Has anyone used "Ilford Lab" in the UK and what was your experience of them?

RobC · Dec 12, 2015

Has anyone used "Ilford Lab" in the UK and what was your experience of them?

Just thinking of sending a file off to them for printing and wondered if anyone has tried using their Lab.

http://www.ilfordlab.com/

Arctic amateur · Dec 12, 2015

I've used them once, I was happy enough to mail them two more films today. Both prints and scans were good. (I didn't get big enlargements or high-res scans, just the standard size.)

Chris Livsey · Dec 13, 2015

No issues with them. Dip and dunk machine so no scratching, excellent packing and speedy service. Just found the scans a bit "bland" lacking punch. I know the "best" way is to home scan rather flat and tweak later but personally (and I apologise for this drift into D) I set up to have a virtually finished product so was a bit disappointed in that aspect only. It was HP5+ so they should know about it. I have had enlargements done and I was happy with those.
All this a year or two ago as I was without a darkroom temporarily, happily order has now been restored to my world.

RobC · Dec 13, 2015

Chris Livsey said:
No issues with them. Dip and dunk machine so no scratching, excellent packing and speedy service. Just found the scans a bit "bland" lacking punch. I know the "best" way is to home scan rather flat and tweak later but personally (and I apologise for this drift into D) I set up to have a virtually finished product so was a bit disappointed in that aspect only. It was HP5+ so they should know about it. I have had enlargements done and I was happy with those.
All this a year or two ago as I was without a darkroom temporarily, happily order has now been restored to my world.

Not to mine, hence my question.

Chris Livsey · Dec 13, 2015

RobC said:
Not to mine, hence my question.

I feel your pain.

Ian Grant · Dec 13, 2015

Having seen the lab and images processed and printed by them I can vouch for the quality.

IAn

railwayman3 · Dec 13, 2015

I use them for the standard size "D&P" service, and have also seen their enlargements (on a factory visit). Good quality work, and an interested and conscientious staff.

davedm · Dec 13, 2015

Do they do optical enlargements (minlab/by hand) or Digital silever prints ?

RobC · Dec 13, 2015

davedm said:
Do they do optical enlargements (minlab/by hand) or Digital silever prints ?

why don't you read what they say at their website

davedm · Dec 13, 2015

ROb,

I did read the faq and they said they use digital silver paper. They did not specify that it was valid for both Digital uploads and film. (For film they used the words enlargement although it could be used for digital prints as well.

However, Upon going through their price list etc, I got that they are printing digitally, just wanted to double check.

AgX · Dec 13, 2015

RobC said:
why don't you read what they say at their website

Why being so rude?

At least me took it three times reading their "Black & White Prints from Film" page to assume that they scan the films and do prints from the resulting digital files. It does not even say there by what sort of printing. To learn that one must go to their pricelist.

From their "Home" and "About" page one learns that they are doing silver-halide prints from film, but not how.

AgX · Dec 13, 2015

daved,

Without your hint I would not even have seen that FAQ section. I neither would have expected to find the basic Information in the last sentence just there.

Ian Grant · Dec 13, 2015

davedm said:
ROb,

I did read the faq and they said they use digital silver paper. They did not specify that it was valid for both Digital uploads and film. (For film they used the words enlargement although it could be used for digital prints as well.

However, Upon going through their price list etc, I got that they are printing digitally, just wanted to double check.

They use a modified Fuji Frontier, the old B&W optical roll-head printers that used to be used for B&W photo-finishing didn't give particularly good quality prints in fact they were qyuite mediocre but hand prints were expensive.

Using the Frontier and it's digital interface and the digital (high speed) silver based paper is the most economic way of producing high quality B&W prints commercially. A friend who owned a lab used to employ 5 or 6 people to do his colour printing with roll head printers, later with an optical minilab one women working part time did more prints a week than the 5 or 6 before that, with a digital minilab the output is even better and more consistent.

If someone wants optical prints they either make them themselves or pay a much higher price to have them hand printed. It make commercial sense for Ilford/Harman to use this hybrid route which is offered in other countries as well using the same Ilford/Harman paper.

Ian

AgX · Dec 13, 2015

At their "Home" page in the heading and in the text they explicitely refer to "Ilford" resp. to "IlfordPhoto". Only at the "About" page they once refer to Harman. For the rest the website is filled with "Ilford".

At least me such does not make me think at scanning and digitally printing at first instance.

RobC · Dec 13, 2015

AgX said:
Why being so rude?

At least me took it three times reading their "Black & White Prints from Film" page to assume that they scan the films and do prints from the resulting digital files. It does not even say there by what sort of printing. To learn that one must go to their pricelist.

From their "Home" and "About" page one learns that they are doing silver-halide prints from film, but not how.

Nothing rude about it. If you want to know what their full service is you have to go their website and read it all otherwise you'll be clueless how it works. You can't expect someone else to do that for you and then repeat it parrott fashion when you could have helped yourself.

railwayman3 · Dec 13, 2015

RobC said:
Nothing rude about it. If you want to know what their full service is you have to go their website and read it all otherwise you'll be clueless how it works. You can't expect someone else to do that for you and then repeat it parrott fashion when you could have helped yourself.

That's a bit harsh ! One purpose of APUG is surely to discuss queries and help one another, if we can offer any useful ideas and advice.

And AgX being from Germany, maybe English is not his first language.

(Check Ian's post above, for an example of how to write a helpful reply.)

markbarendt · Dec 13, 2015

Chris Livsey said:
Just found the scans a bit "bland" lacking punch.

One thing I think that I think is important to remember is that typically consumer lab processing doesn't include any significant human intervention, essentially what one gets back from consumer price processing on the first try might better be considered "proofs" or good examples of automated-processing. That includes the scans at any size. The prints for consumers at the labs I've used do seem to go through a second round of automated corrections (that aren't saved to the scan files) that tend to make them look better than the scans.

Professionally finished processing typically includes custom frame-by-frame adjustments that are saved. It's at this point that one should expect a good looking scan.

davedm · Dec 13, 2015

Ian,

Thanks for detailed response.

Sent from my MI 3W using Tapatalk

Chris Livsey · Dec 13, 2015

markbarendt said:
One thing I think that I think is important to remember is that typically consumer lab processing doesn't include any significant human intervention,

But Ilford/Harman is not a typical consumer lab. The scanning was done by hand on a machine with intervention, at least on my factory tour, perhaps I just had an operator with a bad day at the office. Then again my C41 lab explicitly allows the customer to specify a "look" to scan to. http://ukfilmlab.com/ukflpro/
They were not reject material just I thought a bit below what I would expect and it was a one off. I, as I said earlier, have not used them now for 2/3 years at least so current quality may be very different. It's a bit like TripAdvisor, some give a hotel 5* and some 1*, different days/different staff/different expectations.

markbarendt · Dec 13, 2015

Chris Livsey said:
But Ilford/Harman is not a typical consumer lab.

I'm not suggesting that the Ilford lab isn't different than others.

What I'm suggesting is that they may not necessarily hit save after they do the edits for the print.

Chris Livsey · Dec 14, 2015

markbarendt said:
I'm not suggesting that the Ilford lab isn't different than others.

What I'm suggesting is that they may not necessarily hit save after they do the edits for the print.

Has anyone used "Ilford Lab" in the UK and what was your experience of them?

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