I guess I feel in the minority, because generally my lab does a better job than my personal scanning. It is a mid-level lab (they charge about 2 times more than the cheap guys, but they do very good work for a reasonable price. Most of the time (for 35mm), I just have them develop and I scan. Anything I want a good print of, I take the negs back and have them make a print. For 67, I actually have them proof everything.
I used to get very upset at the local Sam's Club and Ritz Camera for cheap, shoddy work. I finally bit the bullet and quit using them and stepped up a bit. Yes, the $200,000.00 USD Agfa D-Lab printing systems scan and print far better than my $400.00 Minolta Scan Dual II and my $250.00 HP 7350 printer. It all boils down to "you get what you pay for." It is possible to get less than you paid for, but very rare to get more than you paid for. Bruce Saturday, October 26, 2002, 7:28:45 PM, you wrote: DS> On Saturday, October 26, 2002, at 07:46 PM, wendy beard wrote: >> I know I'm preaching to the converted here, but I thought I'd post the >> results from some scans I did today. >> >> http://www.beard-redfern.com/scantest/index.htm >> >> By the way, the scan of the print is pretty much true to life. That's >> the sort of quality I'm getting back from the photo lab. Why they >> can't get it right with equipment costing thousands of dollars and I >> can get results 10 times better with a film scanner costing $500CDN, I >> don't know. The three scans are unmanipulated, they are just as they >> came out of the scanner. Contrast, colour and sharpness haven't been >> altered. >> >> Now if only it wasn't so tedious scanning negatives.................. >> >> Wendy Beard, >> Ottawa, Canada >> http://www.beard-redfern.com DS> Wendy, DS> I think everyone who has access to a film-scanner pretty much has the DS> same results (I did, at any rate). The Achilles Heel of print film is DS> photofinishing. We get it cheap because there is such great volume, but DS> to get good prints you need someone willing to go one on one with your DS> prints. But no one having to look at hundreds or thousands of prints an DS> hour can take the time to do that (assuming they wanted to or had the DS> aptitude in the first place). DS> Dan Scott
