Traditional printing lab in the UK

Steve Smith · Apr 17, 2008

I remember seeing a thread recently where someone asked about a UK based lab doing traditional colour prints. i.e. not scanned and machine printed but I can't find it at the moment.

Whilst searching for colour 120 process and print prices I found this lab: http://www.westminsterstudios.com/

They do traditional optical printing both colour and black and white and have this refreshing bit of text on their home page:

Using traditional methods we process colour and black and white negative film and print on real photographic paper using professional equipment. Every frame on the film is tested for correct filtration and exposure prior to full size printing. We do not scan film and our photographs do not contain pixels.

Westminster Studios specialise in providing a complete range of film processing services to customers all over the United Kingdom and Ireland.

We are a traditional film processing lab offering traditional colour and black and white film processing and printing to the highest quality but at cheaper prices than you will find anywhere else.

As traditional film processing specialists we are able to offer services such as black and white film processing, colour film processing, 35 mm film processing, 120 film processing, Kodak and Fuji film processing, and much more.

Westminster Studios has been established since 1968 and are unique in the film processing industry. We have no plans to go digital as we specialise in traditional film processing methods. We try to keep prices down as low as possible without compromising on quality.

I have no connection with them and I am not even a customer... yet, but I thought I would share the information. I intend to try them out soon as their prices are similar to the more well known labs who only offer scanned machine prints.

Does anyone have any experience of this company?

Steve.

pentaxuser · Apr 17, 2008

All power to them but in the face of plenty of local mini-labs using genuine paper and chems but using lasers for the printing, you'd wonder how their optical colour printing is going to survive. B&W may have a better chance but even here most enthusiasts will do their own and the few members of Joe Public who shoot B&W film as "snapshots" may well be satisfied with prints on colour paper which look OK until you see a genuine B&W paper print alongside.

Still as long as there is enough of a niche market and they don't expect to be millionaires, they might get by, doing what they like and making a living which is what life should be about instead of which we have "The Apprentice" mentality infecting everything.

Remember. Sell your grannie for success and then be eligible to join Nero at the Colliseum.

pentaxuser

Matt5791 · Apr 17, 2008

There is a very good lab in Birmingham who offer all services, including hand optical - with the enlarger - colour printing.

www.palmlabs.co.uk

I order them for display wedding albums because they look absolutely beautiful.

They have just bought a nearly-new 50" colour paper processor (some German make, cant remember the name) which has replaced the old Kreonite. This processor doubles up to process digitally exposed prints from their Chromira printer (which can print up to 50") and also to process any hand colour prints.

If you want hand prints, phone and tell Steve or Simon that Matt Wells recommended them (maybe I get a referral discount next time!)

Matt

Gary Holliday · Apr 17, 2008

Thanks for the links, but can I trust my wedding negatives in the hands Royal Mail??

FilmIs4Ever · Apr 18, 2008

Gary, I never mail film. Be it a 50 mi. car trip or a 500 mi. one, you do NOT want to mail wedding film.

Even better if you're in the U.K. take a 100 MPH train trip there! Sure beats dodging other cars at that speed and trying to avoid the cops.

Akki14 · Apr 19, 2008

oh silly person, the trains do not really go that fast and there are many stops and changes between Cambridge and Birmingham.
And I trust Royal Mail with wedding negatives and it was fine. I post my colour films all the time.

Dave Miller · Apr 19, 2008

Akki14 said:
oh silly person, the trains do not really go that fast and there are many stops and changes between Cambridge and Birmingham.
And I trust Royal Mail with wedding negatives and it was fine. I post my colour films all the time.

I knew a person who received a lucrative commission to shoot pictures of Canada. On his return he posted his 300 slide films for processing; which were never seen again. He had to return to Canada and reshoot his, by then, not so lucrative commission. If your films are important, then I would advocate splitting your consignments for processing.

The train I take to London does travel quite a bit faster than 100 mph, but then I don't go via Cambridge to Birmingham, so that's not much help.

