It is quite normal to have prints completely screwed up by the lab. Even a
pretty good (read: expensive) lab. OTOH, it's much more difficult to screw
up the film, since it's mostly automated. The "white out" on the faces is
much more likely to show up on slides than on negative film, since the
latter has much more lattitude, so if your slides are OK, I wouldn't worry
about the negs. Scan them and adjust the colors/contrast/etc yourself --
that seems to one sure way to guarantee consistent results.
As far as scanning goes, if you are going to do it in the same lab that made
your prints, what makes you think they are going to do a better job there?
Best,
Mishka
