Walgreen's (Fuji Lab) black & white film processing

Karl K · Dec 22, 2020

My local Walgreen's store uses Fuji labs to process film.
Black and white film processing is a THREE WEEK turnaround.
But that's not the real shocker.
The cost for a roll of 24 exposure Tri-X, develop and print, one 4x6 of each negative, is $29.99.
The store manager wasn't sure even if the black and white negatives would be returned.
He said that Fuji might send back a "Free CD of the negatives" instead.
Processing the negatives only is $18.99. No prints.

I'm guessing that the negatives are scanned and printed on Fuji Crystal Archive color paper.
I still process my own B&W film and then scan and print at home, but I was curious why Fuji's B&W processing through Walgreen's takes three weeks and is so expensive.

voceumana · Dec 22, 2020

They don't really want to do it. If they drive the price high enough they can stop offering it!

I can't imagine paying anyone $19 to process a roll of 35mm B&W film, about the easiest thing to do in the world of film photography.

cmacd123 · Dec 22, 2020

to them, a real hand operation in a factory lab that is probably so automated that the biggest labour input for C-41 is someone has to take the casssete out of the envelope, and put it in the machine in the right direction.

BradS · Dec 22, 2020

They DO NOT return the negatives!- not for color and not for B&W.
I'd bet that they do not actually do traditional B&W at all but, the C-41 based B&W.
None of the places that front for the Fuji service return the negatives.
I think that Fuji develop the film and send the scans back to the local retailer (Walgreen's, Wallymart, CVS, Riteaide, etc..) and the local retailer makes prints or CDs as desired.

NortheastPhotographic · Dec 22, 2020

Why would you go to Walgreens for this at all? There are plenty of labs (like mine!) who do good work in less time, and probably for less money. Admittedly we don't do dry lab prints (aka 4x6s of every frame). IMHO that is a somewhat wasteful process. Better to cull digitally then print what you actually want.

ic-racer · Dec 22, 2020

NortheastPhotographic said:
Why would you go to Walgreens for this at all? There are plenty of labs (like mine!) who do good work in less time, and probably for less money. Admittedly we don't do dry lab prints (aka 4x6s of every frame). IMHO that is a somewhat wasteful process. Better to cull digitally then print what you actually want.

Where is the "Like" button?

removed account4 · Dec 22, 2020

fuji only does c41 / 35mm in-house. I think their only lab remaining is in Colorado ( I could be mistaken )
all special orders ( e6, b/w, chromogenicbw, 120, 4x5, submini ( 16mm + 110. ) and movie film ( 8mm - 16mm )
gets sent to Dwaynes in parson's Kansas. ... they used to say ( I haven't asked in ages ) if it was done at fuji, if it was
through Walmart Walgreens cvs sam's club you wouldn't get your negatives back ( they beamed the files to the print-kiosk in-these stores and print dye sub prints at the stores ) RITE AID hadn't been upgraded to be able to do that yet ( even though they were owned by Walgreens ) so they were the last people that still got c41 film returned. not sure about "now"
me? I'd keep it local and send it to someone local who cares, like northeast, they do great work !

Karl K · Dec 22, 2020

The reason that I started this thread was that a former student of mine had a roll of exposed B&W unprocessed film left over from last year's darkroom class.
Our darkroom is now closed due to the pandemic.
The student was not too keen on mailing the film to a lab.
So, he asked me where he could go locally to have it processed.
I had no clue, so I suggested that he try all the likely suspects.... Target, Walmart, Walgreen's, Rite-Aid, etc.
When he called me back with the information about Walgreen's, I was shocked.

mshchem · Dec 23, 2020

I should put an ad in the local university paper, will develop only b&w, c-41, E6 for 6 bucks a roll. No scanning.

Only problem with that is a place to drop off and pick up.

I will let NortheastPhotographic handle that.

wyofilm · Dec 24, 2020

NortheastPhotographic said:
Why would you go to Walgreens for this at all? There are plenty of labs (like mine!) who do good work in less time, and probably for less money. Admittedly we don't do dry lab prints (aka 4x6s of every frame). IMHO that is a somewhat wasteful process. Better to cull digitally then print what you actually want.