RobC · Apr 19, 2008

Gary Holliday said:
Thanks for the links, but can I trust my wedding negatives in the hands Royal Mail??

come on guys the Royal mail is pretty darn good and you can send special delivery with as much insurance cover as you like so it's pure paranoia not to trust them. Sure once in a while something gets lost but the probabaility is so small thats its not worth worrying about, especially when you can cover it with insurance.
The only time I find stuff gets delayed is when the a*****e who claims they have sent it, has not.

Just sent two 20x24 frames with prints including glass via parcelforce. No problem. No breakage and arrived when it was meant to and it was only £15 which was a damn site cheaper than most couriers. I had one quote for £55.

p.s. I'd be far more worried about the lab screwing up.

Gary Holliday · Apr 19, 2008

You are not supposed to send glass through the post. I've never actually lost anything in the post but I've seen many of the casual workers they employ in recent years, it's a wonder they have a business.

RobC · Apr 19, 2008

Gary Holliday said:
You are not supposed to send glass through the post. I've never actually lost anything in the post but I've seen many of the casual workers they employ in recent years, it's a wonder they have a business.

I think you will find that you can send as much glass as you like via parcelforce. You just can't insure it against breakage. Only loss / non delivery of parcel.

Matt5791 · Apr 22, 2008

There is no way I would mail Wedding negatives, and if I had to I would do so in several tranches as Dave suggested.

If I was not within easy distance of a lab I would simply take to processing the C41 myself. It would either be that or digital - and I don't want to go down that road!

I am very lucky to have two pro labs within 3 miles.

Gary Holliday · Jan 9, 2009

Thought I would add this company to the list, I've yet to try them though as I'm using Steve's recommendation at the moment.

Not easy searching especially all these labs claiming digital hand prints????

http://www.caerphillycolourlabs.com/html/hand_printing.html

Phoned Palm in Birmingham, they are still strongly inclined towards film based printing, however their machine prints appear to be scanned and printed. Optical machine prints are usually set up for larger 5x4 negs. They offer optical hand prints of course for all formats.

wogster · Jan 9, 2009

Matt5791 said:
There is no way I would mail Wedding negatives, and if I had to I would do so in several tranches as Dave suggested.

If I was not within easy distance of a lab I would simply take to processing the C41 myself. It would either be that or digital - and I don't want to go down that road!

I am very lucky to have two pro labs within 3 miles.

One way to resolve the lost films problem is to use a carrier that uses tracking numbers, what happens is that each package has a bar code on the bill of lading, this bar code gets scanned at each point in transit, so when a package goes missing, you know where it was last scanned and that makes finding it much easier.

What often causes lost packages are when the label on the package gets removed or defaced, never wrap a box in paper or use twine or cord, modern sorting machines and carrier processes destroy the paper and cord can get caught in the machines. Since labels are often attached to the paper, the package becomes an unmark (no marked address). Most carriers at that point will open the package, looking for some kind of clue as to who it belongs to.

Best is to include a piece of paper with the shippers name, address and telephone number, the receivers name, address and telephone number, and the bill of lading (waybill) number. Best is to also include a description of the contents and the number of pieces. This should be inside the package where it can easily be located. The carrier employee will then make up a new label, this label will either include the same bill of lading number or their computer will cross reference the old and new numbers.

Martin Aislabie · Jan 10, 2009

Does anyone know what The Darkroom at Cheltenham do?

They seem fairly firmly committed to film but what their process of enlargement is ????

Martin

Ian Cooper · Jan 10, 2009

Martin Aislabie said:
Does anyone know what The Darkroom at Cheltenham do?

They seem fairly firmly committed to film but what their process of enlargement is ????

Martin

The Darkroom are the lab I use for E6 processing, I understand they use a dip & dunk machine. Either way, I've been happy with their results. Until I set up my own darkroom to print B&W I used to use them for B&W prints as well.

For B&W they use optical enlargers and will apply customer instructions regarding basic cropping, dodging & burning at no extra cost. They print on both RC and fibre paper, additional effects such as toning, bleaching etc are charged extra. Their price list shows up to 20"x30" for RC paper, or 16x12" for fibre.

