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Ilford Develop and Print USA

Scan or prints

  • Scan on CD and prints

    Votes: 2 18.2%

  • Prints

    Votes: 7 63.6%

  • Scan only

    Votes: 2 18.2%
  • Total voters
    11

mshchem

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Messages
16,601
Location
Iowa City, Iowa USA
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The UK site offers a simple D&P option, 4x6 or 5x7 prints. USA site is develop and scan to disc, then order prints separately. I do my own printing, full darkroom everything.

I have no interest in scanning, however if I would shoot 35mm snaps I would use a service, like the old days where I could drop in the mail and receive back prints and negatives.
 
I'm doing my own developing now, but in the situation you suggested I'd want develop, print, and scan. I prefer prints, but scans are also useful to me.
I'd want it it done for me in one process.
 
So, I assume the objective of your poll is to influence Ilford USA to offer an option to get develop-and-prints, no-scans? That does seem like a reasonable option.

Sorry, but I can't help with your poll, because, I am developing my b&w negatives at home. And then "scanning" them by copying the negatives with a digital camera and close-up rig.

When having a lab process my (color) film, I don't get much benefit from the 4"x6" or 5"x7" prints. It's a rare roll of film that I would want to print more than 2 or 3 images. So, for me, printing the whole roll is a waste. And when I do want a print, I want something bigger than 5"x7"

I assume the 4"x6" or 5"x7" prints offered by Ilford USA at the time of processing are digital prints made from the scans, right (?)

Since I do not have a darkroom, for me, a better service would be if Ilford would:
- develop and scan my film (no need for high resolution)
- email scans, but hold my negatives
- I pick which 2 or 3 negatives I want printed at larger sizes (8"x10" or larger)
- Ilford makes prints (from my negatives ?), and
- returns my negatives with my 2 or 3 larger prints
 
Last edited:
runswithsizzers said:
I assume the 4"x6" or 5"x7" prints offered by Ilford USA at the time of processing are digital prints made from the scans, right (?)
Click to expand...

During our Ilford factory tour we also visited the Ilford lab.The prints there were made on 'customized' Fuji Frontier minilab machine (originally designed for RA-4 silver-halide paper).
'Customized' means this machine was adapted to Ilford BW silver-halide paper (instead of RA-4) by Fuji for Ilford.
So it is a laser exposure of a scan to real silver-halide BW paper.
And if I remember correctly, the same type of customized machine is also used by the Ilford lab in the US.

Best regards,
Henning
 
Harmanlab-usa shares the same address as Swan Photo Lab and theDarkroom.com. I don't know to what extent the "Ilford"-branded development shares the same workflow as the other two labels.

Their site does state:
How are prints exposed?
We use both analog and lasers to expose the photographic paper.
Click to expand...
, so it appears that some prints are made from scans.
 
"Scanning" and "Scanning to CD" are very different use cases. How popular is the latter these days?
 
Given past practices, this thread is unlikely to come to the attention of Harman/Ilford/Swan Photo unless someone draws it to their attention.
 
I see. . I suspect that Harman runs the UK lab.

This is not a real worry of mine.
 

Using a customized Frontier to scan and print on Ilford roll B&W paper seems to me the most logical way to offer prints and scans.
I don't know of any lab that offers optical printed machine prints, simply because such equipment would be very old (of course I stand to be corrected).

"How are prints exposed?
We use both analog and lasers to expose the photographic paper."
I would imagine that the analog refered to here would be custom hand enlargements printed optically.

I think scans to CD is not as popular as it used to be. Customers appear to prefer a scan & upload to cloud, maybe it's something Ilford should consider.

Having used a few different Frontiers over the years, I have to say that their quality of scan is hard to beat and the software is very good.
 

The Ilford lab system uses a modified Fuli Frontier machine for printing and development, so the negatives are scanned anyway for printing. Many of us ahve seen the UK lab on Ilford factory tours and the quality of the prints is superb.

Ian
 
Ian Grant said:
The Ilford lab system uses a modified Fuli Frontier machine for printing and development, so the negatives are scanned anyway for printing. Many of us ahve seen the UK lab on Ilford factory tours and the quality of the prints is superb.

Ian
Click to expand...
And superb reliability. So much so that if we ever get to the stage of each of us being able to afford such a lab then all we will have left to talk about on Photrio will be DT and then only to please Sal

Just a little British whimsy on this New Year's eve with my first sip of wine. I may allow myself one more only on the stroke of midnight

pentaxuser
 
foc said:
...Having used a few different Frontiers over the years, I have to say that their quality of scan is hard to beat...
Click to expand...
I don't know if Swan set up a dedicated Frontier when it began its arrangement with HARMAN. However, having lived less than two miles from Swan Photo Lab for nearly 27 years, I can report that the one time I tried its Frontier-based "develop and scan" service, the scan was extremely poor. I didn't give Swan a second chance, and now have my own scanner. Things might have changed since then.
pentaxuser said:
...all we will have left to talk about on Photrio will be DT and then only to please Sal ...
Click to expand...
Nothing would please me more than the day when those soap box discussions are history and all we have left to talk about on PHOTRIO is photography. No "Grin" emoticon included, intended or implied.
 

Sal, I was in Simon Galley's group on an Ilford factory tour and he told us the Frontier machines were specially modified, Ilford and Fuji have a long close working relationship with Ilford making some Fuji B&W products for them.

One would hope that Ilford/Harman monitor the US service. I used to work with labs and silver recovery so came across a lot of Fuji Frontier machines as well as other makes and quality was down to the operators, proper replenishment and monitoring.

There were issues with scans and early digital minilabs particularly with Kodak films, one issue was processing at 38ºC and then cold/tepid water wash this created surface artefacts these had little to no effect with optical minilabs but caused excessive graininess when the same negatives were scanned. Kodak Colour and B&W films were quite well hardened but not as well as Fuji (except acros) and Ilford. Kodak did a lot of research to improve hardening and apparent graininess in scans, and newer films contain phrases like !Micro-Structure Optimized", "Ideal for Scanning", you also see "Optimised for Scanning". Th problem was the scanning resolution was amplifying the surface artefacts a bit like a moire pattern, these artefacts have often been called Micro Reticulation, or Incipient Reticulation, both terms Kodak won't use.

My point is that these days digital minilab scans with current films are usually superb.

Ian
 

The one time I tried the Harman Lab US service operated by Swan, the scans were badly clipped and the film itself wasn't as clean as I'd like either. When I wrote to ask about the clipping the response was dismissive - the negatives must have been badly exposed because "Honestly, this is the first I have heard of this issue after tens of thousand of roll." These were XP2S negatives from which it's easy to create full-information scans on my own equipment - Nikon 5000 and 9000 with SilverFast software.
 
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