone who started working in a photo lab about 3 years before they got rid of their darkroom... yes it was a cost cutting measure. They didn't really want to be a pro/custom lab because the local market for that work was small and shrinking. That was the vibe I was given anyway - took me a long time to get over losing the darkroom and any time I would speak of it I would get laughed at.
I have noticed that particularly skin tones have this weird look, like they have almost been solarized or a 'softening' or 'blend' tool has been used. I bet there is some kind of 'skin tone algorithm-thingy' going on, we have a similar function on higher-end video cameras. I'm a video geek first and foremost... though I've never had the pleasure of using and playing with the big boy's toys. So I don't know of the settings you speak of, but I do know of those artifacts from the Frontier :) Yes it's a setting. It can be turned off. The operator may or may not know this. The options for the setting are along the lines of 'shadows hard', 'shadows soft', 'all hard', 'all soft', highlights hard/soft too, and then OFF... or it might be 'standard' or 'none'. Depending on how the machine was set up the operator can change the setting without knowing the password to get into the set-up... those settings can work nicely in a few types of scenes, but it's my personal preference to leave them off.

3) Am I crazy? :crazy: Is this happening to you too? I can understand this happening with cheap-o digital enlargements, but regular prints should look good. It's discouraging and makes me not want to waste money of film, but I love it and don't really like shooting digital, but it kind of freaks me out because I fear that for the average Joe, digital to film prints are going to look better than film to digital to film prints.
You aren't crazy (but I might be ;) ). Be prepared to pay more if you want better prints. That's all there is to it the way I see things. The old optical mini-labs disappeared because the VAST majority of people put price over quality*. I don't know about pro/custom labs (as opposed to one hour types) still having printers that go light source -> film -> lens -> paper, but that's honestly the best way to do it if you are picky about quality and the pro/custom labs are the ones most likely to still make prints that way I bet. It also requires more training, knowledge and experience from the operator than a digital mini-lab does... so again you'll be paying more for your prints most likely.

Just my 2 cents. Your mileage may vary. I'm nowhere near NY.
Stumbled into here googling for scans of film stock ;)

*= this is true with video equipment as well - the video camera I paid $1200 for 2 years ago is nowhere near as good feature-wise as the one I paid $1400 for 10 years ago. This will probably repeat itself in digital camera as well... then again it's hard to find anything (less than a digital SLR) in a digital camera that has true exposure, shutter and focus controls already. I could care less about program exposure and scene modes or bluetooth or direct print or any of that crap. I will pay for FULL manual controls when I can afford it though.

[roguephotog]

I may have missed this in another person's entry but bear with me and if you can help me, please do!

I print at both Sam's Club one hour and West Photo in Minneapolis, MN. They have the same lab equipment but I noticed through the CDs I get that they do use slightly different resolution.

Sam's Club gives me 96dpi and 1818x1228 pixels = 12.792”x18.938” in viewing size

West Photo (the PRO lab) gives me 72dpi and 1800x1215 pixels = 16.8”x25” in viewing size

I usually print my 4x6 through Sam's Club using my CDs from West Photo - since the color correction is best this way.

What seems to be happening, though, the prints coming from Sam's Club are almost blurry. I've never learned to do my own devo. So I'm guessing it's like moving the paper around while it's developing. They look softer.

I think they use the Fuji Frontier machine everyone has been talking about. Can you explain to me how my prints could be coming out soft/blurry when the digital image I'm sending through to Sam's Club online (no human involvement on their end)?

I have a client super upset with me right now and I can't begin to tell her why her print at ProEx from her CD came out better than my print at Sam's/West from my neg and/or CD. Is it possible ProEx did some sort of sharpening, or "unsharp mask" in their computer before printing it?

Thanks so much if you can elaborate for me.

[modbohemian]

The current minilabs don't print optically anymore. Some genius thought that a good way to cut costs is to scan the neg and then expose the neg paper with a laser - just like a digital photo. The second genius desided that the consumers don't care about quality and decided not to scan at the full resolution of the scanner.

Are you serious?! Oh man, no wonder the original poster has been dissatisfied. What a criminal act.

Over the years, I've taken an occasional roll to a mini-lab, but generally I've never trusted them and fortunately, have a great local lab that produces great results at a reasonable cost.