Big film labs: what EXACTLY makes them bad?

I always hear that these big labs that drug stores or supermarkets work with, develop film not so well but what exactly makes them so bad compared to small labs that people claim are better?

I just want to understand why i should drop double to get a roll develped with no special wishes

Besides, shouldnt i be able to count on the reliability of big labs because of the equipment they have and that the chemicals are most likely fresh(er) because they have more clients and have to keep a certain level of quality?

Either way, i would love to hear from you guys on this. Thanks

The technicians are most likely to be the problems. Sometimes it's careless handling others it's failure
to keep the chemistry fresh & balanced. It's probably not the machines themselves unless
there's something jammed in it
With really large labs it's puzzling how they do so well.

Their low profit margins and focus on volume and low prices.

When I ever used a cheap colour lab I was not to bothered about the prints I new they would be of a viewable quality it was the negatives I cared about and the only negatives they ever messed up was a roll of Ilford XP2 which I sent in, never used a roll since.

Odot said:

... what exactly makes them so bad compared to small labs that people claim are better?

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The decrease in the lack of attention, dedication and respect with your work (wishes apart), which is directly proportional to the amount of workload.

Some of the big labs don't return your negatives. The Walmart photo service, I believe, is one that doesn't return negatives. They just send you prints and a CD.

Roller Transport of film is one of the major reasons small labs exist. Micro scratches that are not seen as 4 x6 proofs are magnified when put in condenser enlargers and made to 16 x20 prints. The scratches become
very apparent.

All the labs incorporated digital ice to hide imperfections so the client is not aware of potential problems with bad roller transport process.

Cutting film into strips, but not between frames, instead dividing frames into halves. Often times "economizing " chemicals produces poor negatives. Best to do it yourself!

Dear Odot,

I can't speak for the situation in Germany, but in the U.S.A. I have found the large volume film processors to be quite good. Occasionally I would have issues when I would go to a local store with a small processing machine in house. Of course that is no longer an option. Today I take all my color film to a fellow who essentially does nothing but film processing. Lucky for me he is located in an area that is easy for me to get to.

Essentially, if you're happy with the service you are getting, reward those people with your business.

Good luck,

Neal Wydra

canvassy said:

Some of the big labs don't return your negatives. The Walmart photo service, I believe, is one that doesn't return negatives. They just send you prints and a CD.

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Actually, as I understand it, the lab doesn't send you anything.
They send digital files to the store, and the store creates the prints and CD.

Look, I worked for one of these lab's back in 1986! The big problem is that it's all about volume and they don't give a damn about quality. Also, to keep costs down, they will hire anybody. We had a night shift manager that was color-blind in the blue-violet range adjusting the printers. We had at least 3 of his friends that never really worked-they just wandered around for 6 hours.

There was no training for those of us that sorted the incoming film bags at all. I remember a night that I and 3 of the women I worked with spent 3 hours going thru bins of sorted film because a new hire-who as far as I could ever tell was only hired for her big boobs, had thrown Kodachrome and Ektachrome in the bins for print film. Her excuse was "well, it said Kodak, so it has to be print film-right?". We pulled out over 30 rolls of slide film that would have gone into the C-41 processors. After that, those of us on the sorting area started teaching the new hires ourselves as the management wouldn't. We had one woman that when this same mistake was made later-and we finally had a meeting about it-laughed like hell because someone's vacation pictures from Rome had been ruined.

The bottom line is that a lot of these labs just don't care.

If you want to see how a minilab works, have a look here.

https://petapixel.com/2013/01/07/a-...-35mm-film-is-developed-and-printed-at-a-lab/

BTW, minilab film processors are not roller transport. They are leader card transport which means that the edge of the negs touch the guides and the squeegees are the only part that touch the whole neg. A properly maintained processor will not scratch negs. Roller transport is usually reserved for paper processors and again if properly maintained will not scratch prints. Remember that film and paper emulsion is soft when wet.

Regarding big V small, big needs economies of scale to operate because low prices is what they need to drive the volume. they are not as flexible as a small lab. But big or small if they don't pay attention to detail and good housekeeping, then they produce poor results. And not all labs can be tarred with the same brush. I knew one wholesale lab that had very high standards and quality was very high. Same with some minilabs.

John Koehrer said:

The technicians are most likely to be the problems.

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This thread is about industrial labs. At least over here they employ photolab technicians three years trained.