Best Labs in Baltimore

<p>i've been burning The Real Stuff for about 10 years now. i've processed in my college darkroom, in my ex-girlfriend's sink and at just about every 1 hour and pro lab around baltimore. below are my results and i wanted to know what other peoples' experiences were!</p>

<p>rite aide--sucks. just sucks.</p>

<p>target 1 hour lab--great for kodak film, particularly c41 b&w, too bad they don't seem to be operating labs anymore!</p>

<p>walmart 1 hour lab--i've never been but they lost a friend's negs and another lab was well trusted by another friend</p>

<p>sam's club--excellent processing only i was never a member</p>

<p>ritz--good for fuji films, not as great with kodak, no back and white, e6 or medium format in house, fast, scans tended to have dust, solarization or other defects but probably the cheapest highest quality, used them for years regularly but my prints went to a pro lab </p>

<p>artography--this was the BEST lab ever! they shut down years ago but they printed one of my best shows and were always a pleasure to work with both for processing and printing!</p>

<p>penn camera--i was really excited about these guys and used them for a couple years regularly after upgrading from ritz. not as fast but they could send out b&w, e6 and medium format to another penn camera and get them back within a week, processing was usually very good and scans were better than ritz until about 6 months ago when it seemed like i had to keep returning to the lab to get excessive dust off my negs or they just hadn't scanned some. the last straw was when their b&w lab ruined a negative by cinching it in the negative carrier and another roll came back scratched start to finish. i stuck with them for colour for a while but found that indoor colour balance on scans was always murky and orange no matter how much i complained about this. they did pretty decent prints</p>

<p>tech lab--they only process e6 once a month, didn't keep up with phone calls as to when my stuff was ready, i paid for a rush job on some b&w work and they were over a day late and then the stuff was dusty as hell and they complained about the thinness of my negatives before agreeing to rescan. never had them print</p>

<p>severn graphics--my current reigning champion. i have had issues with colour reproduction and cinching on my prints but have had a number of successful shows printed here. despite their high charges for processing, they do c41, e6, b&w and mf in house and their scans look better than anything i've ever gotten elsewhere. they call me when my stuff's ready and have been good about hitting deadlines. </p>

<p>South of Bawlmer:</p>

<p>Wal-Mart Glen Burnie - everything I've seen from them was horrible. The low price could never be low enough to justify the lousy colors and dust marks & scratches.</p>

<p>Target Crane Highway Glen Burnie seems to have reopened their lab. No experience with them (yet) - anyone tried them?</p>

<p>Walgreen's Crane Highway Glen Burnie - have gotten consistently fairly good to sometimes excellent results with them from both film and digital files.</p>

<p>Vista Photo Lab Odenton - haven't used them since they transformed to mostly a digital lab, but they used to do great on film (used them for my wedding shoots). Anyone used them lately?</p>

<p>jZ</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Good to know. I just take my stuff to Target as I've had good results (the Ellicott city targets both do a good job). Frankly I use them primarily for development and scan the negatives myself, so I care about the prints a lot less, but they do a halfway decent job on the prints. Not as good with Ilford XP2, a lot of those end up with an orange cast.<br>

The Ritz in Arrundle Mills mall does a pretty good job, but it is further from me then the Targets and they also run about twice the price.</p>

<p>Techlab is as bad as they get.</p>

<p>"Process only, normal, do not cut." Sounds simple enough, right? After three tries, they finally stopped cutting and printing double prints. But the last batch of film (6 rolls of Fuji Pro 160 S) was the kicker. Not only did they process it in E-6, they got indignant when I refused to pay for it. Did they offer replacement film? Of course not. The owner's reply was that they didn't carry that.<br>

Don't get me started on Techlab... absolute incompetence.</p>

<p>Severn Graphics for C-41 and Chrome (Georgetown) for E-6</p>

<p>I really miss Artography!!</p>

<p>mattew, thanks for the information on the ellicott city targets--i work near there so maybe i'll take my kodak c41 stuff. do you take fuji to them? i'm not surprised about the xp2. almost every lab i take that to gives it a different look. btw, my experience was with the owings mills targets. </p>

<p>thomas, that's interesting you've had bad experiences with techlab too. i don't understand how a pro lab can be as terrible as they are and remain in business! luckily i didn't bother giving them as many tries as it sounds like you have. they're a hike for me so the bad service for a new customer with high prices was a major turn-off.</p>

<p>i've never heard of chrome. i'll have to look into that.</p>

<p>yeah, artography was hands-down the best, i don't understand how they could go out of business! </p>

<p>Johnny,</p>

<p>The short answer is that they are <strong>NOT</strong> a pro lab. I asked them for a one stop pull on 2 rolls of Portra and had to explain to them what I was talking about. They explained they did not know how to do it, or price it.</p>

<p>Their words, "This is not a pro lab."</p>

<p>wow! i guess they're just a really expensive full featured consumer lab? now that i have a look at their website, i guess they don't advertise about being professional but i think it's fairly natural to assume that a place that charges $10+ to process and scan a roll of 35mm in longer than a day and who can do both b&w and e6 is pro!</p>

<p>jim, i just noticed your post--thanks for the input. i've never used any of those labs but maybe i'll check out walgreens since i know an employee who could probably even get me a discount!</p>