Their B&W machine process & print is done on colour paper and I assume is scanned and printed digitally. Likewise their colour enlargements are done digitally up to a certain size, above that they use an inkjet printer.

Ian.

(Did I just stop lurking and post something? - Whoops!)

Gary Holliday · Jan 12, 2009

Welcome to the forum Ian.

Finding optical colour machine prints appear to be the hardest to track down. Only Westminster and CCL so far.

Gary Holliday · Jan 13, 2009

rang CCL in Wales but they have ceased optical machine prints.

The following do hand prints only along with dev dip and dunk.
http://www.metroimaging.co.uk/
Dead Link Removed

Tom Kershaw · Jan 13, 2009

Gary,

Is there a problem with non-analog printing?

Tom.

Gary Holliday · Jan 13, 2009

Tom Kershaw said:
Gary,

Is there a problem with non-analog printing?

Tom.

Hi Tom, I've yet to see a nice scan and print. Grungy shadow areas, gaudy reds and greens and that not quite sharp look to them. Maybe I should try Durst Lambda prints, but they are a bit expensive. So I prefer to stick to a method that I know works.

Matt5791 · Jan 15, 2009

Gary Holliday said:
Hi Tom, I've yet to see a nice scan and print. Grungy shadow areas, gaudy reds and greens and that not quite sharp look to them. Maybe I should try Durst Lambda prints, but they are a bit expensive. So I prefer to stick to a method that I know works.

Hi Gary - I think you are being harsh on the print quality obtainable from the likes of Noritsu machines. As with anything, if the operator does not know what they are doing or cant be bothered the prints will be poor (optical or digital) I have seen many stunning prints made this way, but I've also seen ugly ones!

I was in Palm lab a couple of days ago and asked Steve about his optical machine - basically it is mothballed because it can't compete with the Noritsu.

He still has it though and I'm sure if you asked nicely he would un-mothball it.....

They also have a Chromira, which is like a durst lambda (but better apparrently) which will run up to 50" prints on Kodak Endura. Also they just reduced all their prices on this machine!

Steve and Simon have been photographic printers for years, and spent many years of their life printing colour by hand all day every day, colour and B&W and on the machines.

Out of interest, what are the prints for? - just general or for something specific?

www.palmlabs.co.uk

Matt

Gary Holliday · Jan 15, 2009

I spoke to Palm myself as already mentioned and I said that I would send a negative for comparison prints to be made, so will be interested in the difference. The photographs are mainly wedding portraits on 120 negs.

I suppose I also have to consider marketing issues and whether I will be advertising the prints as handcrafted/ handprinted etc so need to find a lab and a method of printing that meets my standards. (Not that I'm a genuis photographer, but you get the idea!)

Tom Kershaw · Jan 15, 2009

Gary,

I thought you made wet prints yourself?

Tom.

Gary Holliday · Jan 15, 2009

Black and white I do myself, the colour I send out.

Tom Kershaw · Jan 15, 2009

Have you thought about doing colour yourself?

Tom.

Matt5791 · Jan 15, 2009

Gary Holliday said:
I spoke to Palm myself as already mentioned and I said that I would send a negative for comparison prints to be made, so will be interested in the difference. The photographs are mainly wedding portraits on 120 negs.

I suppose I also have to consider marketing issues and whether I will be advertising the prints as handcrafted/ handprinted etc so need to find a lab and a method of printing that meets my standards. (Not that I'm a genuis photographer, but you get the idea!)

Hi Gary - I see where you are coming from.

People may understand or care whether you are making your prints by hand, on an enlarger, but whether it is on a digital or optical machine printer, they really wont know, understand or care (as long as the print is excellent) - infact all three produce the same final result: a C-Type print.

Also, if you want to call it hand crafted, then surely either an optical or digital machine - is still a machine print?

I wouldn't get too hung up on it, as long as the print looks right.

Matt

Traditional printing lab in the UK

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