I am excited to see high quality film processing and especially high quality scanning services. However, when I considered Northeast Photographic it appeared to me from their website that returning film wasn't in the normal course of operations. Moreover, to get negatives back required going through a third party, the film hound (or something like that). This seemed crazy to me, but I never followed up with them on what their policy was. I just went back to their website upon reading this thread and while there is no mention of the film hound - the disposition of negatives remains unclear to me. I would love to use Northeast Photographic or someone like it, but I have reservations.

I invite Northeast Photographic to make it clear what happens to negatives because it is not clear from their website. I want to use NP, but ...

cmacd123 · Dec 24, 2020

I did have an email conversation with the Ilford Lab USA, and was assured that they will sleeve and return negatives (and Mount E6 slides.) have not sent them film to see.

Paul Howell · Dec 25, 2020

By the way, I don't think Fuji lab is run by Fuji, it's a mom and pop lab in LA, not even sure if Walgreens and Walmart use Fuji lab. I've been told by my local Walgreens that over 90% of processed film is from single use cameras, the users don't care about the negatives. Although I have a couple good mini labs near me I did send a roll of Kodacolor to Blue Moon, they did a great job.

Kodachromeguy · Dec 25, 2020

wyofilm said:
when I considered Northeast Photographic it appeared to me from their website that returning film wasn't in the normal course of operations. Moreover, to get negatives back required going through a third party, the film hound (or something like that).

Northeast most certainly returns your negatives. And what is this third party business? What third party? How did you get that idea? The student in the original comment would have saved a lot of time by mailing his film to Northeast, Praus Productions, North Coast, Dwaynes, or other professional laboratory.

BradS · Dec 25, 2020

Perhaps there is an opportunity to teach the student to use Google Maps?

Try 'film developing'
move the map if necessary / desirable (for trip planning for example) and poke the "search this area" button.

I live 100+ miles from any major metro area but the method found several small specialty businesses close enough that it wouldn't be necessary to send my film in the mail...but, I have no problem mailing film for processing. That's just what one did before there was a fotomat in the parking lot of every supermarket.

BradS · Dec 25, 2020

here's what google maps says for New Jersey....

https://www.google.com/maps/search/film+developing/@40.0565098,-75.6670459,8z?hl=en

wyofilm · Dec 25, 2020

Kodachromeguy said:
Northeast most certainly returns your negatives. And what is this third party business? What third party? How did you get that idea? The student in the original comment would have saved a lot of time by mailing his film to Northeast, Praus Productions, North Coast, Dwaynes, or other professional laboratory.

1. thefilmhound was once listed on Northeast Photographic as the place that would store your negatives until you asked for them back at a cost. I no longer see the thefilmhound as a partner.
2. Go to their website and it lists under the 'Advanced Services' menu 'Return Stored Film'. What does this mean? It doesn't sound to me like negs are returned in the normal course of business.
It appears there is a change in the policy at NP because there appears to be no charge for returning negs (only an expected shipping cost). I most certainly put off with the prior relationship with thefilmhound. I hope NP can comment. NP is a regular and beneficial contributor here at Photrio, which I appreciate.

wyofilm · Dec 25, 2020

Kodachromeguy said:
Northeast most certainly returns your negatives.

With a bit more googling, here is a link (maybe no longer linked within their current website) describing somewhat the relationship between NP and the thefilmhound. Upon reading this link, maybe a month or six weeks ago, I was unsure of the what would become of my negatives.

https://www.northeastphotographic.com/info

BradS · Dec 25, 2020

Personally, any place that does not make and return prints is a non-starter. Any place that does not return negatives is guilty of robbery.

foc · Dec 26, 2020

When I had my minilab, we offered mailorder customers the choice of selecting; return negatives (a postage charge applied) or non return of negatives with every service available.
75% of customers did not want the negs returned.
100% of these customers had selected, "dev, scan & upload" as their film image delivery.

