Hey, Bill, I was one of those trashing photo labs. Unfortunatly most of
them needed trashing. When they can not make a professionally acceptable
print from a professionally acceptable negative they are not
professionaly acceptable photo labs. Back when folks were doing
photography, rather than digital imaging, the first thing I would tell
folks when they complained about their prints, was to look at the
negatives. If the negatives were good then it was the lab's fault, if
they weren't then it was the photographer's fault.
When mini-labs frist came out they were usually owned by photographers.
Then companies like you work for noticed that mini-labs were great
traffic builders and put them in all their stores, and ran the
photographer owned mini-labs out of business. Instead of hiring skilled
lab techs they hired college students who work about 4 months and quit,
and middle aged "the kids are out of the nest" low income women, gave
them the most rudimentary training and paid them next nothing. Yes most
of them have someone like you around, usually at the district level to
go and fix things after they have fallen completely apart. This is not
conductive to quality work. The so called pro labs usually hire those
college kids who quit the in store lab job, because "they are already
trained". przzzt!
But you know all this, I believe you were one of those lab owners they
put out of business.
graywolf
http://www.graywolfphoto.com
"Idiot Proof" <==> "Expert Proof"
-----------------------------------
William Robb wrote:
----- Original Message ----- From: "Shel Belinkoff"
Subject: Re: Sent My Brother to the Dark Side
How does the
photographer who doesn't have access to this information improve his
or her
photography by relying on what may be considered misinformation without
someone explaining the situation, or without reading it somewhere.
They try to blame their crap results on the photo lab, and after
trashing every lab in their market area, they start trying to find out
about this stuff.
William Robb
