King Photo

For those who are looking for a good, quality wet lab to develop and print 35mm film, and scan the negatives, I stumbled upon (quite by accident) a small lab, King Photo: Welcome to King Photo and Portrait Studio! Order online prints from quality photo paper, order imaging products.

I was visiting friends and attending a wedding in Waynesboro, Va. I decided to venture out and take in the local sites while the women and kids were at the motel pool for the afternoon. I drove past on Sunday a closed establishment, King 1 Hour Photo, which had a definite ‘retro’ look to the outside, complete with the vintage yellow Kodak sign. Since it was the Sabbath, I couldn’t pop in to say ‘hello’ and check things out. I made a mental note to check it out on the Net when I got home. (King Photo has retail stores in Waynesboro and Harrisonburg, Va., with the latter being the main base of operations, at least for mail orders.)

King develops and prints 35mm, APS and 120 C-41, plus they offer CD scans of your negatives at varying resolutions for additional cost. King Photo offers proprietary ‘Crown prints’, which are individually colour-and-density corrected prints on Kodak premium paper—Royal for 4” × 6”, Endura for larger sizes up to 11” × 14”.

I have been disappointed with the finished product of late from the ‘usual’ vendors: Dwayne’s, The Darkroom and Clark. King’s prices are on the high end but worth it—d&p 36-exposure $15·69, low-res CD scan $4·99, plus $5 Priority Mail® shipping (for orders under $75, free $75 and over). If you’re not happy with Dwayne’s, The Darkroom, Clark, et al., check out King. They seem like an old-fashioned wet lab, and the turn around is very quick—just about 4 days from when they receive your films.