MamiyaBronica · Dec 26, 2020

I remember when the shift to digital was well underway for consumer photography, most of the in-person drop-offs like Walmart, Costco, grocery-store type establishments slowly began dismantling their processing machines. Once those machines were no longer running film, they did add a charge to get back your negatives - it was right around the time when same-day/next day development ceased to be an option for film users. I remember grocery shopping and looking up at the lab through the mezzanine windows (it was upstairs in a few stores) and seeing piece-by-piece them being removed.

At the same time, I could upload a 8MP image to their systems from home, and immediately drive over and pick up my print. if I wanted to pay for that fast service.

Wallendo · Dec 26, 2020

I am amazed that Walgreens would even accept a roll of black&white film. I would be afraid it would be processed in a C-41 process.

I used to use Walgreen's when they developed in-house. Now, I figure if it is going to be mailed out, I might as well mail it where I want it to go.

Karl K · Dec 26, 2020

BradS said:
here's what google maps says for New Jersey....

https://www.google.com/maps/search/film+developing/@40.0565098,-75.6670459,8z?hl=en

That's easy to do. But only one NJ lab that I know actually processes and prints B+W film.
They charge about $30 for one roll processed and printed 4x6.
All the rest either won't do B+W or they send it out, so you're back to square one.
The Harman/Ilford lab in California processes and scans, prints or uploads your B+W files.
They seem to have the most flexible service choices and reasonable prices.
http://www.harmanlab-us.com/documents/6261 Ilford Lab $ with Order_Postage Paid Inbound V2.pdf

Wallendo · Dec 26, 2020

Karl K said:
That's easy to do. But only one NJ lab that I know actually processes and prints B+W film.
They charge about $30 for one roll processed and printed 4x6.
All the rest either won't do B+W or they send it out, so you're back to square one.
The Harman/Ilford lab in California processes and scans, prints or uploads your B+W files.
They seem to have the most flexible service choices and reasonable prices.
http://www.harmanlab-us.com/documents/6261 Ilford Lab $ with Order_Postage Paid Inbound V2.pdf

The US Ilford lab shares the same address with Swan Photo and thedarkroom.com, both of which process B&W at a lower price.

Sal Santamaura · Dec 26, 2020

Wallendo said:
The US Ilford lab shares the same address with Swan Photo and thedarkroom.com, both of which process B&W at a lower price.

That's because the latter two are but marketing initiatives of Swan.

Agulliver · Dec 27, 2020

I think we need to remind ourselves that we here are the 1%....or even the 0.1%. To us, it is not imaginable that anyone would not want their negatives returned. Even having read foc's post above, which I believe to be the truth for his lab and likely wider truth, I cannot fathom not wanting the negatives. But the average user doesn't understand that negatives are better for storage than CDs or other digital files....after all, the last 40 years of marketing have pressed the message that digital storage is "perfect". He also doesn't understand or care enough that the scans won't contain as much detail as the negatives, and that he might want to revisit those negatives several decades into the future. I think the likes of us enthusiasts have always had an idea that we might want to try printing (or latterly scanning) our negatives again in the future with different equipment.

That said, the warnings people like myself made 20 years ago about digital files going bad or missing for treasured memories is coming true. I lost a close friend a couple of weeks ago. Her family and friends are desperately short of photos because nobody thought to curate the phone and digital camera pictures shot at the many parties she threw, or to keep negatives from the film days.....except for me. I've retrieved some 4Gb of digital images and 16 sets of 35mm and 120 negatives because I bothered to look after them. Sooner or later the average customer will also realise that CD-ROM they had burned of Junior's first crawl or offspring's wedding has errors or nobody has a CD-ROM drive....or they can't find it....

But for now, I can certainly believe the average consumer isn't interested in those fiddly, difficult to store, fragile negatives which they'll surely never need....

Now back to OP....is there a reason why the student doesn't want to mail the film to a lab? It would seem the most obvious solution unless someone locally is into developing film. There's no reason on earth why it should cost so much, and I am sure that everyone here would thoroughly recommend that your student holds onto their negatives after.

Walgreen's (Fuji Lab) black & white film processing

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